Quotes about Contemplation

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.

It is impossible to contemplate the word without the serious intention of doing justice to it in practical behavior. It demands love for God and our neighbor, and does so with such immediacy and unmistakable urgency that it is pointless even to pause before this demand unless we are willing to respond.

Is gleaned from both "books" together. The "contemplation of nature" and of the structures of meaning hidden within it, structures that are part of every single being, becomes for Maximus a necessary step, a kind of initiation, into the knowledge of God.

We do not build the kingdom of God on earth by our own efforts (however assisted by grace); the most we can do through genuine prayer, is to make as much room as possible, in ourselves and in the world, for the kingdom of God, so that its energies can go to work. All that we can show our contemporaries of the reality of God springs from contemplation: Jesus Christ, the Church, our own selves.

When the night wind makes the pine trees creak And the pale clouds glide across the dark sky, Go out my child, go out and seek Your soul: The Eternal I. For all the grasses rustling at your feet And every flaming star that glitters high Above you, close up and meet In you: The Eternal I. Yes, my child, go out into the world; walk slow And silent, comprehending all, and by and by Your soul, the Universe, will know Itself: the Eternal I.

The more I try to unravel the mysteries of the world in which we live, the more I come to the conception of a single overruling power - God.

My hands were too soft.. I had to find some special occupation, some kind of work that would not force me to turn away from the sky and the stars, that would allow me to discover the meaning of life.

An artist does his most difficult work when he steps back from the blank canvas and thinks about what he is going to create.

I have written the little work that follows . . . in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes.

The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working with such a spirit of detachment and recollection that even his work is a prayer

Information work is thinking work.

I want my work to create space where people can meet God, rather than give them something they can "apply" to their daily life.