Quotes about Contemplation

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars.

I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it.

Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting. Just read the Bible and the Gospel, that will start you thinking, thinking about many things, thinking about everything, well then, think about many things, think about everything, that will lift your thoughts above the humdrum despite yourself. We know how to read, so let us read!

It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.

In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.

When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?

You have to make time, even for something as universal as staring at the stars.

Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.

Think first. Talk less. Start today.

Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.

Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes.