Quotes About Awe

When my foot was on the sands and my face towards the broad, bright bay, no language can describe the effect of the deep, clear azure of the sky and ocean, the bright morning sunshine on the semicircular barrier of craggy cliffs surmounted by green swelling hills, and on the smooth, wide sands, and the low rocks out at sea—looking, with their clothing of weeds and moss, like little grass-grown islands—and above all, on the brilliant, sparkling waves. 

Wonder takes our breath away, and makes room for new breath. That's why they call it breathtaking.

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we're finally starting to get somewhere. It is so much more comfortable to think that we know what it all means, what to expect and how it all hangs together. When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it's down to a manageable size and then to file it nicely away, when all we can say in response is "Wow," that's a prayer.

This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of—please forgive me—wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds.

When Sam was six or so, he explained to me why we call God God: Because when you see something so great, you just go, 'God!

Help, Thanks, Wow

This is our goal as writers, I think: to help others have this sense of wonder, of seeing things anew, things that catch us off-guard, that break in our small bordered worlds. When this happens everything feels more spacious.

Life is way wilder than I am comfortable with, way farther out, as we used to say, more magnificent, more deserving of awe and, I would add, more benevolent—well-meaning, kindly.

Where inside them does awe arise? Soul is a place- the innermost Russian nesting doll.

It stops and gasps at beauty and is bathed in it. And sometimes it begins to weep.

In my heart I do have a fear...I long to grow more godly with each passing day. Call it the fear of the Lord, being in awe of Him and scared to death of any sin that would mar my life.

I'd thought I knew what beauty was in women; but she'd surpassed all the language I had for it.

Why do we weep when we see something beautiful? Why are we weakened by beauty? Why does it break our hearts?

It seemed at moments, when I sat alone in the dark stateroom, that the sky had come down the meet the sea and some great secret was to be revealed.

Stay with me, beauteous stars, I begged, and let me never seek to fathom this fusion of light and sound, but only give myself to it utterly and unquestionably.

Lord save us, first you have a heart, now you have a god? Will wonders never cease?

It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.

Nobody whispers it in your ear. It is like something you memorized once and forgot. Now it comes back and rips away your breath. You find and finger a phrase at a time; you lay it down cautiously, as if with tongs, and wait suspended until the next one finds you: Ah yes, then this; and yes, praise be, then this.

The fight lasts ten or fifteen minutes and then the A-10s show up and tilt into their dives. Ninety rounds a second the size of beer cans unzipping the mountainsides with a sound like the sky ripping. The men look up and whoop when they hear it, a punishment so unnegotiable it might as well have come from God.

A man of scholarly accomplishment is inexpressibly splendid. Though he may be of dreadfully lowly rank and no joy to look at, he fills you with awe and envy at the way he can spend time in the presence of those at the very highest levels, as their tutor,4 and be called on by them for scholarly consultations. It's also splendid to see him praised for his preparation of a dedicatory prayer, or a memorial presented to the throne, or some preface to poetry.

And jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops...

Genuine awe connects us with the world in a new way.

To have the kind of openness that cultivates awe does not mean we have to be credulous and sentimental, but the ironic stance—to act unimpressed because we fear looking foolish—has us experiencing our own lives at a distance. If, instead, we open our hearts to real love, we allow ourselves to feel the wonder of life, which research says is vital to sustaining our connection to the world and to one another.