Astonishment Quotes

“Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.”
― Baruch De Spinoza, Ethics

“We are both astonishments, the closest thing in the known universe to a miracle”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.”
― Celia Green

“This did not in any way alter her intention of accomplishing her mission; on the contrary; it seemed to her all the more desperately important now that she was almost certain, in her innermost heart, that her trip was a failure. Her attitude was not an astonishing one, since like many others she conceived of her life as separate from herself; the road was laid out always a little ahead of her by scared hands, and she walked down it without a question. This road, which was her life, would go on existing after her death, even as her death existed while she still lived.”
― Jane Bowles, My Sister's Hand in Mine: The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

“It's always new and astonishing when it's yours”
― Robin Sloan, Sourdough

“My good fellow,” said Mesnil, stopping, “ever since the creation of the world there have been men like me specially intended to astonish men...men like you.”
― Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Les Diaboliques

“Dandies, who – as you know - scorn all emotions as being beneath them, and do not believe, like that simpleton Goethe, that astonishment can ever be a proper feeling for the human mind.”
― Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, The Crimson Curtain

“Very few, even among those who have taken the keenest interest in the progress of the revolution in natural knowledge set afoot by the publication of the 'Origin of Species'; and who have watched, not without astonishment, the rapid and complete change which has been effected both inside and outside the boundaries of the scientific world in the attitude of men's minds towards the doctrines which are expounded in that great work, can have been prepared for the extraordinary manifestation of affectionate regard for the man, and of profound reverence for the philosopher, which followed the announcement, on Thursday last, of the death of Mr Darwin.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley, Collected Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley

“Witness each moment in astounded jubilation. Take every holy breath in gratitude. Rejoice in life!”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“When the unexpected meets with the unprepared, over there we find the greatest astonishments!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“A Permeable Life is about what presses out from the heart, what comes in at a slant and what shimmers below the surface of things. To live permeably is to be open-hearted and audacious, to risk showing up as our truest self, and embracing a willingness to be astonished.”
― Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays

“Once in a blue moon life will blow you a rarity and it will leave you with astonishment.”
― Giovannie de Sadeleer

“Your total intelligence knows how to accomplish astounding feats. You just need a clear objective. Get clear. You will surprise yourself!”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“A godly life is lived out of an astonished heart—a heart that is astonished at grace.”
― John Piper

“When you see something excellent or something very beautiful, a silent astonishment will be the greatest word one can ever say to celebrate this excellence!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The world is sometimes too much for Bit, too full of terror and beauty. Every day he finds himself squeezed under a new astonishment. The universe pulses outward at impossible speeds. Bit feels its spin into nothing.”
― Lauren Groff, Arcadia

“Говорил он мало. Только просил пить и все чему-то удивлялся.
Удивился чему-то, потянулся и помер.
("Алёша Горшок", Л.Н. Толстой)”
― Tolstoy, Leo

“Flash after flash across the horizon:
Tourists trying to take the Grand Canyon
By night. They don’t know
Every last shot will turn out black.

It takes Rothko sixty years to arrive
At the rim of his canyon.
He goes there only after dark.
As he stands at the railing, his pupils open
Like a camera shutter at the slowest speed.

He has to be patient. He has to lean
Far over the railing
To see the color as of darkness:
Purple, numb brown, mud-red, mauve
-an abyss of bruises.
At first, you’d think it was black on black
Something you son’t want to look at, he says

As he waits,
The colors vibrate in the chasm
Like voices:
You there with the eyes,
Bring back something from
The brink of nothing
to make us see.”
― Chana Bloch

“One ought to pretend that there is still hope, in this late season, for astonishment.”
― Dexter Palmer, Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

“David shook his head in astonishment. Steve had not lost his flair for words, he thought. Not even in a Zombie Apocalypse.”
― Jason Medina, The Manhattanville Incident: An Undead Novel

“Mortals: meet
the empty air,
arias carved
out of rocks beyond
our puny clock
philosophy.”
― Thea Gavin

“The works of nature are so diversified as everywhere to strike a reflecting mind with astonishment. Opposites are often combine in the same animal.”
― W.I. Bicknell

“That which wrings the lonesome cry into delight, that which comes as a call of the wild winds, that which dulls every word and weds your soul to an ecstasy, 'astonishment' is its name......”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

“There is a wonder deeper than the pleasures, there is an awe far-reaching than the contempt and it is the root of the root of astonishment that gathers as an art on a canvas or as a song on the lips....”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

“But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment . . .”
― Linda Pastan

“You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

-Annie Dillard”
― Kevin Fedarko, A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon