Dictionary:

contemplation

  (kŏn'təm-plā'shən)

1. The act or state of contemplating.
2. Thoughtful observation or study.
3. Meditation on spiritual matters, especially as a form of devotion.
4. Intention or expectation: sought further information in contemplation of a career change.

noun

1. An act of directing the eyes on an object: look, regard, sight, view. See see/not see.
2. The act or process of thinking: brainwork, cerebration, cogitation, deliberation, excogitation, meditation, reflection, rumination, speculation, thought. See thoughts.

Definition: deep thought; planning
Antonyms: disdain, disregard, neglect, rejection, slight

n

Definition: gazing at
Antonyms: avoidance, disregard

A curious view common to Indian ethics, Plato, Aristotle, and much of the western tradition, holds that the summum bonum or supremely valuable state of mind lies in the right kind of contemplation: contemplation of the form of the good, or reflection upon the virtues. The idea is found in the Christian conception of beatitude as the eternal contemplation of a certain vision, and in the Kantian view that the ideal state is one free of desire and inclination (see apathy). Less mystical philosophies point out that contemplation is apt to decay into emptiness without the continual stimulus of desires, fresh action, and fresh problems.

Quotes:

"There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them." - Charles Baudelaire

"One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist." - Emile Durkheim

"One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation." - Victor Hugo

"I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. It's wonderful to have someone like that around, you always feel you can count on them. You can go away and come back, you can change your mind and your hairdo and your politics, and when you get through doing all these upsetting things, you look around and there they are, just the way they were, just being." - Elizabeth Janeway

"The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den." - Lewis H. Lapham

"With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things." - William Wordsworth

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