Meditation

Meditation is a practice through which the individual aims to reach a quiet state of mind or consciousness, also known as awareness.

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Mind without agitation is meditation. Mind in the present moment is meditation. Mind that has no hesitation, no anticipation is meditation. Mind that has come back home, to the source, is meditation. Mind that becomes no mind is meditation.
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, "What is Meditation?"

If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.
- Bertrand Russell, "The decay of meditation" (1931).

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 504.

Thy thoughts to nobler meditations give,
And study how to die, not how to live.
- George Granville (Lord Lansdowne), Meditations on Death, Stanza 1.

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act II, scene 1, line 164.

Divinely bent to meditation;
And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,
To draw him from his holy exercise.
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 7, line 61.

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if He were nearer at hand.
- Owen Feltham, p. 406.

Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, and produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.
- John G. Zimmerman, p. 406.

It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian.
- Bishop Joseph Hall, p. 406.

For with all our pretension to enlightenment, are we not now a talking, desultory, rather than a meditative generation?
- John Campbell Shairp, p. 406.

It is an excellent sign, that after the cares and labors of the day, you can return to your pious exercises and meditations with undiminished attention.
- Hannah More, p. 406.

Night by night I will lie down and sleep in the thought of God, and in the thought, too, that my waking may be in the bosom of the Father; and some time it will be, so I trust.
- William Mountford, p. 406.

Avoid all refined speculations; confine yourself to simple reflections, and recur to them frequently. Those who pass too rapidly from one truth to another feed their curiosity and restlessness; they even distract their intellect with too great a multiplicity of views. Give every truth time to send down deep root into the heart.
- François Fénelon, p. 407.

Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action; so meditate, that thou mayst do; so do, that thou mayst purchase honor; for which purchase, give God the glory.
- Francis Quarles