"Contemplative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unregenerate man. It is the place of faun and nymph and satyr, the plain where wars are fought and cities built and work is done. Thence we climb to purified humanity, the mountains of purgation, the solitude and simplicity of contemplative life not yet made perfect by freedom from the flesh. Higher comes that thin white belt, where are the resting-places of angelic feet, the points whence purged souls take their flight towards infinity. Above ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... with sudden alarm in his voice. "Hold tight!" And they began to shoot towards earth faster than they had risen. They came down, by what seemed a miracle to Mr. Lavender, who was still contemplative, precisely where they had gone up. A little group was collected there, and as they stepped out a voice said, "I beg your pardon," in a tone so dry that it pierced even the fogged condition in which ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fasten itself on the mind, be uppermost in the mind, occupy the mind; have in one's mind. make an impression; sink into the mind, penetrate into the mind; engross the thoughts. Adj. thinking &c v.; thoughtful, pensive, meditative, reflective, museful^, wistful, contemplative, speculative, deliberative, studious, sedate, introspective, Platonic, philosophical. lost in thought &c (inattentive) 458; deep musing &c (intent) 457. in the mind, under consideration. Adv. all things ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the lumberman's face lost, during a single instant, its mask of immobility. His steel-blue eyes flashed, his mouth twitched with some strong emotion. For the first time, too, he spoke without his contemplative pause ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of the Constitution, what fits it to be at once the great support and the great control of government, what makes it of such admirable service to that monarchy which, if it limits, it secures and strengthens, would require a long discourse, belonging to the leisure of a contemplative man, not to one whose duty it is to join in communicating practically to the people the blessings of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... again, in any phase, noble or crude. While she aspired and worked she lived like a nun in a cell. And now that she had something to do, she could be sorry for him. She made the best possible dinners for him on their gas-range. She realized—sometimes, not often, for she was not a contemplative seer, but a battered woman—that their marriage had been as unfair to him as it was to her. In small-town boy-gang talks behind barns, in clerkly confidences as a young man, in the chatter of smoking-cars and ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Shying the court, where, for the frolic lords, Under the profaned silence of the rose, The syrinx, and the stringed sonorous shell, Governed the twinkling heeled Terpischore. We softly went and turned towards the bay, And found another world, contemplative Of shells and pebbles by the ocean shore. I do remember, once, on such an eve, Pacing the polished margin of the deep, We found two weeds that had embraced each other, And talked of friendship, love and sympathy. My pupil sweet, said he, beware of Love: For thou wilt shortly ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... just how it applies to me. However, I'll think it over. You're a brick, Miss Kirby, and I'm sorry if you had an unpleasant moment." He took Rouletta's hand and held it while he stared at her with a frank, contemplative gaze. "You're an unusual person, and you're about the nicest girl I've met. I want ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... dramatic monologues, "A Death in the Desert," detaches itself from this double group. It is contemplative in tone, but inspired by a formed conviction, and, dramatically at least, by an instructive purpose; and thus becomes the centre of another small division of Mr. Browning's poems, which for want of a less ugly and hackneyed word ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... angling is the contemplative man's recreation, and, having had in these later years much to con over in my mind, I know that he is right. But it is no occupation for a fuming man, and as I marched up and down I forgot all about my cork, till, with a short ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... his possession of Vittorio, took no part in the bargaining that was going on at the hotel steps, a few yards away, and all along the line of the garden wall. He was standing beside the iron railing, pulling at a contemplative cigar, and listening, with considerable relish, to the wrangling of the gondoliers, when he heard a voice just under the wall, saying: ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... simple, sensuous, confident relish of pleasure. He had frequent fits of extreme melancholy, in which he declared that he was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. He was neither an irresponsibly contemplative nature nor a sturdily practical one, and he was forever looking in vain for the uses of the things that please and the charm of the things that sustain. He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... unto himself astonishing quantities of lobster-omelette. Now he was leaning against the rail beside his new acquaintance and looking up at the sky, holding his chin with thumb and forefinger. Without doubt he was in one of those extraordinary and solemnly contemplative moods in which the barriers between men fall away, in which the heart opens even to strangers, and the mouth utters things which would otherwise close ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... in the current now and floating by his side. "It's Mamie—so far as I've had it from you—who'll be their great card." And then as his contemplative silence wasn't a denial she significantly added: "I think I'm ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Adams' fireplace. The Adams' fireplace leans against her. It falls on to her with a tremendous crash.... Lord Gumthorpe comes forward and gazes at the jumbled debris. He is conscious of a sense of despairing conflict—the conflict between contemplative amazement and some natural but well-controlled demand for concrete action. An appalling conviction comes to him that he ought to do something. Under the fallen mess of brick, marble, and wood there are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... and she wondered, with a faint uneasiness, what his business was. In the meanwhile the big, slowly-moving beasts had stopped and stood still, blowing through their nostrils and regarding the stranger with mild, contemplative eyes. One of them turned its head towards the girl ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... of his pipe between his teeth, and again lapsed into a contemplative mood. After a moment he broke the silence ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... as it does to ourselves, all this will seem overcharged. We too have walked through Monmouth Street; but with little feeling of "Devotion:" probably in part because the contemplative process is so fatally broken in upon by the brood of money-changers who nestle in that Church, and importune the worshipper with merely secular proposals. Whereas Teufelsdrockh, might be in that happy middle state, which leaves ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... a wash?" said Joe, breaking in upon Rob's contemplative fit of rapture as he gazed with hungry eyes ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... chanced to be born among these hot-blooded Wynnes I do not comprehend. He is said to have been gay in his early days, but in young manhood to have become averse to the wild ways of his breed, and to have taken a serious and contemplative turn. Falling in with preachers of the people called Quakers, he left the church of the establishment, gave up hunting, ate his game-cocks, and took to straight collars, plain clothes, and plain talk. When he refused to pay the tithes he was fined, and at last cast into prison in Shrewsbury Gate ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... this contemplative habit on the part of the Executive—a habit to be looked for in a hermit, but not in a Police System—are familiar to us all. The Ruffian becomes one of the established orders of the body politic. Under the playful name of Rough (as if he were merely a practical joker) his movements ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... ennui in the week in London before a voyage; you have packing, shopping, insuring, and buying tickets and general bustling round—what charming occupations for the contemplative mind! Then you throw in visits to friends, and acquaintances call on you, all in the concentrated week; you breakfast late, lunch heavily, rush off to a hurried dinner somewhere, then rush off to a play or some function or other, supper ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... piece is suffused with a mood that is Schumann-like in its intense sincerity of impulse, yet with a passionate fulness and ardour not elsewhere to be paralleled. It is steeped in an atmosphere which is felt in no other of his works, is the issue of an inspiration more profoundly contemplative than any to which ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... altogether different from the spirit of the master. In 1876 the rococo setting of Baireuth seemed the correct atmosphere for Siegfried and Brunhilde, perhaps even for Parsifal. Baireuth was out of the world, calm, contemplative, and remote. In 1901 the world had altogether changed, and Wagner had become a part of it, as familiar as Shakespeare or Bret Harte. The rococo element jarred. Even the Hudson and the Susquehanna — perhaps the Potomac itself — had often risen to drown ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... delineations from Memory's tablet, upon this little map, but enough, perchance, to lead the contemplative mind to reflect upon the vicissitudes and changes of its little day, and teach us to prepare for a better world, "where ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... perception or an idea; at another time it perceives a connection, and it is a judgment; at yet another, it perceives connections between connections, and it is an act of reason. But however subtle the object it contemplates may become, it does not depart from its contemplative attitude, and cognition is ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... and was pleased to hold long arguments with me about the ancients. I soon found out that my master was a great moral philosopher; and being myself in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the world, in which my experience had forestalled my years, and naturally of a contemplative temperament, I turned my attention to the moral studies which so fascinated my employer. I read through nine shelves full of metaphysicians, and knew exactly the points in which those illustrious thinkers quarrelled with each other, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... untiring and patient observation of Nature is the secret of his power as a writer. He disdained nothing, for nothing seemed too small for him. Nature, in none of its phases, could appear insignificant to his fertile and mellow soul. When he could not soar in the high regions of contemplative philosophy, he stooped as low as the little child whose rosy cheek he patted, and who then became to him a teacher and a study. An insect crawling on a leaf,—a bit of grass bringing the joy of its short life around the stones of the pavement,—a cloud floating over the meadows,—a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... the shadow of a mangrove tree which grew on its bank; then resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in the palms of his hands Youmaeale gazed into space, and motionless maintained for a long time the contemplative idleness ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... to the cautious contemplative brother as one that was fraught with no ordinary danger, and he would have most willingly declined the prominent character allotted to him in the performance but for the importunate entreaty of his friends, who implored him, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... continued to value Wordsworth less according to his intrinsic merits, than by the measure of what he had done for me. Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... hook loose in his mouth, and rubs it off against the bottom of the river. Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a necessary quality in the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the banks of the Usk a contemplative man who likes to take things easily may find pretty sure footing on grassy slopes, or on a gravelly bottom. But it is a different thing to hook a large salmon where the Tweed foams under the bridge of Yair down to the narrows and linns below. If the angler hesitates there, he is lost. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... he scanned the copies of directives, reports, operations logs, and procedures the process became automatic, and part of his consciousness turned contemplative. ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... But what is he whom rule and empery Have not in life or death made miserable?— Come, Spenser,—come, Baldock,—come, sit down by me; Make trial now of that philosophy That in our famous nurseries of arts Thou suck'dst from Plato and from Aristotle.— Father, this life contemplative is heaven: O, that I might this life in quiet lead! But we, alas, are chas'd!—and you, my friends, Your lives and my dishonour they pursue.— Yet, gentle monks, for treasure, gold, nor fee, Do you betray us and our company. ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... flies with his whip from the horses' backs. He had a smooth countenance, deeply tanned, and pale, clear blue eyes. At his side sat a priest in black, a man past middle age, with ashen, embittered lips, and a narrowed, chilling gaze. They were silent, contemplative; but, from the seat behind them, flowed a constant, buoyant, youthful chatter. A girl with a shining mass of chestnut hair gathered loosely on a virgin neck was recounting the thrilling incidents of "commencement ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... levity of character, and had been noted for his devotion to games and to the chase; in his middle age he laid aside these pursuits, and, applying himself actively to business, was a good administrator, as well as a brave soldier. But at last it seemed to him that the only life worth living was the contemplative, and that the happiness of the hunter and the statesman must yield to that of the philosopher. It is doubtful how long he survived his resignation of the throne, but tolerably certain that he did not outlive his son and successor, who ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Montsalvat, with its pure, contemplative, but active brotherhood, and its mystic cup, thus stands out as the poetic symbol of all that is highest and best in ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... is not life; for of God alone can it be said that His own being is His happiness. In another way life is taken to mean the activity on the part of the living thing by which activity the principle of life is reduced to act. Thus we speak of an active or contemplative life, or of a life of pleasure; and in this way the last end is called life everlasting, as is clear from the text: "This is life everlasting, that they know ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... LA VALLIERE was tall, shapely, and extremely pretty, with as sweet and even a temper as one could possibly imagine, which eminently fitted her for dreamy, contemplative love-making, such as one reads of in idyls and romances. She would willingly have spent her life in. contemplating the King,—in loving and adoring him without ever opening her mouth; and to her, the sweet silence of a tete-a-tete ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... less, after all, than if their wheels had been fitted to them, and looking out on either side at rows of red houses, dusky in the lamp-light, with protuberant fronts, approached by ladders of stone; as they proceeded, with these contemplative undulations, Miss Chancellor said to her companion, with a concentrated desire to defy him, as a punishment for having thrown her (she couldn't tell ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... and an energetic temperament, sir, is hell. Hell, I tell you. A contemplative disposition and a phlegmatic temperament, all very well. But ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... curiously enough, the sight of her face only intensified an impression that had been strong on him during the last part of their walk—the impression that she was a long way off. It wasn't the familiar contemplative brown study, either. There was an active eager excitement about it that made it more beautiful than ever he had seen it before. But it was as if she were looking at something he couldn't see—listening to words ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... gained an insight into futurity, and had become aware of the transitory nature of all things, and even of the fate of the gods, who were doomed to pass away. This knowledge so affected his spirits that he ever after wore a melancholy and contemplative expression. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... to the practical life is also dependent on Plato's. In the Tenth Book of the Ethics he puts the claims of the Contemplative Life even higher than Plato ever did, so that the practical life appears to be only ancillary to it. He does not feel in the same degree as Plato the call for the philosopher to descend once more into the Cave for the sake of the prisoners ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... amuse the others, and the party broke up. A little later Florent returned to Lebigre's, and indeed he became quite attached to the "cabinet," finding a seductive charm in Robine's contemplative silence, Logre's fiery outbursts, and Charvet's cool venom. When he went home, he did not at once retire to bed. He had grown very fond of his attic, that girlish bedroom, where Augustine had left scraps of ribbons, souvenirs, and other feminine trifles lying about. There still ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... contemplative mind, there is, perhaps, no part of the creation, in which may not be found the seed of much reflection; but of all the grand features of the earth's surface, next to a lofty mountain, that which impresses us most deeply is a great river. ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... insects are more particularly noticed in Italy, during the period of summer, than in any other part of the world. When they make their appearance, they glitter like stars reflected by the sea, so beautiful and luminous are their minute bodies. Many contemplative lovers of the phenomena of nature are seen, soon after sun-set, along the sea coast, admiring the singular lustre of the water when covered with these particles of life, which it may be observed, are more numerous where the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... gilt chair where, as usual, he had perched himself, walked to the window and thrust his hands into his pockets for a contemplative moment, then he turned and came to a stand squarely before Melanie, looking down on her with his ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... ribbon of silk, gemmed with yellow cat-like eyes that floated past wary and curious in their regard for him and his nervous horse. Two Basque herders brought up the rear. They were short, broad, swarthy men, black-eyed, vivid-faced, contemplative and philosophic of expression. They pulled off their hats and ducked their heads to him. Forrest lifted his right hand, the quirt dangling from wrist, the straight forefinger touching the rim of his Baden ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... perhaps insufficient. At any rate, it is well to found another house: Carthusians of course, for they are holy, popular, and inexpensive. Henry, who was generous enough for lepers, hospitals, and active workers, did not usually care very much for contemplative orders, though his mother, the Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and founded the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something from her. These considerations may have first prompted and then fortified Henry's very slow ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... it may seem, you cannot always be sitting at the Master's feet in that contemplative, ecstatic mood sometimes attributed to Mary. Like Martha, we have to do a good deal of serving. Whether we are encumbered by 'much serving' is a separate question; but if we are to fulfil the Divine tasks we have to do a great deal of serving as well as praying and trusting. I may quote, with slight ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... with the angelic visitors. The whole scene is bathed in light, and the longer we look the more we see the beauty of the lines which flow in the picture as if to some heavenly music. All is action save in the grave, contemplative figure of Joseph; and his serious, resting attitude by its contrast makes more evident the leaping child, the mother half stooping to lift him, John the Baptist pressing forward and Elizabeth gently restraining him, with the ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... A certain nonchalance announced that he easily laid aside these faculties from the conviction of his ability to recover all his forces at the moment when he should require them. His brow was contemplative, his look composed, his mouth serious and somewhat sad; the deep inspiration of antiquity was mingled in his physiognomy with the smiles and the carelessness of youth. At the foot of the tribune he was loved with familiarity; as he ascended it each man was surprised to find that ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... two-shilling piece, blessing him in her heart for refraining from putting her under a financial obligation to a stranger. He accepted the money quite simply, and turning away to speak to a porter, he tucked the two-shilling piece into his waistcoat pocket, while an odd, contemplative little ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... and folk cannot say but that the horse are hearty and in spirits." Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his temper, young Bucklaw rushed on with the careless speed of a whirlwind. Ravenswood was scarce more moderate in his pace, for his was a mind unwillingly roused from contemplative inactivity, but which, when once put into motion, acquired a spirit of forcible and violent progression. Neither was his eagerness proportioned in all cases to the motive of impulse, but might be compared to the sped of a stone, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... acquaintance!—there is, in this city of Dunedin, a certain implication of streets which reflects the utmost credit on the designer and the publicans—at every hundred yards is seated the Judicious Tavern, so that persons of contemplative mind are secure, at moderate distances, of refreshment. I have been doing a trot in that favoured quarter, favoured by art and nature. A few chosen comrades—enemies of publicity and friends to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... American packet, was nothing more than a project or draft of a treaty, which possibly the Dutch would never have completed. So far as they knew, he said, it might be merely a "speculative essay," or a "contemplative prospect;" and therefore it was no justifiable or assignable ground for going to war with them. These were arguments, however, for party purposes; opposition conceived that the declaration of war between England and Holland was setting the seal to Lord ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for women, which did so closely cover their bosoms that men could no more put their hands under. For they had put the slit behind, and those neckcloths were wholly shut before, whereat the poor sad contemplative lovers were much discontented. Upon a fair Tuesday I presented a petition to the court, making myself a party against the said gentlewomen, and showing the great interest that I pretended therein, protesting that by the same reason I would cause the codpiece ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... truth. This book is mentioned by Hillebrand with implication that it is the extreme example of the absurd sentimental tendency, probably judging merely from the title,[56] for the book is doubtless merely thoughtful, contemplative, with a minimum ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... belongs to all countries and to all time, and its special good is to live on when all else seems to be dying. That is why Providence delivers it from passions too personal or too general, and has given to its organization patience and persistence, an enduring sensibility, and that contemplative sense upon which ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... come over the spirit of your journey, since your steps have turned towards your ancestral sea-side home. An excursion to invigorate health impaired by labors, too arduous for age, in the public councils, and expected to be quiet and contemplative, has become one of fatigue and excitement. Rumors of your advance escape before you, and a happy and grateful community rise up in their clustering cities, towns, and villages, impede your way with demonstrations ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... death.[126] Antoninus called Papinianus, who had been long a gallant courtier, to be cut in pieces with his soldiers' swords.[127] Yet they would both have renounced their power, yea Seneca endeavoured to deliver up his riches also to Nero, and to give himself to a contemplative life. But their very greatness drawing them to their destruction, neither of them could compass that which they desired. Wherefore what power is this that the possessors fear, which when thou wilt have, ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... vicissitudes, and is in safety forever." Baur says, "The aim of Buddhism is that all may obtain unity with the original empty Space, so as to unpeople the worlds."35 This end it seeks by purification from all modes of cleaving to existing objects, and by contemplative discrimination, but never by the fanatical and austere methods of Brahmanism. Edward Upham, in his History of Buddhism, declares this earth to be the only ford to Nirwana. Others also make the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... in energy of will,—all which advantages, besides, borrowed a ratification from an obscure sense, on my part, of duty as incident to what seemed an appointment of Providence,—inevitably had controlled, and for years to come would have controlled, the free spontaneous movements of a contemplative dreamer like myself. Consequently, this separation, which proved an eternal one, and contributed to deepen my constitutional propensity to gloomy meditation, had for me (partly on that account, but much more through the sudden birth of perfect independence which so unexpectedly it ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... acquired from them a knowledge of the laws. For some short time he served in arms under Sylla, in the Marsian war. But perceiving the commonwealth running into factions, and from faction all things tending to an absolute monarchy, he betook himself to a retired and contemplative life, and conversing with the learned Greeks, devoted himself to study, till Sylla had obtained the government, and the commonwealth was in some kind ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... onward in this contemplative mood, he could not help thinking more than once, that he saw in his path the form of a female dressed in white, who appeared in the attitude of lamentation. But the impression was only momentary, and whenever he looked steadily to the point where he conceived the figure ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... saw her that once," Thorpe remarked. Some thought behind his words lent a musing effect to the tone in which they were uttered. The brother's contemplative smile seemed a comment upon ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... respect as himself for the property of others. The associate perched on a branch a few steps away, while the first crow renewed his attempts by flying around the bone and the dog; but the latter remained impassive. Then the second personage, whose part had hitherto been to remain contemplative, flew off his branch, threw himself on the dog and gave him a formidable blow on the spine. Seized with indignation, the dog turned round to punish the author of this unjustifiable aggression; but the bird was already far away, and in the meanwhile from the other ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... seemed, some trifling sound awakened her. The heat still streamed gratefully into the tiny shelter; the solemn shadows still danced across the forest; the contemplative figure still stared into the embers, strongly silhouetted by the firelight. A tender compunction stole into Barbara's tender ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... always, inevitably, the more or less emotional interpretation, never the pure immediacy of experience. This interpretation frequently makes use of the symbolisms of space, stillness, and light: the contemplative soul is "lost in the ocean of the Godhead," "enters His silence" or ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... undertake not to determine, but so it is, that a monarchical reasoner never traces government to its source, or from its source. It is one of the shibboleths by which he may be known. A thousand years hence, those who shall live in America or France, will look back with contemplative pride on the origin of their government, and say, This was the work of our glorious ancestors! But what can a monarchical talker say? What has he to exult in? Alas he has nothing. A certain something forbids him ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... his chair, and Durant caught him smiling to himself, a contemplative, almost voluptuous smile; was it at the prospect ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... something being done. The same anxious-faced bevy of females we described in a previous chapter, are here, seated at a table, deeply interested in certain periodicals and papers; while here and there about the room, are several contemplative gentlemen in black. Brother Spyke, having deeply interested Brothers Phills and Prim with an account of his visit to the Bottomless Pit, paces up and down the room, thinking of Antioch, and the evangelization of the heathen world. "Truly, brother," speaks the good-natured fat man, "his coming ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... clad thus, seemed the great man that he was. Stooped though his shoulders were, his frame was so strong, his eye so clear and keen, though contemplative, that he did ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... calculated to stir that sense. Our position is, on the other hand, that the germs of the religious sense in early man are developed, not so much by the vision of the Infinite, as by the idea of Power. Early religions, in short, are selfish, not disinterested. The worshipper is not contemplative, so much as eager to gain something to his advantage. In fetiches, he ignorantly recognises something that possesses power of an abnormal sort, and the train of ideas which leads him to believe in and to treasure fetiches is one among the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other's company for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... curve there is a very noticeable parallelism with the line of repose; the child pursues his labors almost uniformly, and the sole difference between the initial work and the serious work is in their different duration. The contemplative period becomes henceforth an obvious "period of internal work," almost a period of "assimilation" or "internal maturation." Observation of the work of others becomes increasingly frequent, as if it were a spontaneous "comparative" study between the child himself and his companions; ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in living Art.' 'What is the end of study? let ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... willing,—I said,—to exercise your ingenuity in a rational and contemplative manner.—No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous tractate, "De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... and yet so rich, that I wondered how any could throw doubts upon the wonderful value of the country. Surely this was a spot worth fighting for, and, more certainly still, it was a place for peace. A long contemplative walk brought me back to Rondebosch, and again I took the train-like tram and ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... quite enthusiastic, in his way, about the interests of the people, and the new field of exertion which his present prospects open to him. It is plain that he has a genius more fitted for active than for contemplative life,—and so much the better for him; for a man, this is the happiest of dispositions: and he will be happy; for there is nothing in his character incompatible with quiet enjoyment; no violent passions ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... a recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money, and the cues of depositors at the tellers' windows. An old gentleman whom I knew, a director of the bank, passing me and observing my contemplative attitude, stopped ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... the end of a blazing hot London day when I went down the hard to the water's edge, among the small, pink-legged boys, paddling, and the usual group of contemplative workmen, who smoke their pipes by the landing place. The river was half empty, and emptying itself still more as the ebb ran down. The haze of heat and twilight blurred shapes and colours, but the fine old houses of the historic "Mall," ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... "Me"—are one. In this manner is the Idea of the Trinity shown to be involved in the Idea of God, and to arise out of it by an implication as necessary as that which connects together the three phases of consciousness attendant upon every self-contemplative act of the ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... with you the wisdom of contemplative quiescence, While the world is in a ferment of unmeaning effervescence, That its jar and rush and riot bring no good one-half so sterling As your fleecy clouds of fragrance that are ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... love of a husband for his wife, or of a lover for his sweetheart, is a sweet bond of agreement and exchange trade in a lovely contest. The love of a father for his son or daughter, where it is love at all, is a broad, generous, sad, contemplative giving without thought of return, a hail and farewell to a troubled traveler whom he would do much to guard, a balanced judgment of weakness and strength, with pity for failure and pride in achievement. It is a lovely, generous, philosophic ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the quiet of the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic countenance, I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life. I believe if I stayed here long you would lure me back to philosophy; and yet I thought I had finally escaped when I ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... many things without studying nature dost thou imagine, and how many dost thou neglect?[B] But it is thy duty so to look on and so to do everything, that at the same time the power of dealing with circumstances is perfected, and the contemplative faculty is exercised, and the confidence which comes from the knowledge of each several thing is maintained without showing it, but yet not concealed. For when wilt thou enjoy simplicity, when gravity, and ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... very well in its way, no doubt, but much more fascinating to the contemplative man are the books that have not been written. These latter are no trouble to hold; there are no pages to turn over. One can read them in bed on sleepless nights without a candle. Turning to another topic, primitive man in the works of the descriptive anthropologist ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... prosperity from the philosophic tenor of his former life. He abated nothing of his peripatetic exercises; and repaired duly in the morning, as he had done in former years, to St. James's Park,—where he sate in contemplative ease amongst the cows, inhaling their balmy breath and pursuing his philosophic reveries. He had also purchased an organ, or more than one, with which he solaced his solitude and beguiled himself of uneasy thoughts if he ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... The contemplative German had collected a lot of short ham-bones—where she found them I cannot imagine—and had made of them a border around my wife's flower-bed. The bones stuck up straight a few inches above the ground, all along the edge of the bed, and the marrow cavity ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... might easily have been mistaken for a slightly built and shapelier variety of the gorilla but for the true man-hands and the steady, contemplative, foreseeing look in the eyes. He came and examined the mangled bulk of the Dinoceras, scrutinized the horns and tusks minutely, and strove with all his force to wrench one of the latter from its ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... rattled on uninterruptedly in one silvery stream about everybody on the ground, their histories and their pedigrees. She took the talking so completely off his hands, however, that, after a very few minutes, Guy, who was by nature of a lazy and contemplative disposition, had almost ceased to trouble himself about what she said, interposing "indeeds" and "reallys" with automatic politeness at measured intervals; when suddenly the old lady, coming upon a bench where a mother and daughter were seated ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... not subject, but sovereign, through virtue. Each thing has virtue in its nature, which does that to which it is ordained; and the better it does it so much the more virtue it has: hence we call that man virtuous who lives a life contemplative or active, doing that for which he is best fitted; we ascribe his virtue to the horse that runs swiftly and much, to which end he is ordained: we see virtue of a sword that cuts through hard things ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... swaying bough of the jungle-forest giant, his brown skin mottled by the brilliant equatorial sunlight which percolated through the leafy canopy of green above him, his clean-limbed body relaxed in graceful ease, his shapely head partly turned in contemplative absorption and his intelligent, gray eyes dreamily devouring the object of their devotion, you would have thought him the reincarnation of ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... always pleased with himself. If he fails at anything he can usually excuse himself on the grounds of somebody else's damnfoolishness. If he succeeds he complacently assumes that he did it out of his own greatness. Action—that's the thing. The contemplative, analytical mind is the mind that suffers. Man was a happy animal until he began to indulge in abstract thinking. And now that the burden of thought is laid on him, he frequently uses it to ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... desire to be "a Literary Man," and still less a Prophet, the kind of truth he divined was, in fact, on the scale of the prophets. It seemed to me that over the last decade of his life he found himself more and more in the dilemma that in the life of his mind he was living with ideas, the fruit of a contemplative preoccupation with the Incarnation and the Sacraments, which he shrank from talking about, from a natural humility and a clear and grateful understanding of the Catholic tradition ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... ever-living Gods To Peleues given, put on. Those arms the Sire, Now old himself, had on his son conferr'd But in those arms his son grew never old. 240 Him, therefore, soon as cloud-assembler Jove Saw glittering in divine Achilles' arms, Contemplative he shook his brows, and said, Ah hapless Chief! thy death, although at hand, Nought troubles thee. Thou wear'st his heavenly 245 Who all excels, terror of Ilium's host. His friend, though bold yet gentle, thou hast slain And hast the brows and bosom of the dead Unseemly bared: ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... poet's guide until he comes to behold the Beatific Vision. Then, no longer needed, she withdraws in favor of the contemplative St. Bernard as guide, just as Virgil had withdrawn when he was powerless and when Beatrice ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... yore, being of a submissive rather than a stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contemplative heads to avoid collision with the beams in the low ceilings of the many chambers of their House; whether they sat in its long low windows telling their beads for their mortification, instead of making necklaces ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... regular undulations of the swell from the main ocean, which, though perhaps sufficient to discompose a landman's stomach, would not affect that of a sailor, who would probably testify under oath, that the water was "just as smooth as a mill-pond." The pelican, that grave and contemplative bird, sat on the rocks near the water's edge, with his neck coiled up and stowed away in some recess in his capacious crop, the fish forgetting, or sailed on lazy wings across the bay, to seek some sequestered spot to doze away the ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... incidental—it seems to have been inspired at the moment and runs in as part of the main action. The comedy of the men 'who worked with Griffith,' while perhaps inspired at the moment, rises not from the situations of the story but from the contemplative mind of the director himself. This is the general rule, at any rate. There are exceptions, of course, and notable ones, too, but that all-powerful motif of 'comedy relief' often gets the better of the director's ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... have struggled bravely against physical weakness, but their work has not usually been of a creative order, dependent for its success on high animal spirits. They have written histories, essays, contemplative or didactic poems, works which may more or less be regarded as 'dull narcotics numbing pain.' But who, in so fragile a frame as Robert Louis Stevenson's, has retained such indomitable elasticity, such fertility of invention, such unflagging energy, not merely to collect and ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... drew near the tomb, and with bent heads remained there for some minutes, pensive, touched, contemplative. Then both turned, and at the same moment, by the same impulse, offered their hands to Jean; then continued their walk to the church. Their first prayer at Longueval had been for the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... considers—escaped from Campbell, above all from Thurnall. From himself, indeed, he has not escaped; but the company of self is, on the whole, more pleasant to him than otherwise just now. For though he may turn up his nose at tourists and reading-parties, and long for contemplative solitude, yet there is a certain pleasure to some people, and often strongest in those who pretend most shyness, in the "digito monstrari, et diceri, hic est:" in taking for granted that everybody has read his poems; that everybody is saying ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... sufficient to kindle a sympathetic fire in Rand's own cheeks, which was so utterly unexpected to him that he turned on his heel in confusion. "I reckon she thinks I'm soft and silly, like Ruth," he soliloquized, and, determining not to look at her again, betook himself to a distant and contemplative pipe. In vain did Miss Euphemia address herself to the ostentatious getting of the dinner in full view of him; in vain did she bring the coffee-pot away from the fire, and nearer Rand, with the apparent intention ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... reflections on every object, and favors a dreamy mood which vaguely weds itself to the play of light and shade. The silence which generally prevails at that time makes it particularly dear to artists, who grow contemplative, stand a few paces back from the pictures on which they can no longer work, and pass judgement on them, rapt by the subject whose most recondite meaning then flashes on the inner eye of genius. He who has never stood pensive by a friend's side in such an hour of poetic dreaming can hardly understand ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... tranquility." All was still: not a sound was heard save soft murmuring tones which seemed to whisper in the ear of the weary traveller, "Come, and partake of nature's bounty," and to complain that such an offer should be made in vain. To a contemplative mind, such a scene might have suggested a thousand delightful reflections. But what charms could it have for the soul of Alexander, whose breast was filled with schemes of ambition and conquest; whose eye was familiarised with rapine and slaughter; ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... OSCAR WILDE are with them, the fleet-footed giants of perennial youth, like unto the white-limbed Hermes, whom Polyxena once saw, and straight she hied her away to the vine-clad banks of Ilyssus, where Mr. PATER stands contemplative, like some mad scarlet thing by DVORAK, and together they march with the perfect significance of silence through realms that are cloud-capped with the bright darkness that shines from the poet's throne ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... world, a wilderness, so many thousand miles from anything that she and her father had ever known. And in her pocket there was no penny for rescue or escape. Over her life brooded powerfully Sylvester Hudson, with his sallow face and gentle, contemplative eyes. He had brought her to his home. Surely that was an honorable and generous deed. He had given her over to the care and protection of his wife and daughters. But why didn't Mrs. Hudson like it? Why did she tighten her lips and pull her nostrils when she looked ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his intimate knowledge of men and their interests. This man, who baffled for a long time the rector's perspicacity and who might in a higher sphere have proved another l'Hopital, incapable of intrigue like all really profound persons, was by this time living in the contemplative state of an ancient hermit. Independent through privation, no personal consideration acted on his mind; he knew the laws and judged impartially. His life, reduced to the merest necessaries, was pure and ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... for reasons best known to himself, soon relapsed into a thoughtful, contemplative silence. Between us, he was sorely vexed and disappointed. When the gallant start was made from the glen of "dead men's bones," he found that he was to be cast utterly aside, quite completely ignored by the fair Loraine. She rode off with ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... but the blue of heaven, I looked about for the object that had struck me. As I did so, I perceived my husband in his window, but his eyes, while upon me, did not see me, for no change passed over him as I groped about in the grass. "In one of his contemplative moods," thought I, continuing my search. In another instant I started up. I had found a little thing like a bullet wrapped up in paper; but it was no bullet; it was a bead, a large gold bead, and on the paper which surrounded it were written words ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... smoking and chatting. The women, loaded with children and baskets, sit in the shade of the knobby trees which stretch their trunk-like branches horizontally over the beach, forming a natural roof against sun and rain. The half-grown boys are too lively to enjoy contemplative laziness; gossip and important deliberations about pigs and sacrifices do not interest them, and they play about between the canoes, wade in the water, look for shells on the sand, or hunt crabs or fish in the reef. Thus an hour passes. The sun has warmed the sand; after the cool ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... chapel attached, erected in 1880 by some French Sisters who had come to London in 1865, and settled at Fulham in 1867 in a house near the site of the present convent. There are eleven nuns, of whom three are lay Sisters. They are devoted to the contemplative life. Just opposite is a large brewery, established 1867. At the east end of Eustace Road is a small brick Wesleyan chapel, hidden away in a corner, which deserves a word of mention, as it is a German chapel and the services are ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... do it, and the circumstances of time and place under which it is done; or, to say the matter in three words,—action, actors, and setting. Only when all three elements conspire can something happen. Life suggests to the mind of a contemplative observer many possible events which remain unrealized because only one or two of the necessary three elements are present,—events that are waiting, like unborn children on the other side of Lethe, until the ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Ceadmon sang O'er-awed, the Father of all humankind Standing in garden planted by God's hand, And girt by murmurs of the rivers four, Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life, With eastward face. In worship mute of God, Eden's Contemplative he stood that hour, Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none, No need for spirit severe. And Ceadmon sang God's Daughter, Adam's Sister, Child, and Bride, Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star, That nearer drew to earth and brighter flashed To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence Stood ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... sister. He was sure to hear of Augusta frequently, and to see some part, at least, of the letters which she was to write to her brother; he might also hope to be remembered in these letters as her "good friend and tutor;" and to these consolations his quiet, contemplative, and yet enthusiastic disposition, clung as to a secret source of pleasure, the only one which life seemed ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... lived two days and nights without meat or drink, some began to believe that I was a holy madman, while others supposed me to be stark mad; wherefore they consulted to send for certain men who dwell in the mountain, who lead a contemplative life, and are esteemed holy as we do hermits. When they came to give their judgment concerning me, and were debating among themselves for upwards of an hour on my case, I pissed in my hands, and threw the water in their faces, on which they agreed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... 1822, since which period the place has been totally abandoned as a military station. The bank at this place is high and the spot where the Barracks stood very pleasant, commanding a fine view of the adjacent country, having a beautiful Island directly in front. To a contemplative mind this spot must be interesting when he reflects that the soldiers who forced their way from Fredericton through the wilderness to construct these works, have fallen by the sword and disease; that the men who projected them, as well as those who superintended their construction, ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... Ultima Thule—they were rare—was an occasion for thankfulness and rejoicing. Directly after luncheon the members of Gunroom and Wardroom made their way on deck to bask in the sun and smoke contemplative post-prandial pipes in the lee of the after superstructure. Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy enjoyment ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... high, broad and athletic, with very large limbs, entirely erect, and without the slightest tendency to stooping; his hair was white, and tied with a silk string; his countenance lofty, masculine, and contemplative; his eye light gray. He was dressed in the clothes of a citizen, and over these a blue surtout of the finest cloth. His weight must have been two hundred and thirty pounds, with no superfluous flesh; all was bone and sinew; and ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... life, that the show, while we are busied in delineating it, vanishes from the view, and a new set of objects succeed, doomed to the same shortness of duration with the former: thus curiosity may always find employment, and the busy part of mankind will furnish the contemplative with the materials of speculation to the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... yet, whenever I would have lurked by night in their temples or among the enclosed spaces of their tombs to learn more, at a given signal one in authority has approached me with anxiety and mistrust engraved upon his features, and, disregarding my unassuming protest that I would remain alone in a contemplative reverie, has signified that so devout an exercise is contrary to their ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... with its shabby rear and its pompous Palladian front, the brick campaniles beyond, the milder, yellower light, the range of colour, the suggestion of sound. Later, beneath the arcades, I found many an old acquaintance: beautiful officers, resplendent, slow-strolling, contemplative of female beauty; civil and peaceful dandies, hardly less gorgeous, with that religious faith in moustache and shirt-front which distinguishes the belle jeunesse of Italy; ladies with heads artfully shawled in Spanish-looking lace, but with too little art—or ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... case of Ann Penhallow was silent. The clergyman thinking too of his own bitter experience lapsed into contemplative cleaning of a much valued meerschaum pipe. The Squire not given to morbid or other psychological studies made brief reply. "I hope that ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... now to resume his former life of sojourn in tents and desultory practice of the arts, a life which, as it was at once highly practical and entirely dependent upon enjoyment, we may call one of contemplative activity. For twenty years he had not lived in a house, slept in a bed, or owned anything beyond the barest necessities. (The only thing he had, indeed, found himself owning, had at last removed itself.) ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... object that met the anxious eyes of the expectant family on their entrance into the ball-room, was the interesting Horatio, with his hair brushed off his forehead, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, reclining in a contemplative attitude on one of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens |
