Saul Leiter Quotes

I aspire only to silence.

Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating gyroscope.

Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great.

Everywhere I go, I still have time to meditate. People think meditating is sitting there, nobody bothering you, but you can even talk and still meditate.

I've been busy and need to slow my little tail down and sit and meditate somewhere. I do my walking meditations every day, but just to sit still. Just to be in one place and just to be quiet.

In Japanese art, space assumed a dominant role and its position was strengthened by Zen concepts.

I've soaked up so much through dancing, but I also have to be still. I want to be silent and read, to shut up and take time to respect the vision someone put into a book.

I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.

I have created a life style that supports contemplation, service to words.

Inspiration comes from everything from the entire world, and it's hard to pinpoint one thing. I can trace one inspiration to the writing of 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji, who writes beautifully about time.

Stillness as a technique is still really captivating to me.

I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I'm still and quiet inside, I'll begin. It's very personal; it has to be. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece.

If you've lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.

My earliest experiences in meditation were in a context of intensive retreats.

I decided to try celibacy because I heard it would help the meditation, and I tried meditation because I heard it would help with the music. So, it all really comes back to the music.

All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment.

I start any work the same way. I start a rehearsal with silence.

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?

I don't have to go to a mountain to meditate. I'm meditative in every moment of my life.

I don't get to do quiet time.

Whereas a lot of Buddhism concerns itself with stages of enlightenment, various precepts and moral codes, and even power structures and hierarchies, Zen is just like, 'Shut up, sit down, and observe your thoughts - oh, and by the way, what you perceive as you' doesn't actually exist.' I loved the minimalist approach of it.

We have everything we need, in fact, except the most important thing of all — time to think and the habit of thought.

Quiet time and solitude are vital to helping me keep perspective. I consider myself fortunate to have so much quiet built into my profession. I spend long hours by myself at my easel. And while I work, I think-of the future, of my loved ones, of God's goodness and the many exciting opportunities that surround me. I ponder the challenges I face, the needs of others, the direction my life is going.

Action and contemplation are very close companions; they live together in one house on equal terms. Martha and Mary are sisters.