“By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well.”
"The Noodle Factory", speech given at the dedication of the Shain Library at Connecticut College, New London
Palm Sunday (1981)
Context: And I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.
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Kurt Vonnegut 318
American writer 1922–2007Related quotes
“We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.”
“Mind without agitation is meditation. Mind in the present moment is meditation.”
"What is Meditation?" (2006)
Context: 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.
Source: Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), How to Study Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, p. 144
“A mind that is in meditation is concerned only with meditation, not with the meditator.”
The meditator is the observer, the senser, the thinker, the experiencer, and when there is the experiencer, the thinker, then he is concerned with reaching out, gaining, achieving, experiencing. And that thing which is timeless cannot be experienced. There is no experience at all. There is only that which is not nameable. ...You know, in all this there are various powers like clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought — which is the most disgusting thing to do: it is like reading letters that are private. There are various powers. You know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know that all these things are like candles in the sun? When there is no sun there is darkness, and then the candle and the light of the candle become very important. But when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis — developing various centres, chakras, kundalini, you know all that business — are like candlelight; they have no value at all. And when you have that light, you don’t want anything else.
The First Step is the Last Step (2004), p. 281
1970s, Krishnamurti in India, 1970-71 (1971)
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
As quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann, p. 371
Context: This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.
Source: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-historian-without-studying-history-in-University
Boris Johnson urges Obama not to intervene in EU debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35800232 BBC News (14 March 2016)
2010s, 2016