Isaac Newton
Mathematician, Physicist, Astronomer
"To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation."
Contemplation quotes
Contemplation
90 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Plotinus
Philosopher
"In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical."
Mahatma Gandhi
Political Leader
"The notion of education through handicrafts rises from the contemplation of truth and love permeating life's activities."
Ernest Holmes
Writer
"No person whose entire time is spent in the contemplation of limitation can demonstrate freedom from such limitation."
Thomas Aquinas
Philosopher, Theologian
"Better to illuminate than merely to shine."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside contemplation — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Contemplation quotes (page 1 of 5)
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"What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love."
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"Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them."
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"Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live."
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"Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity."
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"Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?"
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"Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing."
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"Teach correctly... Find delight in contemplation."
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"Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity."
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"That which a man acquires by contemplation he should spend in love."
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"Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit."
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"Self-contemplation is infallibly the symptom of disease."
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"Whatever we think about and question a lot becomes questionable."
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"For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity."
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"Those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for contemplation in the practice of the active life, while those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life so as to become yet."
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"There is no art without contemplation."
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"I have created a life style that supports contemplation, service to words."
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"The law of flying was not discovered by the contemplation of things staying on the ground."
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"It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation."
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"Never trust a thought that didn't come by walking."
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"I can recommend nothing better... than that you endeavor to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others."
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