Contemplation Quotes

(on his feelings regarding past movies) Hollywood is a mercurial place where people are sort of . . . a victim of their environment and how the environment changes. Movies that would be timely now, ten years from now would be passé and nobody would be interested in the subjects. All the movies that I have done I have not been in control of. Sometimes there is a contractual situation where you go to the studio and they kind of tell you which ones they want you to do. Be that as it may, I have also been lucky in the sense that I have been able to make environmentally conscientious movies as well as politically conscientious movies. Above the Law (1988) was a politically conscientious movie. On Deadly Ground (1994) was environmentally conscientious, so I want to keep making movies like that which are more geared with a certain entertainment value but also bring people forward into contemplation.

I think a lot of contemplation happens in bathtubs. It does for me. Nothing like a hot bath to ease the tension and think about what`s going to happen next.

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumour of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.

If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.

Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.

I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.

The great increase of our population throughout the Union will alone produce an important effect, and in no quarter will it be so sensibly felt as in those in contemplation.

Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.

We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation.

Reformation ends not in contemplation, but in action.

Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation.

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it.

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.

We want a state wise in its contemplation - just in its actions - and moderate in the reach of government into our lives.

If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.