Quotes
Quotes about Wonder
Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children's faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup.
It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
The ignorant man marvels at the exceptional; the wise man marvels at the common; the greatest wonder of all is the regularity of nature.
Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.
It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.
People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold.
Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream. The irregular houses were like the broken exteriors of cliffs lining deep gulches and winding streams. Some were mountainous; some lay in long, monotonous rows like, the basalt precipices hanging over desert canons. Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city. But into this background were cut myriads of brilliant parallelograms and circles and squares through which glowed many colored lights. And out of the violet and purple depths ascended like the city's soul, sound and odors and thrills that make up the civic body. There arose the breath of gaiety unrestrained, of love, of hate, of all the passions that man can know. There below him lay all things, good or bad, that can be brought from the four corners of the earth to instruct, please, thrill, enrich, elevate, cast down, nurture or kill. Thus the flavor of it came up to him and went into his blood.
"Niagara! wonder of this western world, And half the world beside! hail, beauteous queen Of cataracts!" An angel who had been O'er heaven and earth, spoke thus, his bright wings furled, And knelt to Nature first, on the wild cliff unseen.
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
October is a fine and dangerous season in America . . . a wonderful time to begin anything at all.
Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence-- Some to kill canters in the musk-rose buds, Some war with reremice for their leathren wings, To make my small elves coats, and some keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits.
If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof.
If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. -Rachel Carson.
We Are The Living Graves Of Murdered Beasts We are the living graves of murdered beasts Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites We never pause to wonder at our feasts If animals, like men, can possibly have rights We pray on Sundays that we may have light To guide our footsteps on the path we tread We're sick of war We do not want to fight The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead Like carrion crows we live and feed on meat Regardless of the suffering and pain We cause by doing so. If thus we treat Defenseless animals for sport or gain How can we hope in this world to attain the PEACE we say we are so anxious for We pray for it o'er hecatombs of slain To God, while outraging the moral law Thus cruelty begets its offspring: war.
There is nothing more wonderful than freedom of speech.
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em. [Lat., Libertas et natale solum.]
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Sometimes you wonder how you got on this mountain. But sometimes you wonder, "How will I get off?".
I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit.
We trained hard - but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full Possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,-- I am perplext, and often stricken mute. Wondering which attained the higher bliss, The wing'd insect, or the chrysalis It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
The closing of a door can bring blessed privacy and comfortâthe opening, terror. Conversely, the closing of a door can be a sad and final thingâthe opening a wonderfully joyous moment.
A wonderful discovery--psychoanalysis. Makes quite simple people feel they're complex.
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.
When chickens quit quarrelling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them. I wonder if it might not be the same with the human race.
