#contemplation

It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it. ↗

— Lionel Trilling

#condition #consent #contemplation #cruel #cruelty

Gillette--The best a man can get." I stared at the screen. What happened to me? I was meant to be one of those guys, vigorous and athletic and successful and, most of all, American. I was going to walk on the moon, be a movie star or a rock got or a comedian. I was going to have an amazing life and kids with Helen and die like Chaplin a thousand years from now in my Beverly Hills mansion surrounded by my adoring family, with the grieving world media standing by. Instead, I was just another show-business mediocrity. A drunk who shat his pants and ran for help. My life had been careless and selfish. Pleasure in the moment was my only thought, my solitary motivation. I had disappointed whoever had been foolish enough to love me, and left them scarred. I was a very long way from being the best a man can get. ↗

— Craig Ferguson

#contemplation #love #realization #rehab #business

There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order and useful arrangement. ↗

— Arthur Phillip

#contemplation #few #few things #more #order

The written word can make one pause and contemplate. It can make a reader sigh to dream or question a belief in considerable depth.  But all of that is nothing if those words fail to touch the heart and make one feel. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#dreams #emotion #feelings #reading #richelle

It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going? ↗

— Carl Sandburg

#introspection #life #self-reflection #life

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men. ↗

— Isaac Asimov

#contemplation #had #his #known #life

As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#accurately #after #animal #before #bone

Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect. ↗

— René Descartes

#faith #joy #experience

I feel like I'm stepping into a place of spiritual contemplation every time I enter a studio; it's always had a certain magic to me that has never worn off with familiarity. ↗

— David Knopfler

#certain #contemplation #enter #every #every time

Historically, China is not a nation of sportsmen. We traditionally put more emphasis on being close to nature than pushing endlessly to excel. A philosophy that values tranquil contemplation of the landscape cannot easily be adapted to the Olympic slogan of 'higher, stronger, faster.' ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#being #cannot #china #close #contemplation