Contemplating Quotes
More Contemplating Quotes
The true value of the Christian religion rests, not upon speculative views of the Creator, which must necessarily be different in each individual, according to the extent of the knowledge of the finite being, who employs his own feeble powers in contemplating the infinite:;: but it rests upon those doctrines of kindness and benevolence which that religion claims and enforces, not merely in favour of man himself but of every creature susceptible of pain or of happiness.
Charles Babbage— "Passages from the life of a philosopher", The Basis Of Virtue Is Truth, p. 404-405
In contemplating thyself never include the vessel which surrounds thee, and these instruments which are attached about it. For they are like an ax, differing only in this, that they grow to the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver's shuttle, and the writer's pen, and the driver's whip.
marcus aurelius— X, 38. (Book X)
Avisitor from Mars contemplating a man in a frock coat and top hat and a woman in a crinoline might well have supposed that they belonged to different species.
James Laver— 1969 The Concise History of Costume and Fashion, ch.8.
Without contemplating last and late the true nature of poetry. The drive to connect. The dream of a common language.
— 1978 The Dream of a Common Language,'Origins and History of Consciousness'.
People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.
elizabeth gaskell— Wives and Daughters, ch. 50 (1864-5)
Thus, the distance between any two galaxies increases in time, creating the illusion of mechanical motion. But in reality, galaxies just sit there, contemplating the spectacle of the universe creating more and more space in between them.
joão magueijo— pg. 87 (Faster than the Speed of Light)
Here is this mass of jelly - three pound mass of jelly - that you can hold in the palm of your hand, and it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space, it can contemplate the meaning of infinity, and it can contemplate itself contemplating the meaning of infinity.
vilayanur s. ramachandran— A journey to the center of your mind, TED talks.
... (In) contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament that (if we remove the Bible from schools) we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and these sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of (our government).
benjamin rush— Attributed to A Defence of the Use of the Bible in Schools; entries in parenthesis are insertions or modifications of the original quote.
Saloons provide moments of genuine ecstasy — but only if your soul is at peace and the rest of your life bears contemplating. Otherwise, they are palaces of misery.
wilfrid sheed— "Now That Men Can Cry...," p. 299
I'm contemplating thinking about thinking…but....it's overrated - just get another drink in!
robbie williams— Come Undone
Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature.
edgar degas— Notebook entry (1858), The Notebooks of Edgar Degas, ed. Theodore Reff (1976)
Come here my love And I will lift my spirits high for you I'd like to fly away and spend a day or two Just contemplating the fields and leaves and talking about nothing Just layin' down in shades of effervescent, effervescent odors And shades of time and tide.
van morrison— Come Here My Love
The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.
alexis de tocqueville— Chapter XVIII
What is it which is shadowed in the human? What spiritual intelligence still superior looks down into the soul of man in admiration of those qualities which are most assimilated to its own? Might not such possibly, in comparison while contemplating some finer specimen of humanity, a Milton or a Newton - prefer in a Byronic vein.
— James Anthony Froude (1833) "Critical Illustrations of Lord Byron's Poetry". In: Fraser's Magazine. Vol. 7. p.315
The claim of India to the attention of the world is that she, more than any other nation since history began, has devoted herself to contemplating the ultimate mysteries of existence and, in my eyes, the fact that Indian thought diverges widely from our own popular thought is a positive merit.
— Sir Charles Eliot, Philosophy and the Self: East and West.
As the journey of "Third Text", a collaborative art project that brings together participants from all over the world, particularly from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, continues, the idea also begins contemplating those land-based projects which were somewhat abandoned in the early seventies.
rasheed araeen— Art Beyond Art: Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the 21st Century, London: ThirdText Publications, p. 5 (2010)
Run from the Furies, and they find you, as if fear were a homing device, as if literature itself, on contemplating the abyss, were an invitation to jump into it, while Wagner whistles.
john leonard— "Meeting at Winkel", The New York Times (6 September 1982)
The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed.
bertrand russell— Proposed Roads To Freedom, Introduction (1918, pg. 4)
