quotations and passages on wonder

The world is full of wonders and miracles
but people take their little hands and
cover their eyes and see nothing.

Israel Baal Shem

There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal,
and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who
was a child too, and his constant companion. These two
used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty
of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness
of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water;
they wondered at the goodness and the power
of God who made the lovely world.

Charles Dickens

If I had influence with
the good fairy who is
supposed to preside over
the christening of all
children, I should ask
that her gift to each
child in the world be a
sense of wonder so
indestructible that it
would last throughout
life as an unfailing
antidote against the
boredom and disenchantment
of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things
that are artificial, the
alienation from the
sources of our strength.

Rachel Carson

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its
own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when
one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous
structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend
a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Albert Einstein

One of my fondest memories from childhood is of looking at a globe
with my father. "What's the biggest country?" he'd ask me
and my sister. We'd spin the globe around and guess. . . .
The globe brought me a sense of wonder and adventure. I wanted
to go to those other places and see how people did things differently.
And, many years later, when I did visit other countries, I took
my father's interest and fascination with me. When we plant the
seeds of fascination and respect for other people,
we are teaching tolerance and peace.

Charlotte Davis Kasl

Every time I jog through the world, I am awed by what I find.
On a winter morning, when it seems too cold and slippery for
safe jogging or bicycling, I can still go out and experience the
glory of sunlight turning icy branches into strings of sparkling diamonds.

Bernie Siegel

Everything is extraordinarily clear. I see the whole landscape
before me, I see my hands, my feet, my toes, and I smell the rich
river mud. I feel a sense of tremendous strangeness
and wonder at being alive. Wonder of wonders.

the Buddha

We are here to feel, wonder and gaze in awe at the world.
Instead of just teaching our children how to use things
and do things, I suggest we nourish their sense of wonder.

Bernie Siegel

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of the human being's desire to understand.

Neil Armstrong

It was through the feeling of wonder that people now and at first began to philosophize.

Aristotle

Stuff your eyes with wonder. . . live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Ray Bradbury

Those who wonder discover that this in itself is wonder.

M.C. Escher

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People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

St. Augustine

If a child is to keep alive his or her
inborn sense of wonder, he or she
needs the companionship of at least
one adult who can share it, rediscovering with the child the joy, excitement
and mystery of the world we live in.

Rachel Carson

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life-- learn some
and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance
and play and work every day some.

Robert Fulghum

The job of a teacher is to excite in the young a boundless sense
of curiosity about life, so that the growing child shall come to
apprehend it with an excitement tempered by awe and wonder.

John Garrett

Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose,
bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and
astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.

Eugene Ionesco

The moment one gives a close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious,
awesome, indescribably magnificent world unto itself.

Henry Miller

Life isn't long enough
to do all you could
accomplish. And what
a privilege even to be
alive. In spite of all
the pollutions and horrors,
how beautiful this
world is. Supposing you
only saw the stars
once every year.
Think what you
would think.
The wonder of it!

Tasha Tudor

I am mentally preparing myself for the five-year-old mind.
I want to come down to their physical limitations and
up to their sense of wonder and awe.

Shinichi Suzuki

Invite the Sacred to participate in your joy in little things,
as well as in your agony over the great ones. There are
as many miracles to be seen through a microscope as through
a telescope. Start with little things seen through the
magnifying glass of wonder, and just as a magnifying glass
can focus the sunlight into a burning beam that can
set a leaf aflame, so can your focused wonder set
you ablaze with insight. Find the light in
each other and just fan it.

Alice O. Howell

Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine,
to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance,
to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel
in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Magic is a sudden opening of the mind to the wonder of existence.
It is a sense that there is much more to life than we usually recognize;
that we do not have to be confined by the limited views that our family,
our society, or our own habitual thoughts impose on us; that life
contains many dimensions, depths, textures, and meanings extending
far beyond our familiar beliefs and concepts.

John Welwood

We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.

Thomas Browne

The world will never starve for want
of wonders, but only for want of wonder.

G.K. Chesterton

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge.

Abraham Heschel