Reflecting On Things Quotes & Sayings

Islamic science is related profoundly to the Islamic world view. It is rooted deeply in knowledge based upon the unity of Allah or al-tawhid and a view of the universe in which Allah's Wisdom and Will rule and in which all things are interrelated reflecting unity on the cosmic level. In contrast, Western science is based on considering the natural world as a reality which is separate from both Allah and the higher levels of being. At best, Allah is accepted as the creator of the world, as a mason who has built a house which now stand on its own. His intrusion into the running of the world and His continuous sustenance of it are not accepted in the modern scientific world view. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

As noted, naming a book after someone significant was a common way of honoring that person and reflecting his views. — Reza Aslan

Periods of silent solitude spent in introspective reflecting are sacred and a source of great strength and comfort. We can learn from listening to the rhythms of nature and from appreciating the eternal hush of the cosmos. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Margins on other sales and revenues grew as a result of the growth in extended service plan revenues, which have no associated cost of sales, and the growth in our service margin, reflecting improved overhead expense absorption. — Austin Ligon

If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent. — Honore De Balzac

Christ desires nothing so much as to redeem His heritage from the dominion of Satan. But before we are delivered from Satan's power without, we must be delivered {175} from his power within. The Lord permits trials in order that we may be cleansed from earthliness, from selfishness, from harsh, unchristlike traits of character. He suffers the deep waters of affliction to go over our souls in order that we may know Him and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, in order that we may have deep heart longings to be cleansed from defilement, and may come forth from the trial purer, holier, happier. Often we enter the furnace of trial with our souls darkened with selfishness; but if patient under the crucial test, we shall come forth reflecting the divine character. When His purpose in the affliction is accomplished, "He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday." Ps. 37:6. — Ellen G. White

Watching movies (Titanic, Flirting with Disaster, Mannequin, Thelma and Louise, Rushmore, The Goonies, She's Having a Baby, it mattered very little) was a kind of prayer: She knew the characters as well as she knew herself, as well as she knew anything there was to know, and she could chart and rechart their movements and secrets and misunderstandings endlessly, reflecting in any number of new permutations on all of it, each time. Again and again. They were acquaintances - people she'd known her whole life and understood well, people incapable of letting her down by changing or disappearing or offering up the unexpected. The League of Their Own tears were purely for catharsis. When she was done she would reemerge, reborn. She would make new mistakes. Or maybe none at all. Okay, — Elisa Albert

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement. — J.K. Rowling

Like children, we have dreamt, that what gratifies our desires, or contributes to our convenience to-day, will prove equally useful and satisfactory to-morrow, without reflecting on the growth of the body, the change of humours, the new objects, and the new situations, which every succeeding hour brings in its train. — Mary Hays

I passed the time browsing in the windows of the many tourists shops that stand along it, reflecting on what a lot of things the Scots have given the world - kilts, bagpipes, tam-o'-shanters, tins of oatcakes, bright yellow sweaters with big diamond patterns, sacks of haggis - and how little anyone but a Scot would want them. Let — Bill Bryson

Just reflecting on the fact that when the Universe punches you in the teeth, it never just lets you fall down. It kicks you in the ribs a couple of times and dumps mud on your head. — Ilona Andrews

He's the King of all the heavens
And all found here below.
To Him, your hearts are like this lake
Reflecting in His glow. — Alexis York Lumbard

As Rafe watched the hovercopter circle back, I saw that his aqua eyes had a golden sheen, like sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. "Your eyes . . . — Kat Falls

When I was in New York I heard many people saying that the independent film industry was in big trouble. I was reflecting on this when I came home. Realizing that ever since I started filmmaking, people have being saying that. But somehow it keeps going. Filmmakers keep going. We need stories to make sense of the world and some people like me are driven to tell them. I have faith this will always be possible. — Andrea Arnold

Reflecting this difference is the Indian state of Kerala. Although it is one of the poorer parts of the country, it has higher literacy and greater gender equality than much of the rest of India. Without resorting to a coercive approach such as a "one-child policy" Kerala has achieved a rate of population growth lower than China's and also lower than that in some developed countries, including — Peter Singer

I would that I could have stopped time and preserved that day forever. It was a perfect day. There was the shadow of sorrow, yes. It would always be there. But that was the nature of life. The bright mirror and the dark, reflecting one another. And today there was so much brightness. — Jacqueline Carey

I think as women, you know, if you are considered a pioneer in these things, you can get really distracted by these other things - you know, people's demands of you reflecting on your otherness. And for this white critic to say, "I don't understand why she doesn't do that" - and you're like, "It's because I'm running a show on a major network and I want the show to continue" - and to sort of guilt me. — Mindy Kaling

Still, for what Androma did to him, he should hate her, should want her dead.
But seeing her before him, melting into rage and riot, her glowing grey eyes reflecting the electricity that swam around her swords...
Godstars, she was magnificent, a creature that deserved to release her wrath on the world. It would be worth every drop of blood about to be shed to bring her to Cyprian's feet. — Sasha Alsberg

My whole artistic life has been devoted to battling myself and my ability to externalize my deepest emotions. As I have gotten older, the work has become more direct, perhaps reflecting the fact that for the first time in my life I feel really free. I have been fascinated with wings all my life. I have had an obsession with transcendence, the need to push forward and metaphorically fly. — Joyce Tenneson

The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing, within yourself. — Neville Goddard

It is dancing that brings together tribes from all over North America to compete against each other [in pow wows], to share traditional similarities and differences, and to let non-aboriginal people learn about the first cultures on this continent. The dances change over the years, reflecting new generations and their influences, adapting the traditions of their grandparents and their grandparents' grandparents, to be able to exist in this rapidly evolving world.

"There will always be the elders who shake their heads at the younger generation's behaviour and teenagers who push the boundaries of traditions they have been taught. In dancing, though, everyone can be on the same beat, regardless of their fancy footwork or swirling shawls. — Lori Henry

Rather than being medicalized or romanticized, mental disorders, or mental dis-eases, should be understood as nothing less or more than what they are, an expression of our deepest human nature. By recognizing their traits in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able both to contain them and to put them to good use. This is, no doubt, the highest form of genius. — Neel Burton

As a writer I'm committed to exploring what I call "The invisible things" - the things that people aren't talking about. I think that's where the juiciest conversations and the juiciest drama lives. My goal with the series is to get people talking about and reflecting on how issues of race play out in their own lives. Since I've spent a fair amount of time watching time travel shows and movies where the leads are White (and can blend in really easily no matter the time period) I thought I would turn that on its head and see what might happen. — Steven C. Harper

A man's face is the surface of a pond, reflecting the sky, reflecting the trees, reflecting whatever is the object of his gaze and his love, the reflection hiding his depths. But when the wave passes, in the swell, for an instant, you can see what lies beneath the waters. — Brent Weeks

Chronicling the mid-1970s up session with Gerald Ford's clumsiness, the author quotes a medieval maxim that the king has two bodies. The head of state has a physical body like everyone else, but he also represents the body politic, either reflecting its majesty or its weakness. — Rick Perlstein

Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different which they have never seen, and they attribute to men a natural inclination to slavery, on account of the patience with which the slaves within their notice carry the yoke; not reflecting that it is with liberty as with innocence and virtue, the value of which is not known but by those who possess them, though the relish for them is lost with the things themselves. I know the charms of your country, said Brasidas to a satrap who was comparing the life of the Spartans with that of the Persepolites; but you can not know the pleasures of mine. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If you're going to be unreligious, it's likely going to be due to reflecting on it and finding some things that are hard to believe. — Daniel Kahneman

Punk is no longer a subculture or a counterculture in any way. It's totally just a small reflecting mirror for the same things that go on in larger culture. — Geoff Rickly

And so I lay awake, smoking and reflecting on many things, but, being of a practical turn of mind, chiefly on how we were to give those Masai villains the slip. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, and the great risk we were running from fever from sleeping in such a spot, and forgetting that I had the cramp very badly in my right leg from squatting in a constrained position in the canoe, and that the Wakwafi who was sleeping beside me smelt horribly, I really began to enjoy myself. The moonbeams played upon the surface of the running water that speeded unceasingly past us towards the sea, like men's lives towards the grave, till it glittered like a wide sheet of silver, that is in the open where the trees threw no shadows. Near the banks, however, it was very dark, and the night wind sighed sadly in the reeds. — H. Rider Haggard

Leo Vincey, know now the truth; that all things are illusions, even that there exists no future and no past, that what has been and what shall be already is eternally. Know that I, Ayesha, am but a magic wraith, foul when thou seest me foul, fair when thou seest me fair; a spirit-bubble reflecting a thousand lights in the sunshine of thy smile, grey as dust and gone in the shadow of thy frown. Think of the throned Queen before whom the shadowy Powers bowed and worship, for that is I. Think of the hideous, withered Thing thou sawest naked on the rock, and flee away, for that is I. Or keep me lovely, and adore, knowing all evil centred in my spirit, for that is I. Now, Leo, thou hast the truth. Put me from thee for ever and for ever if thou wilt, and be safe; or clasp me, clasp me to thy heart, and in payment for my lips and love take my sin upon thy head! Nay, Holly, be thou silent, for now he must judge alone. — H. Rider Haggard

Many people think that being Christian makes you sort of subhuman or, at least, less than fully human. Guys out there on the street (people think) are having a wonderful time enjoying human life to the fullest, and we in the church are sort of cramped and constricted. Well, things shouldn't be that way. Being a Christian is supposed to make you more truly human, more fully yourself. That means that you are supposed to become somebody who is reflecting the image of God. — N. T. Wright

When I got large enough to go to work, while employed I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination; and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school-children were getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination had depicted to me before. — Nat Turner

What is the big deal about Eminem? Since when is offensive language a reason for being unpopular? I like the fact that Eminem is brash and angry and politically incorrect. At least he has an opinion. He's stirring things up. He's provoking a discussion. He's making people's blood boil. He's reflecting what's going on in society right now. That is what art is supposed to do. — Madonna Ciccone

When we are reflecting on terrorism we can grieve for many things we do and have done. — Mary Douglas

You'll always be a pretty unhappy man if you are always going to insist on digging and getting beneath things, instead of viewing just the surface. Excavations of thought and reason are always deadly, and always followed by a landslide. We can't both live and think too much; we must renounce either one or the other. How could one support existence if, like you, he were always reflecting on things? For, only a little thought is needed to urge us on to death. Look at a star in the sky and ask what it is: then our misery, our low estate, our limited and thin intelligence, appear in all their splendor. In disgust, we pity ourselves; weak and ashamed of ourselves, who were once stupidly arrogant, we call for the relief of oblivion, even more incomprehensible . We must fix things so that they glance off us, like so many strikes off armor. Accept everything cheerfully. Laugh at it all. — Petrus Borel

We are not at all to wonder [ ... ] that we having but some few superficial ideas of things, discovered to us only by the senses from without, or by the mind, reflecting on what it experiments in itself within, have no knowledge beyond that, much less of the internal constitution, and true nature of things, being destitute of faculties to attain it. — John Locke

Unfulfilled BENEATH OUR WORRYING lives, however, something else is going on. While our minds and hearts are filled with many things, and we wonder how we can live up to the expectations imposed upon us by ourselves and others, we have a deep sense of unfulfillment. While busy with and worried about many things, we seldom feel truly satisfied, at peace, or at home. A gnawing sense of being unfulfilled underlies our filled lives. Reflecting a little more on this experience of unfulfillment, I can discern different sentiments. The most significant are boredom, resentment, and depression. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

My father was a proudly antisocial man who spent most of his time at a typewriter, reflecting negatively on his neighbors and society, throwing in things like "Goddamn it, you've got to be kind." The emphasis was on the Goddamn it. He was proud of the fact that I had no friends — Mark Vonnegut

such communities we join with scores of faith-filled women and men to live the great political and theological as ifs. Politically, we live as if our nation were true to its foundational documents of liberty and justice for all; as if people mattered in themselves and not for their economic or social status; as if consumerism and the shopping mall did not determine the meaning of our lives; as if our way of life were not dependent on fossil fuel; as if we were a sister nation among all the other countries of the world; as if right made might and not the other way around. Living out these as ifs in the midst of community creates a prophetic possibility at a local level, the space for modeling how things could be, ought to be, and one day will be. The characteristics of St. Francis's communities on which we have been reflecting give us a blueprint for such as if living. — Marie Dennis

If it were up to me, I'd rather create things that last long-term, but my thrill comes from reflecting what's going on now. — Simon Fuller

The keys to the life of the heart lie in reflecting upon the Quran, being humble before Allah in secret, and leaving sins. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not a ... turkey ... in the barn-yard but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others. — Charles Darwin

The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious. There are objects approximating the shape of a disc, some of which appear flat on bottom and domed on top. These objects are as large as man-made aircraft and have a metallic or light-reflecting surface. Further they exhibit extreme rates of climb and maneuverability with no associated sound and take action which must be considered evasive when contacted by aircraft and radar. — Nathan Farragut Twining

Remember, as each man and woman is a microcosm reflecting the larger natural world, so healing of the self is also a healing for the world. As above, so below. — Brian Froud

The differences were plain enough, and yet I saw that they were as nothing compared with what we had in common. As I lay in bed at night, the sky outside my window reflecting the city's dim glow, I thought about Abuelita's fierce loyalty to blood. But what really binds people as family? The way they shore themselves up with stories; the way siblings can feud bitterly but still come through for each other; how an untimely death, a child gone before a parent, shakes the very foundations; how the weaker ones, the ones with invisible wounds, are sheltered; how a constant din is medicine against loneliness; and how celebrating the same occasions year after year steels us to the changes they herald. And always food at the center of it all. — Sonia Sotomayor

Inside you're like some kind of mirror, reflecting everything without absorbing it. — Arthur J. Deikman

Invisibility was a tricky thing to get right. It had to do with blocking the way people saw you -- with absorbing light instead of reflecting it. — Lesley Howarth

I suspect it is for one's self-interest that one looks at one's surroundings and one's self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs. The camera is not merely a reflecting pool and the photographs are not exactly the mirror, mirror on the wall that speaks with a twisted tongue. Witness is borne and puzzles come together at the photographic moment which is very simple and complete. The mind-finger presses the release on the silly machine and it stops time and holds what its jaws can encompass and what the light will stain. — Lee Friedlander

Malcom clears his throat and Jarrod spins around, Jillian's amulet reflecting the morning sun. 'Kate! — Marianne Curley

A kaleidoscope consists of a tube (or container), mirrors, pieces of glass (or beads or precious stones), sunlight, and someone to turn it and observe and enjoy the forms. Metaphorically, perhaps the sun represents the divine light, or spark of life, within all of us. The mirrors represent our ability to serve as mirrors for one another and each other's alignment, reflecting sides of ourselves that we may not have been aware of. The tube (or container) is the practice of community yoga. We, as human beings, are the glass, the beads, the precious stones. The facilitator is the person turning the Kaleidoscope, initiating the changing patterns. And the resulting beauty of the shapes? Well, that's for everyone to enjoy... — Lo Nathamundi

Do not reflect on the meaning of the word; thinking and reflecting must cease, as all mystical writers insist. Simply "sound" the word silently, letting go of all feelings and thoughts. — Willigis Jager

He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something. — Alan Rickman

The human mind is a lucky little local, passing accident which was totally unforeseen, and condemned to disappear with this earth and to recommence perhaps here or elsewhere the same or different with fresh combinations of eternally new beginnings. We owe it to this little lapse of intelligence on His part that we are very uncomfortable in this world which was not made for us, which had not been prepared to receive us, to lodge and feed us or to satisfy reflecting beings, and we owe it to Him also that we have to struggle without ceasing against what are still called the designs of Providence, when we are really refined and civilized beings. — Guy De Maupassant

Remember that you will derive strength by reflecting that the saints yearn for you to join their ranks; desire to see you fight bravely, and that you behave like true knights in your encounters with the same adversities which they had to conquer, and that breathtaking joy is theirs and your eternal reward for having endured a few years of temporal pain. Every drop of earthly bitterness will be changed into an ocean of heavenly sweetness. — Henry Suso

Sometimes...I lose myself in looking back upon the ocean which I have passed, and now and then find myself surprised by a tear in reflecting upon the friends I have lost, and the scenes of distress that I have witnessed, and which I was unable to relieve.

- Dr. Benjamin Rush — Jim Murphy

Travel does not exist without home ... If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world. — Josh Gates

Sadness ... reflecting on the proud legacy of trust and fair play on which Reliance Industries was founded by my visionary father Dhirubhai Ambani, and how far RIL appeared to have moved away from those original values. — Anil Ambani

Jazz vision is the fusion of music and art a real paradox of same-yet different. Here we play in exchanges, like the hardness of the key of c# major and from the softness of Db major - capturing, reflecting and improvising. — Barbara Januszkiewicz

Reflecting on this, Albert LaChance recognized an opportunity - what if the work he and so many others found so fruitful in the 12-Step recovery programs could be expanded to an ecological, a global, or even a cosmic level? — Albert J. LaChance

Introverts prefer introversion; we tend to gain energy by reflecting and expend energy when interacting. Extroverts have the opposite preference; they tend to gain energy by interacting and expend energy while reflecting. — Laurie Helgoe

He was always with her, an appendage to her life, and she never could decide how to feel about him. Sometimes, when a smile broke across his face like sun reflecting off a stream, or she saw him relax into sleep, she was filled with an unaccountable sort of ache. It terrified her. — Kiersten White

If a lot of people feel like this company is undervalued and go out and buy the stock, the stock price will go up reflecting the higher value of this company. You might have information because you trade with them or because you've done some research on them. — Robert F. Engle

We are each a concert reverberating with our whole lives and reflecting and amplifying the world around us. — Natalie Goldberg

Unfortunately, one mirror is as treacherous as another, reflecting at some point in every adventure the same vain unsatisfied face, and so when she asks what have I done? she means really what am I doing? as one usually does. — Truman Capote

The longer you blame the mirror, the longer you throw away the power to change what it is reflecting. — Steve Maraboli

A particularly poignant moment for me today was after being given two quotes which caused me to spend time reflecting on the path that my own life has taken so far, and might take in the future: "Whatever does not make your heart sing was not meant for you in this life" "Whatever you lose time doing, you should be doing in life — Rachel Stainer