More Meditations on Meditation

I decided to check other quotation books in my library for more quotes dealing with meditation. The following quotes are insightful:

"Meditation is the best beginning of prayer, and prayer is the best conclusion of meditation." - George Swinnock from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"The end of study is information, and the end of meditation is practice, or a work upon the affections. Study is like a winter sun, that shines, but warms not: but meditation is like a blowing upon the fire, where we do not mind the blaze, but the heat. The end of study is to hoard up truth; but of meditation to lay it forth in conference or holy conversation." - Thomas Manton from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"Singing God's praise is a work of the most meditation of any we perform in public. It keeps the heart longest upon the thing spoken. Prayer and hearing pass quick from one sentence to another; this sticks long upon it." - John Lightfoot from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"What is the reason there is so much preaching and so little practice? For want of meditation. . . . Constant thoughts are operative, and musing make the fire burn. Green wood is not kindled by a flash or spark, but by constant blowing." - Thomas Manton from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"There are two things that make meditation hard. The one is, because men are not used thereunto....and another is, because they do not love God enough. Everything is hard at the first: writing is hard at the first. There is nothing not hard to those that are unwilling. There is nothing hard to those that love, love makes all things easy. Is it a hard thing for a lover to think or meditate on the person loved?" - William Bridge from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"The sweet spices of divine works must be beaten to powder by meditation, and then laid up in the cabinet of our memories." - Abraham Wright from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"I will conclude with that excellent saying of Bernard: "Lord, I will never come away from Thee without Thee." Let this be a Christians resolution, not to leave off his meditations of God till he find something of God in him." - Thomas Manton from A Puritan Golden Treasury

"To believe a thing is to see the cool crystal water sparkling in the cup. But to meditate on it is to drink of it. Reading gathers the clusters; but contemplation squeezes forth their generous juice." - C. H. Spurgeon from Spurgeon At His Best

"I would to God that after every sermon all my hearers, young and old, had a quarter of an hour alone! A night of wakeful thought over it would be better still." - C. H. Spurgeon from Spurgeon At His Best

"Faith gathers the handfuls of sacred corn from which contemplation threshes out the ears and prepares soul-sustaining bread." - C. H. Spurgeon from Quoting Spurgeon

"Love to God will induce meditation. Neglect of meditation argues want of love." - C. H. Spurgeon from Quoting Spurgeon

"True fathers in grace meditate upon Christ; they feed upon Scripture, press the juice of it, and inwardly enjoy the flavor of it." - C. H. Spurgeon from Quoting Spurgeon

"Meditation and careful thought exercise us and strengthen the soul for the reception of the yet more lofty truths. . . .Our Lord wishes us to be good slingers, and he puts up some precious truth in a lofty place where we cannot get it down except by slinging at it; and, at last, we hit the mark and find food for our souls. Then have we the double benefit of learning the art of meditation and partaking of the sweet truth which it has brought within our reach. We must meditate, brothers. These grapes will yield no wine till we tread upon them. These olives must be put under the wheel, and pressed again and again, that the oil may flow therefrom." - C. H. Spurgeon from Quoting Spurgeon