Quotes About Awe

The way he looked. Eyes raised up, body tethered by one long thread to the big stormy sky, the whole of him up there with his words, talking to whoever was listening. I've not seen a sight to match it. No bones of his had ever been shoved in a feed bag. The man was a giant.

The next morning, I worked out at Murakami's dojo in Asakusa. When I arrived, the men who were already training paused and gave me a low collective bow—a sign of their respect for the way I had dispatched Adonis. After that, I was treated in a dozen subtle ways with deference that bordered on awe. Even Washio, older than I and with a much longer and deeper association with the dojo, was using different verb forms to indicate that he now considered me his superior.

I don't want to think too much about art, you see. I don't want to attend symposia, listen to papers, or discuss it at cocktail parties ... What I want to do is clutch my heart and fall down when I see it. (Mr. Nannuzzi to Edgar)

I thought of asking her if it freaked her out to look up at night and see the stars and know they go on forever and ever, but didn't bother. I just said no. You get used to marvelous things. You take them for granted. You can try not to, but you do. There's too much wonder, that's all. It's everywhere.

Dark trees leaped across his vision like aghast dancers in the nacreous light.

What about a more abstract sense of "spirituality"? If it consists in gratitude for one's existence, awe at the beauty and immensity of the universe, and humility before the frontiers of human understanding, then spirituality is indeed an experience that makes life worth living—and one that is lifted into higher dimensions by the revelations of science and philosophy.

We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.

All good trips are, like love, about being carried out of yourself and deposited in the midst of terror and wonder.

Only when we try to love God will we see our utter inability to do so. And only when we understand that inability, will we begin to be in awe of His great love toward us.

Take in everything before you and let your eyes be drenched with beauty, and as you love beauty in a reverent way it becomes a sacrament to you.

There is a love of wood, as of other things that do not answer to our touch.

Pode ser avassalador abrirmo-nos à beleza do mundo sobre a qual, em adultos, aplicámos uma demão de simplicidade. Mas, se não fizermos isso – por exemplo, se não estivermos plenamente envolvidos ao passear com um filho –, perdemos a noção da grandeza e do espanto que o mundo sem amarras produz constantemente e reduzimos as nossas vidas à necessidade básica.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

the heavens.[33] If further proof were needed,

It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him.

We are alive, the wolves said. And the world is beautiful.

Maar de zee is eeuwig, rein en onberoerd door het kinderlijke en akelige spel van de mensen. Men heeft uitzicht in de wijde oneindigheid van hemel en water en vergeet. De wind, die de hakenkruisvlag laat wapperen, heeft geen weet van haar. De golf waarin ze weerspiegeld wordt kan niet helpen dat ze wordt ontwijd. Zo dwaas zijn de mensen dat ze zelfs in het aangezicht van deze eeuwigheden niet tot ontzag worden gedwongen.

Oh-my-fucking-God!

It looks just like Rivendell," Aech said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

My first thought was: Holy fucking shit.

We have then, a basic social coin. With awe on one side and shame on the other. The audience senses secret mysteries and powers behind the performance, and the performer senses that his chief secrets are petty ones. As countless folktales and initiation rites show, often the real secret behind the mystery is that there really is no mystery; the real problem is to prevent the audience from learning this too.

When the proportions are too perfect it detracts from a sense of the sublime. (13 January 1857)

Holy ground is dangerous ground.

In a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe.