Quotes About Awe

God does not need our worship. We worship to enlarge our sense of the holy, so that we can feel and know the presence of the Lord, who is with us always. He said, Love is what it amounts to, a loftier love, and pleasure in a loving presence.

Each morning I'm like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes - old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just as remarkable.

You can't hide the thunderbolt. When it hits you, everybody can see it. Christ, man, don't be ashamed of it, some men pray for the thunderbolt. You're a very lucky fellow. - Calo

For a girl with nothing to her name but a parakeet, to have such unwavering belief in the reckoning of evil in the world—a belief I could never bring myself to have, having seen, time and time again, depravity go unchecked—it awed me, and it was some time before I could bring myself to speak.

There it is, he'd say reverentially. The box represents the mysterious threshold between reality and make believe.

Then the bow orchestra began to play an apocalyptically beautiful canon, one of those pieces in which, surely, the composer simply transcribed what was given, and trembled in awe of the hand that was guiding him.

I didn't know the world could be like this ... I've never seen the sky in such a passion of kindness.

Oh my word, three huge ravens just flew gracefully over my head. Beautiful.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

Annie Dillard

The question from agnosticism is, 'who turned on the lights?' The question from faith is 'whatever for?' Thoreau climbed Mount Katahdin and gives vent to an almost outraged sense of the reality of the things of this world: "I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries- think of our life in nature-daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,- rocks, trees, wind!

It was a moment of equal parts anxiety and awe, like the striking of a wide seam of gold. The prospector sinks to his knees--he's only been looking for coal. At a gush of oil he'd hoot, baptize himself and buy the drinks. But the sight of gold is different. He observes a moment's silence. Then he rises, eyes watering. How to get it properly out of the earth? How not to be robbed in the meantime?

Everybody should come here. Everyone should see how complicated, how deeply troubled, and yet at the same time, beautiful and awesome the world can be. Everyone should experience, even as the clouds gather, what's at stake, what could be lost, what's still here.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he 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

CHAPTER XXVII 'WONDERFUL BIRD!

Pues mi ser es bello pero espantoso. Y sólo es bello porque es espantoso.

Who, however, is in doubt 'and' awe (thaumázein) about a matter doesn't believe in the thing to begin with. That is why the friend of Stories (mÅ·thos) is also in a certain way a philosopher; because the Story arises out of awe.' (Aristotle's Metaphysics: Book I. Part II)

It was the first time the features and formative processes of the desert had made me pause and absorb just how small and brave we are, we the human race.

Here was the same sense of awe and mystery, and the sadness of the irrevocably vanished past. Yet the scale here was so much greater, both in time and in space, that the mind was unable to do it justice; after a while, it ceased to respond. Norton wondered if, sooner of later, he would take even Rama for granted.

He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand.

But at least we have answered one ancient question. We are not alone. The stars will never again be the same to us.

There was awe, and there was also incredulity—sheer disbelief that the dead Moon, of all worlds, could have sprung this fantastic surprise.

My God -- it's full of stars! -Dave Bowman.

The thing's hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God!—it's full of stars!