Quotes about Contemplation

First, you must read it, not as you read other books, but slowly and thoughtfully (that is why I made it very short) and above all prayerfully, that is, under the eye of God, in the presence of Truth and therefore in absolute honesty. Second, you must actually do it, not just read about doing it, think about doing it, understand how to do it, plan to do it, or imagine yourself doing it. It is a cookbook, not a dinner.

It's really hard to watch things and then not think about anything afterwards.

Sometimes God answers our questions with questions.

The Third Method of Prayer is that with each breath in or out, one has to pray mentally, saying one word of the Our Father, or of another prayer which is being recited: so that only one word be said between one breath and another, and while the time from one breath to another lasts, let attention be given chiefly to the meaning of such word, or to the person to whom he recites it, or to his own baseness, or to the difference from such great height to his own so great lowness.

Learning without thought is labor lost.

What feeds the soul matters as much as what feeds the body.

What feeds the soul matters as much as what feeds the body. In

One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.

"Sometimes," said she, "I think that is my permanent feeling towards people. I like the world, the sky and the earth and the greater mystery beyond. But people—yes, they are all monkeys to me."

She said every bird in the air came from a thought of God, and so did I.

If we are too busy, if we are carried away every day by our projects, our uncertainty, our craving, how can we have the time to stop and look deeply into the situation-our own situation, the situation of our beloved one, the situation of our family and of our community, and the situation of our nation and of the other nations?

When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.