Contemplates Quotes & Sayings

The USA Freedom Act does not propose that we abandon any and all efforts to analyze telephone data, what we're talking about here is a program that currently contemplates the collection of all data just as a routine matter and the aggregation of all that data in one database. That causes concerns for a lot of people ... There's a lot of potential for abuse. — Mike Lee

An infant knows its body, but not the body-based distinctions. It is just conscious and happy. After
all, that was the purpose for which it was born. The pleasure to be is the simplest form of self-love, which later grows into love of the self. Be like an infant with nothing standing between the body and the self. The constant noise of the psychic life is absent. In deep silence the self contemplates the body. It is like the white paper on which nothing is written yet. Be like that infant, instead of trying to be this or that, be happy to be. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

When a benevolent mind contemplates the republic of Lycurgus, its admiration is mixed with a degree of horror. — Thomas Day

How exuberant and boisterous the universe is, Alma! It turns and turns, and the only constant is everything changes. It is a mystery we can only appreciate out of stillness. I'm living through a very interesting stage. My spirit contemplates the changes in my body with fascination, but this contemplation is not from a distance, but from within. My spirit and my body are together in this process. — Isabel Allende

To hope til Hope creates from its own wreak the thing it contemplates; — Percy Bysshe Shelley

He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates. — Edmund Burke

There are two types of people in the world, a solution-based person, and a sustainable person. A solution based person focuses on finding solutions to today's problems. But, as for tomorrow's problems, who cares? However, a sustainable person is the one that not only attempts to make an immediate fix, but also contemplates decisions for today, tomorrow and for years to come. — Joel T. McGrath

How does the soul enter the body from the aloofness of the intellectual world? The answer is, through appetite. But appetite, though sometimes ignoble, may be comparatively noble. At best, the soul "has the desire of elaborating order on the model of what it has seen in the IntellectualPrinciple (nous)." That is to say, soul contemplates the inward realm of essence, and wishes to produce something, as like it as possible, — Bertrand Russell

Madam, I assure you that you are dealing with two gentleman of the highest propriety and social standing.
When one contemplates the deeds that are daily done in society's name, such a description is no high recommendation. — Paul Di Filippo

An angel can illumine the thought and mind of man by strengthening the power of vision and by bringing within his reach some truth which the angel himself contemplates. — Thomas Aquinas

It's hard for me to think of what happened next, let alone write it down, but I must, if only as a warning for anyone else who contemplates some similar experiment in damnation, and may read these words, and turn back because of them. — Stephen King

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no words written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished because undisturbed: and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem; but undue length is yet more to be avoided. — Edgar Allan Poe

I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium ... I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of my senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better had recourse to ideas, and seek in them truth in existence. I dare to say that the simile is not perfect
for I am far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their working and effects. — Socrates

A man may daydream of how he would spend a million dollars, but playing the same game with a billion dollars sours the fantasy. There are too many possibilities. The house he once wished for with all his heart is suddenly too small. The travel, too cheap. He wanted to visit an island. Now he contemplates buying one. — Holly Black

When God contemplates some great work, He begins it by the hand of some poor, weak, human creature, to whom He afterwards gives aid. — Martin Luther

He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo.
Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic.
Nothing is more sublime. — Victor Hugo

It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary ... The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint. — Thomas I. Emerson

A man who contemplates revenge keeps his wounds green. — Francis Bacon

Joy is a quiet gladness of heart as one contemplates the goodness of God's saving grace in Christ Jesus. — John Calvin

[Smiley contemplates graffiti:]'Punk is destructive. Society does not need it.' The assertion caused him a moment's indecision. 'Oh, but society does,' he wanted to reply; 'society is an association of minorities. — John Le Carre

We see things in this material world, wherein our bodies dwell, only because our mind through its attention lives in another world, only because it contemplates the beauties of the archetypal and intelligible world which Reason contains. — Nicolas Malebranche

In the violent scorn of her revolted pride, of her indignant honor, had she forgotten a lowlier yet harder duty left undone?
In her contempt and dread of yielding to mere amorous weakness had she stifled and denied the cry of pity, the cry of conscience?
To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite. To forgive wrongs darker than death or night. To defy power which seems omnipotent. To love and live to hope till hope creates from it's own wreck the thing it contemplates. Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent.
This had been the higher, diviner way which she had missed, this obligation from the passion of the past which she had left unfulfilled, unaccepted.
Now the misgiving arose in her whether she had mistaken arrogance for duty; whether, cleaving so closely to honor she had forgotten the obligation of mercy. — Ouida

When one contemplates the streak of insanity running through human history, it appears highly probable that homo sapiens is a biological freak, the result of some remarkable mistake in the evolutionary process. The ancient doctrine of original sin, variants of which occur independently in the mythologies of diverse cultures, could be a reflection of man's awareness of his own inadequacy, of the intuitive hunch that somewhere along the line of his ascent something has gone wrong. — Arthur Koestler

Any plan of administration which contemplates a concentrating of responsibility is open to the dangers which follow the creation of a bureaucracy. — Arthur Capper

The house envelops us, watches us, contemplates us as we make love in it for the first time, the first time of many times, and afterward, as we lie spent on the bare floor surrounded by boxes, I feel that we have found our home. — Audrey Niffenegger

O Reader! hast thou eer stood to see The Holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceies Its glossy leaes Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries. — Robert Southey

A zen couch potato is a person who contemplates the nature of televised existence. — Richard Helms

When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one's head. — Ayn Rand

Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape," Lily muses as she contemplates the prospect of being bored all afternoon by Percy Grice, dull but undeniably rich, "on the bare chance that he might ultimately do her the honor of boring her for life? — Edith Wharton

He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and the latter less. — Charles Caleb Colton

Man is constituted as a speculative being; he contemplates the world, and the objects around him, not with a passive indifferent eye, but as a system disposed with order and design. — John Herschel

Just as a mirror, which reflects all things, is set in its own container, so too the rational soul is placed in the fragile container of the body. In this way, the body is governed in its earthly life by the soul, and the soul contemplates heavenly things through faith. — Hildegard Of Bingen

Let us praise the noble turkey vulture: No one envies him; he harms nobody; and he contemplates our little world from a most serene and noble height. — Edward Abbey

[Beauty] exists merely in the mind which contemplates [things]; and each mind perceives a different beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. — David Hume

A thoughtful investment process contemplates both probability and payoffs and carefully considers where the consensus - as revealed by a price - may be wrong. Even though there are also some important features that make investing different than, say, a casino or the track, the basic idea is the same: you want the positive expected value on your side — Michael Mauboussin

THE ART OF DRAWING YOU
In a bed by the Gulf of Corinth, a woman contemplates by firelight the profile of her sleeping lover.
On the wall, his shadow flickers.
The lover, who lies by her side, will leave. At dawn he will leave to war, to death. And his shadow, his traveling companion, will leave with him and with him will die.
It is still dark. The woman takes coal out of the embers and draws on the wall the outline of his shadow.
Those lines will not leave.
They will not embrace her, and she knows it. But they will not leave. — Eduardo Galeano

It stops wandering about the world of sense and settles down in the world of intellect, and there it occupies itself, casting off falsehood and feeding the soul in what Plato calls 'the plain of truth,' using his method of division to distinguish the Forms, and to determine the essential nature of each thing, and to find the primary kinds, and weaving together by the intellect all that issues from these primary kinds, till it has traversed the whole intelligible world; then it resolves again the structure of that world into its parts, and comes back to its starting-point; and then, keeping quiet (for it is quiet in so far as it is present There) it busies itself no more, but contemplates, having arrived at unity. (Ennead I.3.4) — A.H. Armstrong

If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning towards his rock, in that slight pivoting, he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. — Albert Camus

The Country is both the Philosopher's Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God. — William Penn

Gracefulness is a correct life: sensuality which contemplates and forms itself. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The world appears very little to a soul that contemplates the greatness of God. — Brother Lawrence

Beauty, the splendour of truth, is a gracious presence when the imagination contemplates intensely the truth of its own being or the visible world, and the spirit which proceeds out of truth and beauty is the holy spirit of joy. These are realities and these alone give and sustain life. — James Joyce

The place which God takes in our soul he will never vacate, for in us is his home of homes, and it is the greatest delight for him to dwell there ... The soul who contemplates this is made like the one who is contemplated. Lady Julian of Norwich, Showings On that day, you will know that you are in me and I am in you. John 14:20 — Richard Rohr

In the Great War, there is no room for the faint-hearted, the cowardly. A criminal or an anarchist will be better conditioned than a bourgeois, indecisive or cowardly man. They only need a push in the right direction. Only one who is born a hero or a warrior has a place in our order. Only the Lord of the Pure Will can march to the end, breaking in the gates of the City of Eternal Life. Because will, through its perseverance, creates the thing it contemplates. Only the Wild Hordes of Odin and Parsifal will achieve the Graal. — Miguel Serrano

The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology. — James G. Frazer

Any man who has been placed in the White House cannot feel that it is the result of his own exertions or his own merit. Some power outside and beyond him becomes manifest through him. As he contemplates the workings of his office, he comes to realize with an increasing sense of humility that he is but an instrument in the hands of God. — Calvin Coolidge

Beauty in things exists in the mind that contemplates them. — David Hume

The moral person contemplates evil, the evil person commits it. And a person without a sense of humor can't distinguish between the two ... I know a lot of people who live in Marin County and contemplate spirituality and never get out of the hot tub. — Larry Harvey

But if watching the sky is to be his duty, how should he begin? Now and then he has spotted one of the five bright planets or recognized a constellation, but he knows little about the turning of the heavens. When he contemplates the great distances between this and that, and the vast multitude of solitary objects spread over the celestial dome, he cannot fathom how one goes about searching for what is yet unknown. — John Pipkin

The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven. — Victor Hugo

His tone dripping condescension, Lothaire crooned, "Ah children, it's not yet story time." He closed his eyes and turned away, saying over his shoulder, "To anyone who contemplates even nearing me while I sleep: I will garrote you with your own viscera. — Kresley Cole

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention. — Henry David Thoreau

The two most challenging tasks a man can face in life is education of the heart and education of the child-every other task he contemplates in life before him pales in comparison to those two. On this path of absolute uncertainty, the descending heart will permiate the education of the mind ... An initiation rite for young heart. An initiation rite for young men. — Adam Kovacevic

This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness ... they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die. — Soren Kierkegaard

John Rebus ~ he tried to walk through the isles (of the book shop) without focusing. If he focused he would become interested and if he became interested he would buy. He already had over fifty unread books at home, piled next to his bed — Ian Rankin

It is a faculty of the human mind to become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object. — Thomas Paine

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.6 — Mark Batterson

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good. — Bertrand Russell

And it is because they contain thus within themselves the hours of the past that human bodies have the power to hurt so terribly those who love them, because they contain the memories of so many joys and desires already effaced for them, but still cruel for the lover who contemplates and prolongs in the dimension of Time the beloved body of which he is jealous, so jealous that he may even wish for its destruction. For after death Time withdraws from the body, and the memories, so indifferent, grown so pale, are effaced in her who no longer exists, as they soon will be in the lover whom for a while they continue to torment but in whom before long they will perish, once the desire that owed their inspiration to a living body is no longer there to sustain them. Profound Albertine, whom I at once saw sleeping, and who was dead. — Marcel Proust

An imbecile is never bored: he contemplates himself. — Remy De Gourmont

The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms. — Joseph Conrad

Narrow The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, The life that wears, the spirit that creates One object, and one form, and builds thereby A sepulchre for its eternity. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thus in this sad, but oh, too pleasing state! my soul can fix upon nothing but thee; thee it contemplates, admires, adores, nay depends on, trusts on you alone. — William Congreve

And then he has nothing to do. After three weeks-or is it a lifetime?-of ceaseless activity, he has nothing to do. A very long sentence, anchored in solid nouns, with countless subordinate clauses, scores of adjectives and adverbs, and bold conjunctions that launched the sentence in a new direction-besides unexpected interludes-has finally, with a surprisingly quiet full stop, come to an end. For an hour or so, sitting outside on the landing at the top of the stairs, nursing a coffee, tired, a little relieved, a little worried, he contemplates that full stop. What will the next sentence bring? — Yann Martel

Every other science presupposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Here is an oral tradition, legends passed from mouth to mouth, a communal myth created invariably at the base of the mango tree in the evening's profound darkness, in which only the trembling voices of old men resound, because the women and children are silent, raptly listening. That is why the evening hour is so important: it is the time when the community contemplates what it is and whence it came. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

When one contemplates the conquest of nature by technology one must remember that that conquest had to include our own bodies. Calvinism provided the determined and organised men and women who could rule the mastered world. The punishment they inflicted on non-human nature, they had first inflicted on themselves. — George Grant

He that contemplates hath a day without night. — George Herbert

As for my father, few souls are less troubled. He can be simply pleased with us, pleased that we exist, and, from the vantage point of his wondrously serene old age, he contemplates our lives almost as if they were books he can dip into whenever he wants. His back pages, perhaps. — Angela Carter

So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me 'arch priestess of the sightless,' 'wonder woman,' and a 'modern miracle.' But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics - that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world - that is a different matter! It is laudable to give aid to the handicapped. Superficial charities make smooth the way of the prosperous; but to advocate that all human beings should have leisure and comfort, the decencies and refinements of life, is a Utopian dream, and one who seriously contemplates its realization indeed must be deaf, dumb, and blind. — Helen Keller

One cannot help but be in awe when
[one] contemplates the mysteries of eternity,
of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. — Albert Einstein

Inanimate objects sometimes appear endowed with a strange power of sight. A statue notices, a tower watches, the face of an edifice contemplates. — Victor Hugo

If everybody contemplates the infinite instead of fixing the drains, many of us will die of cholera. — John Rich

In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things. Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another's sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects. — Saint Basil

Is always murder, regardless of motive or circumstance. Thus those who murder or who prepare to murder are malefactors and criminals, regardless of who they may be: kings, princes, marshals or judges. None who contemplates and commits violence has the right to consider himself better than an ordinary criminal. Because it is in the nature of all violence to lead inevitably to crime. — Andrzej Sapkowski

And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. — Kahlil Gibran

Every man contemplates an angel in his future self — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream. And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds? And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? — Khalil Gibran

He believed that faith gives health. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing by pointing out the Man of Resignation, and to transform the grief that contemplates the grave by showing it the grief that looks up to the stars. — Victor Hugo

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

A rock or stone is not a subject that, of itself, may interest a philosopher to study; but, when he comes to see the necessity of those hard bodies, in the constitution of this earth, or for the permanency of the land on which we dwell, and when he finds that there are means wisely provided for the renovation of this necessary decaying part, as well as that of every other, he then, with pleasure, contemplates this manifestation of design, and thus connects the mineral system of this earth with that by which the heavenly bodies are made to move perpetually in their orbits. — James Hutton

To hope until hope creates from its very own wreck the thing it contemplates. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From it's own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, not falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous,beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Indeed, we all know that the man who attentively contemplates a thing, who wants to see it as it is without changing anything, is 'absorbed,' so to speak, by this contemplation
i.e., by this thing. He forgets himself, he thinks only about the thing being contemplates; he thinks neither about his contemplation, nor
and even less
about himself, his "I," his Selbst. The more he is conscious of the thing, the less he is conscious of himself. He may perhaps talk about the thing, but he will never talk about himself; in his discourse, the word 'I' will not occur.
For this word to appear, something other than purely passive contemplation, which only reveals Being, must also be present. And this other thing, according to Hegel, is Desire, Begierde ... — Alexandre Kojeve

It's right around this time that her Grandmother Hall dies. And Eleanor Roosevelt is responsible for making all the funeral arrangements. And there are a couple of things that she really understands, as she contemplates her grandmother's life and makes the funeral arrangements. One, she's really talented, an organizational woman. She knows how to do things. She begins to compare her life to her grandmother's life. And it's very clear to her that being a devoted wife and a devoted mother is not enough. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan. — Chelsea Manning

Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality. — William Ernest Hocking

Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love. — Julian Of Norwich

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them — David Hume

Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects. — Epictetus

A man in his early prime contemplates on life, shattered by the distortions of society he gazes ahead in time. There were vows of happiness and fairy tale beginnings. Now there is nothing of that sort; now there is nothing that started the tales so bright. It's after all this while that he understands why fairy tales begin with 'once upon a time'... — Adhish Mazumder

Happy the man whose lot it is to know The secrets of the earth. He hastens not To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds, But with rapt admiration contemplates Immortal Nature's ageless harmony, And how and when the order came to be. — Euripides

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. — David Hume

I have loved humanity, I have loved it so much. For me, there are three kinds of men; he who curses life, he who blesses it and he who contemplates it. I loved the first for his wretchedness, the second for his indulgence and the third for his perception. — Kahlil Gibran

The Christian religion alone contemplates the conjugal union in the order of nature; it is the only religion which presents woman to man as a companion; every other abandons her to him as a slave. To religion alone do European women owe their liberty. — Jacques-Henri Bernardin De Saint-Pierre

The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.
- "Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64 — Albert Einstein

I lean over you, your equal, offering you a mirror for your perfect nothingness, for your shadows which are neither light nor absence of light, for this void which contemplates. To all that which you are, and, for our language, are not, I add a consciousness. I make you experience your supreme identity as a relationship, I name you and define you. You become a delicious passivity. — Maurice Blanchot

He even obsessively contemplates the fact that he obsessively contemplates. — William Shakespeare

America draws tremendous strength from its diversity, which prompts the question, as Congress contemplates comprehensive immigration reform, why are some lawmakers aiming to curb diversity instead of promoting it? — Cedric Richmond

A seeker of Truth looks beyond the apparent and contemplates the hidden. — Rumi