Quotes about Contemplation

Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.

We ought to contemplate providence not as curious and fickle persons are wont to do but as a ground of confidence and excitement to prayer. When he informs us that the hairs of our head are all numbered it is not to encourage trivial speculations but to instruct us to depend on the fatherly care of God which is exercised over these frail bodies.

On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.

On the other hand, it is well known that a person never comes to the clear knowledge of himself unless he has first contemplated the face of the Lord, and afterward descended to consider himself.

For the one who has learned to regard God in everything he does is at the same time being drawn away from every vain thought.

And, as Augustine expresses it (in Psalm cxliv.), since we are unable to comprehend Him, and are, as it were, overpowered by his greatness, our proper course is to contemplate his works, and

Since I am coming to that holy room,Where, with thy choir of saints forevermore,I shall be made thy music; as I comeI tune the instrument here at the door,And what I must do then, think here before.

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.

Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him...

As a general remark, I would say we must move from the moral to the mystical life.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.