Quotes About Wonder

Frank Cottrell Boyce

Sweetes' li'l' feller—Everybody knows;Dunno what ter call 'im,But he's mighty lak' a rose!

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time

But here is where the gods are, speculating, bemused.

You want proof there's a God? Look outside, watch a sunset.

Why are numbers beautiful? It's like asking why Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is beautiful. If you don't see why, someone can't tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.

Somewhere between the sterile, absolute, and empty formulae of reductionist, totalitarian science and the earnest, hostile, excessively certain make-believe of religious fundamentalism, there is a beautiful place. There is room in this place for honesty. For tenderness. For fury. For wonder. For hope. For mistakes. For paradox. For grace.

It would be agreeable to conclude this book with a cheery fanfare about science closing in, slowly but surely, on the ultimate mystery; but the time for rosy rhetoric is not yet at hand. The orign of life appear to me as incomprehensible as ever, a matter for wonder but not for explication.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny.

There are many ways to process, organize, and spread information, and it is only recently that science has become open-minded enough to treat all these different methods with wonder and amazement rather than dismissal and denial. So,

The science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov reportedly once said, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny.

I stop there, for who can tell me what beauty is?

You gave me in secret one thing to perceive, the tall blue starry strangeness of being here at all.

A child who has never fantasized about having other parents is seriously lacking in imagination.

Damn queer," he announced. "But lots of things damn queer. Damn queer that Moon looks just same size as Sum. Damn queer that I'm here, isn't it so?

Damn queer," he announced. "But lots of things damn queer. Damn queer that Moon looks just same size as Sun. Damn queer that I'm here, isn't it so?

It's good to be curious about many things.

Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence...And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives

I don't think we give that gift anymore (the gift of silence). I'm very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. In noise, rather than silence…how do we encourage reflection? Oh my, this is a noisy world. I get up every morning at least by 5AM. I have a couple hours of quiet time, reflect about what it is important. What can we do, to encourage people to have more quiet in their lives, more silence? Real revelation comes through silence.

I was walking this far off the ground,' Rogers said, smiling at the memory and holding his hand a foot above the floor. 'You know, there are special times and there are extra special times. I feel that the real drama of life is never center stage, it's always in the wings. It's never with the spotlight on, it's usually something that you don't expect at all.

The child is in me still and sometimes not so still.

It is always tempting to wonder what would have happened if … or if not. Usually it is a futile exercise, for what might have been is the greatest of all the mysteries.

The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.

A silent man is easily reputed wise. A man who suffers none to see him in the common jostle and undress of life, easily gathers round him a mysterious veil of unknown sanctity, and men honor him for a saint. The unknown is always wonderful.