“The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.”

— Richard Dawkins, book Unweaving the Rainbow

[1998, Unweaving the Rainbow, London, Allen Lane, 9780713992144, 18827466M, Preface]
Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capa…" by Richard Dawkins?

Richard Dawkins322

English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

Related quotes

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to California student E. Holzapfel (March 1951) Einstein Archive 59-1013, p. 57
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

“The longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for-and dying for, if need be-is the opportunity of making someone else more happy.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

“A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings. Of this awful truth no person has lived to my age without seeing abundant proof.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to his daughter Sarah Mason McCarty after the death of an infand daughter (10 February 1785), published in The Life of George Mason, 1725-1792 Vol. 2 (1892) by Kate Mason Rowland, p. 74
Context: A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings. Of this awful truth no person has lived to my age without seeing abundant proof. Your dear baby has died innocent and blameless, and has been called away by an all wise and merciful Creator, most probably from a life of misery and misfortune, and most certainly to one of happiness and bliss.

“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 142

“The future depends on us taking a different approach. One in which we can all express ourselves and contribute to society by using our unique imagination and talent. It’s our brains not our brawn that makes us special and life worth living. Artists had that worked out a long time ago.”

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

Think Like an Artist (2015)

“Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts — as the one which, more than any other, ministers to human welfare.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

On the Origin and Function of Music
Essays on Education (1861)

“No matter how much experience we may gather in life, we can never in life get the dimension of experience that the imagination gives us. Only the arts and sciences can do that, and of these, only literature gives us the whole sweep and range of human imagination as it sees itself.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 4: The Keys To Dreamland

“Macrobiotic living is the process of changing ourselves so that we can eat anything we like without fear of becoming ill; it enables us to live a joyful life during which we can achieve anything we choose.”

George Ohsawa (1893–1966) twentieth century Japanese philosopher

Source: Essential Ohsawa - From Food to Health, Happiness to Freedom - Understanding the Basics of Macrobiotics (1994), p. 82

“One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected…There is so much history that we have not validated.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

On her worldly view of poetry in “Poet Lucille Clifton: 'Everything Is Connected'” https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124113507 in NPR (2010 Feb 28)

“To truly esteem oneself means that one must be capable of feeling shame or self-disgust when one does not live up to a certain standard”

Francis Fukuyama (1952) American political scientist, political economist, and author

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Richard Dawkins322

Related quotes

Related topics