Inspirational Quotes on Meditation

“Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in her long removes, she discerneth God, as if he were nearer at hand.”

“Some women will spend thirty minutes to an hour preparing for church externally (putting on special clothes and makeup, etc.). What would happen if we all spent the same amount of time preparing internally for church - with prayer and meditation?”

“If boys would think, it would be well to give them less classwork and more opportunity for thought.”

“Our silence might be better than our voices if our solitude was spent with God.”

“We should all know more, live nearer to God, and grow in grace, if we were more alone. Meditation chews the cud and extracts the real nutriment from the mental food gathered elsewhere.”

“It is not hasty reading, but seriously meditating upon holy and heavenly truths that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee's touching on the flowers that gathers the honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian.”

“Consideration doth, as it were, open the door between the head and the heart: the understanding having received truths, lays them up in the memory now, consideration is the conveyer of theme from thence to the affections (571).”

“Meditation puts reason in its authority and preeminence. It helpeth to deliver it form its captivity to the sense, and setteth it again upon the throne of the soul. When reason is silent, it is usually subject; for when it is asleep the senses domineer. . . . Reason is at the strongest when it is most in action. Now, meditation produceth reason into act (573).”

“We shall not benefit from reading the Old Testament unless we look for and meditate on the glory of Christ in its pages.”

“Por intensa que sea mi experiencia, soy consciente de la presencia y de la crítica de una parte de mi ser, la cual, digámoslo así, no es parte de mí, sino un espectador que no comparte la experiencia, pero toma nota de ella, y que no es más yo que tú.”

“The person who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ in the Scriptures now will not have any real desire to see that glory in heaven. What sort of faith and love do people have who find time to think about many other things but make no time for meditating on this glorious subject?”

“Reflect that we all have our Poonas, bolt-holes from unpleasant reality. The danger, as Miller is always insisting, of meditation becoming such a bolt-hole. Quietism can be mere self-indulgence. Charismata like masturbations. Masturbations, however, that are dignified, by the amateur mystics who practise them, with all the most sacred names of religion and philosophy. 'The contemplative life.' It can be made a kind of high-brow substitute for Marlene Dietrich: a subject for erotic musings in the twilight. Meditation - valuable, not as a pleasurable end; only as a means for effecting desirable changes in the personality and mode of existence. To live contemplatively is not to live in some deliciously voluptuous or flattering Poona; it is to live in London, but to live there in a non-cockney style.”

“Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers imperfect, - meditation being the soul of prayer and the intention of our spirit.”

“It is not mere reading, but meditation -- "meditation all the day," as the Psalmist says -- which extracts the sweetness and the power out of Scripture.”

“Meditation is love's nourishment.”

“Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment.”

“He (Lincoln) was accustomed to hearing words, many of them boring, but he was not accustomed to group silence.”

“Academical disputation gives vigor and briskness to the mind thus exercised, and relieves the languor of private study and meditation.”

“It is doing some service to humanity, to amuse innocently. They know but little of society who think we can bear to be always employed, either in duties or meditation, without relaxation.”

“Centering our thoughts on God begins with what I like to call discovery. That is, when we discover a great truth about God, we begin to meditate on that truth until it captivates our whole thinking process. That in turn will lead to worship. If worship is based on meditation, and meditation is based on discovery, what is discovery based on? On time spent with God in prayer and the Word. It is sad that many view prayer primarily as a way to get things. We have lost sight of the companion aspect of prayer - of being still and aware of God's wonderful presence and just communing with Him there.”