The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible. Gabriel Marcel More Quotes by Gabriel Marcel More Quotes From Gabriel Marcel You know you have loved someone when you have glimpsed in them that which is too beautiful to die. Gabriel Marcel knows beautiful love I almost think that hope is for the soul what breathing is for the living organism. Where hope is lacking the soul dries up and withers. Gabriel Marcel breathing soul thinking A mystery is a problem that encroaches upon itself because the questioner becomes the object of the question. Getting to Mars is a problem. Falling in love is a mystery. Gabriel Marcel mars falling-in-love love-is Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics. Gabriel Marcel scent music math Being and having in our society teaches us how to take possession of things, when it should rather initiate us in the art of letting go. For there is neither freedom nor real life without an apprenticeship in letting go. Gabriel Marcel real letting-go art Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and all calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me Gabriel Marcel data principles heart The striking thing about the Precious Blood is the bond it establishes between love and suffering in our experience, a bond that has become so close that we have come to think of suffering accepted with joy as the most authentic sign of love with any depth at all. Gabriel Marcel joy blood thinking I not only have a body; I am this body. Gabriel Marcel body The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction. Gabriel Marcel battle taken philosophy ... freedom is a conquest, always partial, always precarious, always challenged. ... the freest person is the one with the most hope. Gabriel Marcel precarious conquest persons An individual is not distinct from his place. He is his place. Gabriel Marcel individual Contemporary thinkers would say that man is continuously transcending himself. Gabriel Marcel thinker contemporary men Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them. Gabriel Marcel contemplation home men But however measurable, there is much more life in music than mathematics or logic ever dreamed of. Gabriel Marcel logic mathematics But a science is exact to the extent that its method measures up to and is adequate to its object. Gabriel Marcel method adequate objects This detachment (poverty, chastity, etc.) must not be mere amputation; everything which is shaken off must be simultaneously found again at a higher level. Gabriel Marcel amputation poverty levels On a grassroots level we say that man can touch more than he can grasp. Gabriel Marcel grassroots levels men Metaphysics is a science. Gabriel Marcel metaphysics It is right that we be concerned with the scientific probity of metaphysics. Gabriel Marcel probity metaphysics concerned