Short Contemplative Quotes & Sayings

Did I read because I was lonely, or was I lonely because I started to read? — Grace Metalious

Then there are the fully intentional pleasures, which, although in some way tied up with sensory or perceptual experience, are modes of exploration of the world. Aesthetic pleasures are like this. Aesthetic pleasures are contemplative - they involve studying an object OUTSIDE of the self, to which one is GIVING something (namely, attention and all that flows from it), and not TAKING, as in the pleasure that comes from drugs and drinks. Hence such pleasures are not addictive - there is no pathway to reward that can be short-circuited here, and a serotonin injection is not a cheap way of obtaining the experience of PARISFAL or THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. — Roger Scruton

Yet it's no wonder forgiveness is such a challenge in the world today: people believe the illusions are real and circumstances can randomly render you damaged goods. They can't. Nothing can. Not even yourself. The dead would have you skip the whole quandary from the git-go and accept responsibility for everything. Then, with evolving clarity and more confidence in your power, you can also realize deep down that everyone is your friend, everything makes you more, and the sky is the limit for all you can still achieve. — Mike Dooley

I think if you steal well, you're a genius. If you copy badly, you're a hack. — Greg Proops

Music is my first love and the thing that I feel extremely connected to. I feel like I still have a long way to go within that in terms of being able to perform and write songs. But, yeah, I really hope 'The Possession' opens doors for me to do more acting, because I really enjoyed it. — Matisyahu

If you don't use your new knowledge and skills within a relatively short space of time, then it may have been better never to have had the tantalising prospect of change for the better placed in front of you. — Robin Hoyle

Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world. — Leonardo Da Vinci

As far as I'm concerned, I make movies. — Asif Kapadia

I knock unbidden once at every gate
If sleeping, wake
if feasting, rise before
I turn away
it is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death, but those who doubt of hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore,
I answer not, and I return no more. — John James Ingalls

Fellowshipping with God continually is to maintain your well-being — Sunday Adelaja

Discover your gift, develop your gift and then give it away every day. — Don Meyer

Henrietta, at heart a contemplative person, enjoyed alarums and excursions for a short while only. For her a background of quiet was essential to happiness. It had been fun to stay with Felicity, to be petted and spoiled by her friends, to be applauded by big audiences in a crowded theater, to have lovely things to eat and go to the zoo whenever she liked, but it had completely upset her equilibrium and she had felt as though she had been turned upside down so that everything that was worth while in her mind fell out. She, like everyone else, had to find out by experience in what mode of life she could best adjust herself to the twin facts of her own personality and the moment of time in which destiny had planted it, and she was lucky perhaps that she found out so early. — Elizabeth Goudge