“… any one who has noticed may have observed that the weeping of grown up persons produces a sensation of awe on the mind of a child. Accustomed to associate the idea of superiority with that of their elders, they cannot understand their giving way to the same emotions as themselves.”
Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)
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Letitia Elizabeth Landon 785
English poet and novelist 1802–1838Related quotes
Emile, or On Education (1762), Book III
History of the Church, 3:381 (27 June 1839)
1830s
"An Unread Book," introduction to The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (Holt, Rinehart, 1965 edition)
General sources
Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5<!-- The sense of the ineffable, p. 88 - 89 -->
Context: Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.
Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908)
“If the child was helpless, was the grown up person, man or woman, in a much better position?”
Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter IV, "Laissez - Faire", p. 46.