Quotes about wonder
page 15

“When we chant or say the General Confession we pray that hereafter we may live "a godly, righteous and sober life.” But I wonder sometimes if we are too sober. The impression made by the apostles was that they were drunk; intoxicated with God.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.154

Life, God

“You are drafted and you get Tommy John right away, you have to wonder what are (the Mets) thinking of you then? I was advancing slowly (through the minor leagues). I started seeing guys who were drafted higher than me and signed for more money than me getting released. I was 24 in High-A and you don’t want to think about (finding another career), but I knew I had to prove myself. So I had to figure this out.”

Jacob deGrom (1988) American baseball player

quoted by Kristie Ackert of www.nydailynews.com http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/jacob-degrom-prove-years-success-article-1.3391972

Money, Guy, Thinking

“Why, it's a perfect little city. If you have never been to Durham, go there at once. Take my car. It's wonderful.”

Bill Bryson book Notes from a Small Island

Bill Bryson was later awarded an honorary doctorate and appointed to the position of Chancellor of the University of Durham http://www.dur.ac.uk/news.service/more.php?item_type=news&itemID=829. Notes from a Small Island (1995)

Cars, Perfection

“I’m wondering whose side I ought to be on. I’m getting very sorry for the Devil and his disciples such as the good Le Chiffre. The Devil has a rotten time and I always like to be on the side of the underdog. We don’t give the poor chap a chance. There’s a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but there’s no Evil Book about evil and how to be bad. The Devil has no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parables about evil people, proverbs about evil people, folk-lore about evil people. All we have is the living example of the people who are least good, or our own intuition.
‘So,’ continued Bond, warming to his argument, ‘Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness and we emerge from the acquaintanceship better and more virtuous men.”

Ian Fleming book Casino Royale

Source: Casino Royale (1953), Ch. 20 : The Nature Of Evil

Men, People, Books, Nature

“I can't really hear the audience applause when I'm on stage. I'm totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, "Now, why did they applaud here?" If it's a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it's a pretty movement. If it's a black crowd, it's usually because they identify with the message.”

Judith Jamison (1943) American dancer

WomenSports magazine, p. 14 (September 1975)

Thinking

“As you turned to go I heard you call my name,
You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost," you sang as you flew
And I wondered why.”

Loreena McKennitt (1957) Canadian musician and composer

The Visit (1991), The Old Ways

Way, Bird, Flying

“Here's what I've started thinking: All the wonder of God happens right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God, Thinking, Heart

“That’s the trouble with living in a police state, he said to himself; you think—you imagine—the police are behind everything. You get paranoid and think they’re beaming information to you in your sleep, to subliminally control you. Actually the police wouldn’t do that. The police are our friends.
Or was that idea beamed to me subliminally? he wondered suddenly. “The police are our friends.””

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

The hell they are!
Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 1 (p. 6)

Imagination, Idea, Hell, Thinking

“Disbelieve nothing wonderful concerning the gods, nor concerning divine dogmas.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Symbol 4
The Symbols

God

“The most probable view is that adopted by Nesselmann, that the works which we know under the three titles formed part of one arithmetical work, which was, according to the author's own words, to consist of thirteen Books. The proportion of the lost parts to the whole is probably less than it might be supposed to be. The Porisms form the part the loss of which is most to be regretted, for from the references to them it is clear that they contained propositions in the Theory of Numbers most wonderful for the time.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

Source: Diophantos of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra (1885), Ch. II, p.37

Books, Loss, Time, Parting

“Outbursts blossom in Lapland rapidly
. in earth, in barley, grass, dwarf birches too.
This I have pondered very frequently
when people’s daily lives there I review.

Oh why are all our beautiful ones dying
and why do great ones rot in disarray?
Oh why among us many minds are losing?
Oh why so few the kantele now play?

Oh why here everywhere a man soon crashes
like hay when scythed – ambitious man indeed,
a man of honour, sense – it all soon smashes,
or breaks apart one day in life of need?

Elsewhere, a fire still glints in greying tresses,
in old ones glows still spirit of the sun.
But here our new-born infants death possesses
and youth will grave’s dull earth soon press upon.

And what of me? Why ponder I so sadly?
An early sign, be sure, of grim old age.
Oh why the blood-spent rule keep I not gladly,
but sigh instead at people’s mortal wage?

One answer is there only: Lapland’s summer.
In thinking then my mind is soon distressed.
In Lapland birdsong, joy are short – a glimmer –
as flowers’ blooms and gladness wilt and rest.

But winter’s wrath is only long. Dear moment
when resting thoughts delay and don’t take flight,
in search of lands where blazing sun is potent
and take their leave of Lapland’s icy bite.

Oh, great white birds, you guests of summer Lapland,
with noble thoughts we’ll greet you, when you’re here!
Oh, tarry here among us, build your nests and
a while delay your southern journey near!

Oh, from the swan now learn a lesson wholesome!
They leave in autumn, come back in the spring.
It’s our own peaceful shore that us-wards pulls them,
Our sloping fell’s kind shelter will them bring.

Batter the air with whooping wings and leave us!
Wonders perform, enlighten other lands!
But when you see that winter’s gone relieve us –
I beg, beseech, re-clasp our weary hands!”

Eino Leino (1878–1926) Finnish poet and journalist

Life, Death, People, Youth

“(While smiling, and jokingly) You haven't come to see me for three weeks. I wondered whether you had become disgusted with us war criminals - particularly me, the so-called archcriminal of them all.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Leon Goldensohn, 6/6/46, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

War, Smile

“There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Fireside Travels, At Sea (1864)

Sea

“Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Sick Boy, "Blowing It: Deid Dugs" (Chapter 4, Story 3).
Trainspotting (1993)

“This is the essence of the problem. To Dan Rather and to a lot of other powerful members of the chattering class, that which is right of center is conservative. That which is left of center is middle of the road. No wonder they can't recognize their own bias.”

Bernard Goldberg (1945) American journalist

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News (2001)

Problem

“I have to laugh when the English claim they are such a wonderful nation. Everyone knows that Englishmen are really Germans, that the English kings were German, and that in Russia the emperors were either of German origin or received their education in Germany.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (28 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Education

“Augustus Fagan, Esquire, Ph. D., Llanabba Castle, N. Wales, requires immediately junior assistant to teach Classics and English to University Standard with subsidiary Mathematics, German and French. Experience essential; first-class games essential…
'Might have been made for you,' said Mr Levy.
'But I don't know a word of German, I've had no experience, I've got no testimonials, and I can't play cricket.'
'It doesn't do to be too modest,' said Mr Levy. 'It's wonderful what one can teach when one tries..”

Evelyn Waugh book Decline and Fall

Part One, Chapter One
Decline and Fall (1928)

Game, Mathematics, Universe, Parting

“Mr. Speaker, I am sure the picture of the hon. member of the NDP [Svend Robinson] is posted in much more wonderful places than just police stations.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

Hansard, October 23, 2002.
2002

“They say money don't stink," he said. "I sometimes wonder.”

Raymond Chandler book Farewell, My Lovely

Source: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), chapter 34

Money

“I asked a women I was with once, simple question, I asked her 'Have you ever eaten pheasant?' See, it's direct, isn't it?! It's enclosed, it contains everything that needs to be said! And she said a wonderful thing. She said "Erm…"—she thought about it—and she said "Er, not really." What does that mean? On any level? I mean, did you suck it and throw it away? Did someone drop it in your drink? What happened? Was it a speeding car, one lick? WHAT, WHAT?!?!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On women.
Monster (2004)

Women, Cars, Drink, Question

“First
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.
Second
Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"First Child . . . Second Child"
Versus (1949)

Boy, Past, Perfection

“Once upon a time a young man of American background thought he had discovered the Great Secret, the Skeleton Key to the Cosmos, the Absolute Answer to the Age Old Question asked by every Wizard, and Alchemist and Mystic that ever peered curiously into the Perplexing Heavens, by every Doctor and Scientist and Explorer that ever wondered about the Winding Ways of this world, by every Philosopher and Holyman and Politician that ever listened for the Mysterious Song beneath the beat of the Human Heart… the answer to "What Makes It All Go?"”

Ken Kesey book Kesey's Garage Sale

Kesey's Garage Sale (1973)

Secret, Age, World, Way

“Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.”

Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) English novelist

The Journals of Arnold Bennett, ed. Newman Flower (pub. Cassell, 1932)

Reading, Personality

“Once I got into it, I (realized) in this medium, you can use musical theater to connect and make a dream come true, like fly on stage. Through stagecraft you can wow (the audience) and make them feel that sense of wonder. … You’re singing, you’re dancing, and you’re performing a feat of wonder. I couldn’t stop thinking in those terms. There was so much potential.”

Misty Lee (1976) Magician, voice actress, comedian

Mt. Clemens native Misty Lee hangs with Houdini, Princess Leia, Spidey https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/2016/10/22/misty-lee-magician-voice-actress/92484578/ (October 22, 2016)

Dreams, Music, Feeling, Thinking

“And we wonder why we have problems with homelessness in our country. We wonder why we're floundering in education. We have got to take a look at reversing the priorities of this country.”

Yolanda King (1955–2007) American actress

Statements made as she condemned military action in the Persian Gulf http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19910118&slug=1261445 1990s

Education, Problem, Country

“Tell me, suit, don’t you wonder if it’s all worth it?’
“If what’s all worth what?” it says, and I can hear that condescending tone in its voice again.
“You know; living. Is it worth all the… bother?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t ever wonder about it.”
“Why not?” I’m keeping my questions short as we walk, conserving energy and breath.
“I don’t need to wonder about that. It’s not important.”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

“Not important?”
“It’s an irrelevant question. We live; that’s enough.”
“Descendant” (p. 44)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)

Question

“Since it's not considered polite, and surely not politically-correct to come out and actually say that greed gets wonderful things done, let me go through a few of the millions of examples of the benefits of people trying to get more for themselves. There's probably widespread agreement that it's a wonderful thing that most of us own cars. Is there anyone who believes that the reason we have cars is because Detroit assembly line workers care about us? It's also wonderful that Texas cattle ranchers make the sacrifices of time and effort caring for steer so that New Yorkers can have beef on their supermarket shelves. It is also wonderful that Idaho potato growers arise early to do back-breaking work in the hot sun to ensure that New Yorkers also have potatoes on their supermarket shelves. Again, is there anyone who believes that ranchers and potato growers, who make these sacrifices, do so because they care about New Yorkers? They might hate New Yorkers. New Yorkers have beef and potatoes because Texas cattle ranchers and Idaho potato growers care about themselves and they want more for themselves. How much steak and potatoes would New Yorkers have if it all depended on human love and kindness? I would feel sorry for New Yorkers. Thinking this way bothers some people because they are more concerned with the motives behind a set of actions rather than the results. This is what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant in The Wealth of Nations when he said, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interests."”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

Love, Hate, People, Cars

“…I wonder if you remember the story mummy read us the evening Sebastian first got drunk - I mean the bad evening. "Father Brown" said something like "I caught him" (the thief) "with an unseen hook and and invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."”

Evelyn Waugh book Brideshead Revisited

This quotes The Queer Feet http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Complete_Father_Brown/chapter3.html by G. K. Chesterton Brideshead Revisited (1945)

World, Reading

“Cause what she's doin' now is tearin' me apart,
Fillin' up my mind and emptyin' my heart.
I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows,
And I wonder if she knows…what she's doin' now.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

What She's Doing Now, written by Pat Alger and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Ropin' the Wind (1991)

Time, Heart

“Like a fool I went and stayed too long,
Now I'm wondering if your love's still strong,
Ooh, baby, here I am,
Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours!”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)
Song lyrics

Love, Fools, Strong, Baby

“I walk beyond town, many of these nights, to stand under the high autumnal stars, look upward and wonder.”

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 16 (p. 176; closing words)

Star, Autumn, Night

“I walk in a cloud of wonder; I am glad.
I mingle among the crowds; my heart is pounding;
You do not guess the adventure I have had!...
Yet you, too, all have had your dark adventures,
Your sudden adventures, or strange, or sweet...
My peril goes out from me, is blown among you.
We loiter, dreaming together, along the street.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Dreams, Heart

“We focus on building innovation and inventing technology futures and we figure that it will take care of the rest. So far, it's done wonders.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

On financial planning at a speech at the Smithsonian.

Future

“"I have one more message for you men, and for the SS goons who skulk in the woods and in the darkness," Eisenhower said. "It's very simple. We are going to stay here as long as it takes to make sure Germany can never again trouble the peace of the world." He probably expected more cheers then. He got… a few. Lou was one of the men who clapped. The guy in the tanker's coveralls edged away, as if afraid he had something contagious. That saddened him without much surprising him. He wondered how many of the others who applauded there were also Jewish. Quite a few, unless he missed his guess. Yes, Eisenhower had looked for more in the way of approval there. He'd acted professionally grim before. Now his eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down. He wasn't just grim any more; he was pissed off.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 63

Men, World, Peace, Way

“The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

Jones' third annual discourse before the Asiatic Society on the history and culture of the Hindus (delivered on 2 February 1786 and published in 1788)

Family, Strong, Perfection

“Tarzan of the Apes, young and savage beast of the jungle, wondered at the cruel brutality of his own kind.
Sheeta, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and merciful death to their victims.
Tarzan had learned from his books but scattered fragments of the ways of human beings.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 11 : "King of the Apes"

Death, Books, Way, Learning

“The sky was aquamarine, stroked with clouds. She could smell the grass and taste the scent of small, crushed flowers. She looked back up over her forehead at the gray-black wall towering behind her, and wondered if the castle had ever been attacked on days like this. Did the sky seem so limitless, the waters of the straits so fresh and clean, the flowers so bright and fragrant, when men fought and screamed, hacked and staggered and fell and watched their blood mat the grass?
Mists and dusk, rain and lowering cloud seemed the better background; clothes to cover the shame of battle.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter Two (pp. 50-51).

Men, Flowers, Grass, Water

“What he had done, how he had chosen to spend his energies, really was science. A way of looking, reverencing. And the purpose of all science, like living, which amounts ot the same thing, was not the accumulations of Gnostic power, fixing of formulas for the names of God, stockpiling brutal efficiency, accomplishing the sadistic myth of progress. the purpose of science was to revive and cultivate a perpetual state of wonder. For nothing deserved wonder so much as our capacity to feel it.”

Richard Powers (1957) novelist

The Goldbug Variations, pg. 611

God, Way, Feeling, Science

“Well, I probably won't get too good grades even without you: I had an argument (completely unrelated – not even pertaining to OS's) with the person here at the university that teaches OS design. I wonder when I'll learn :)”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

1990s, 1991-94

Learning, Universe, Personality

“Our coming-to-be is as mysterious as our ceasing-to-be at death. Can we therefore not derive hope because our ignorance about our origin matches our ignorance about our destiny? Cannot life be lived as a challenging and wonderful adventure that has meaning yet to be discovered?”

John C. Eccles (1903–1997) Australian neurophysioloigst

95
Source: Facing Reality (1970), Ch. 5.

Life, Death, Hope

“"Depa is right: Jedi are insane." "Ever since I came to this planet, people have been telling me how crazy I am. They've told me this so many times that I had started to wonder if it might be true. Now, though, I understand: you don't say this because it's true. Not even because you think it's true. You say it because you hope it's true. Because if I am insane, you aren't really the revolting slime-hearted vermin that, down deep, you know you are."”

Matthew Stover book Shatterpoint

Kar Vastor and Mace Windu, p. 286
Shatterpoint (2004)

People, Hope, Understanding, Thinking

“Out among the big things —
The heights that gleam afar —
A feller gets to wonder
What means each distant star;
He may not get an answer,
But somehow, every night
He feels, among the big things,
That everything’s all right.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

Out Among the Big Things, st. 3. Out Where the West Begins and Other Western Verses http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#outbk (1917)

Feeling, Star, Distant, Night

“I enjoy kids, always have. It’s wonderful to see their reactions, to see their faces light up when you look at the pictures because most kids have been brought up on Star Wars from their parents. It’s just a crazy thing, but it’s wonderful to see the kids and they have fun. It’s one of those things, they either believe it and go, “wow, you really played Chewbacca?” And I say, “Yes.” Having big hands is an ice-breaker. Because you put one hand up against their little hand and see the expression on their face. Amazing.”

Peter Mayhew (1944–2019) British actor

Star Wars Weekends: Peter Mayhew/Chewbacca Interview http://www.disunplugged.com/2009/05/27/star-wars-weekends-peter-mayhewchewbacca-interview/ (May 27, 2009)

War, Star, Parent, Light

“That this House is appalled, but barely surprised, at the revelations in M15 files regarding the bizarre and inhumane proposals to use pigeons as flying bombs; recognises the important and live-saving role of carrier pigeons in two world wars and wonders at the lack of gratitude towards these gentle creatures; and believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again.”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

EDM http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=24837&SESSION=682 (Early Day Motion) 1255 proposed by Tony Banks in the House of Commons, 21 May 2004; quoted by Parliamentary Information Management Service.

War, World, Nature, Housing

“New York, home of the vivisectors of the mind, and of the mentally vivisected still to be reassembled, of those who live intact, habitually wondering about their states of sanity, and home of those whose minds have been dead, bearing the scars of resurrection.”

Muriel Spark (1918–2006) Scottish writer

The Hothouse by the East River (London: Macmillan, 1973) p. 12

Home, Dead

“Ploutos, no wonder mortals worship you:
You are so tolerant of their sins!”

Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC

Source: Elegies, Lines 523-524, as translated by Dorothea Wender.

“Frankly, this is my position: I have been painting for two years, and my only models have been your [ Monet's ] own works; I have been following the wonderful path you broke for us. I have always worked regularly and conscientiously, but without advice or help, for I do not know any impressionist painter who would be able to guide me, living as I am in an environment more or less hostile to what I am doing. And so I fear I may lose my way, and I beg you to let me see you, if only for a short visit. I should be happy to show you five or six studies; perhaps you would tell me what you think of them and give me the advice I need so badly, for the fact is that I have the most horrible doubts, having always worked by myself, without teacher, encouragement, or criticism.”

Paul Signac (1863–1935) French painter

In a letter to Claude Monet, 1880; quoted by Geffroy: Claude Monet, vol. I, p. 175; as quoted by John Rewald, in Georges Seurat', a monograph https://ia800607.us.archive.org/23/items/georges00rewa/georges00rewa.pdf; Wittenborn and Compagny, New York, 1943. p. 15 In 1880 an exhibition of the works of Claude Monet had - as Signac was to say later - 'decided his career,' - and after his first efforts as an impressionist Signac had ventured to appeal to Monet, writing him this sentence in his letter

Hostility, Happiness, Fear, Way

“I wonder how it will read five hundred years from now? — To make a man confess a loving God you burn him!”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

The Heretic (1968)

Love, God, Reading

“He stood unmoving, wondering at his own abrupt and incomprehensible inability to act. He did not fear damnation. Nor did he give a fig for the common opinion of Mankind. There was nothing to stop him but fear alone—fear that his reasoning was wrong.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 17)

Fear

“Nobody is going to Bolero for the plot anyway. They're going for the Good Parts. There are two Good Parts, not counting her naked ride on horseback, which was the only scene in the movie that had me wondering how she did it. The real future of Bolero is in home cassette rentals, where your fast forward and instant replay controls will supply the editing job the movie so desperately needs.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bolero-1984 of Bolero (1 January 1984) Reviews, Half-star reviews

Home, Future, Parting

“She's telling us how to fight ISIS. Just go to her website. She tells you how to fight ISIS on her website. I don't think General Douglas MacArthur would like that too much. … See, you're telling the enemy everything you want to do. No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Life, Thinking, Fight

“I was wondering what made a decent English army officer turn into a desperate revolutionist overnight,” I smiled.
“It happens to many like that,” he said. “I have seen them. But you have to show them so much injustice first… Nobody wants to believe that the world is cruel—or that one’s own kind are cruel. Not to know cruelty is to remain innocent, eh? And we should all like to remain innocent. A revolutionist is a man who, perhaps, fails to keep his innocence but so desperately wants it back that he seeks to create a world where all shall be innocent in that way.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 3, Chapter 7 “Project NFB” (p. 135)
Oswald Bastable, The Warlord of the Air (1971)

World, Smile, Way

“Catherine announced that he died of hemorrhoidal colic, and people who went to the funeral wondered why, in that case, the large bandage was tied around his neck. And that, gentle reader, is what comes from playing with dolls at the wrong time.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Catherine the Great

People, Time

“I’ve always wondered if people who block each other from expressing their opinions do so because they have so little confidence in their own. To me, encountering an opposing point of view is a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the issues at stake… and develop my own point of view. But the first thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to let people speak and you’ve got to listen. And that’s what the first amendment is all about. That’s what really distinguishes this country from others.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://ww.tufts.edu/home/feature/?p=commencement2007&p4=4
Speaking Out

People, Confidence, Understanding, Chance

“Take care of him. And make him feel important. And if you can do that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage…Like two out of every ten couples.”

Neil Simon (1927–2018) playwright, writer, academic

Mother, in Barefoot in the Park (1963); cited from The Collected Plays of Neil Simon (New York: New American Library, 1986) vol. 1, p. 207

Marriage, Happiness, Feeling

“I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely; if I am tired and dejected from a night of lies or booze or sex or just nerves and insomnia, I can almost smell the disaster mounting invisibly and flooding out toward me through the frosted glass panes. My hands may perspire, and my voice may come out strange. I wonder why. Something must have happened to me sometime.”

Joseph Heller book Something Happened

Opening Lines
Something Happened (1974)

Sex, Night

“He's a wonderful talker, who has the art
Of telling you nothing in a great harangue.”

Molière The Misanthrope

C'est un parleur étrange, et qui trouve toujours
L'art de ne vous rien dire avec de grands discours.
Act II, sc. iv
Le Misanthrope (1666)

Art

“"Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn't be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wanna-be goth you probably met at Pandemonium. After I spent the past three days wondering if you were dead."
"I was not shacking up," Clary said, glad of the darkness as the blood rushed to her face.
"And my hair is naturally blond," said Jace. "Just for the record."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Simon, Clary, and Jace, pg. 115
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Nature, Past, Dead

“There are no set forms of high treason in history; whoever provokes one power in the state to conflict with another is certainly a revolutionist, but he may at the same time be a sagacious and praiseworthy statesman. ]]*He Sertorius regarded his army as a Roman one, and filled the officers' posts, without exception, with Romans. With reference to the Spaniards he was the governor, who by virtue of his office levied troops and other support from them; but he was a governor who, instead of exercising the usual despotic sway, endeavoured to attach the provincials to Rome and to himself personally. His chivarlrous character rendered it easy for him to enter into Spanish habits, and excited in the Spanish nobility the most ardent enthusiasm for the wonderful foreigner who had a spirit so kindred with their own.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Part 1. Pg.20. Translated by W.P Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Exercises, History, Support, Time

“Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Act IV, scene i.
Œdipus (1679)

Life, Fate, Autumn, Winter

“The bare bones of my life are almost unbearable. I was born during the First World War. I spent my adolescence in the Depression, and when I came of age, I was involved in the Second World War. That sounds a pretty horrible series of events. They seem perfectly natural to me. I prize the Depression, for instance, because I learned the value of things in the Depression that a way people who don't have to worry about such things never learned to prize it really, I believe. And the Second World War was a wonderful thing to be with. It's now called "the Good War." We usually referred to it as "this damned war."”

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) Novelist, historian

We didn't think of it as a good war. We did believe it was fought in a good cause.
Interview for the Academy of Achievement, 1999

Life, War, People, Age

“Death in the wood,—
In the death-pale lips apart;
Death in a whiteness that curdled the blood,
Now black to the very heart:
The wonder by her was formed
Who stands supreme in power;
To show that life by the spirit comes
She gave us a soulless flower!”

Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) American novelist, poet

Indian Pipe, Stanza 4; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 391.

Life, Death, Flowers, Heart

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes (1996)

Happiness, Childhood

“Abdulla Khan Uzbeg’s force of 12,000 horse and 20,000 foot destroyed, in the Kalpi-Kanauj area alone, all towns, took all their goods, their wives and children as slaves and beheaded and ‘immortered’ (fixed heads with mortar in walls and pillars) the chiefest of their men. No wonder he once declared that “I made prisoners of five lacs of men and women and sold them. They all became Muhammadans. From their progeny there will be crores by the day of judgement.””

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Shah Nawaz Khan, Maasir-ul-Umara, I, 105. quoted from K.S. Lal, Muslim slave system in medieval India, chapter 6
Generals under the command of Jahangir

Women, Men, Children, Horse

“What takes place within the structure of the leaf, then, with the aid of the wonderful green workmen, is this: A certain number of molecules of water, brought to the leaf from root and stem, are taken in hand and compounded with a certain number of molecules of carbon extracted from the air that has been brought into the leaf laboratory through its mouths or stomata from the outside atmosphere.
When the compound has been effected, we still have the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen that composed the water molecules and the atoms of carbon, but they are so marvelously put together that they no longer constitute the liquid water or the gas in which the carbon was imported. They now constitute an altogether new substance which is termed sugar.
Thus only three elements are dealt with and these very familiar ones. It would seem as if almost any chemist should be able to manage a simple combination like that. But… no human chemist knows how to manage it. There are forces to be invoked in effecting that combination of which no chemist has any knowledge.
Only the chlorophyll grains in the plant leaf have learned the secret, and up to the present they have kept their secret well.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921) Vol. 5 Gardening

Secret, Knowledge, Learning, Water

“I just want to congratulate Kumar again on a wonderful career. I have spoken a lot about him, everyone has, in the last week, but I can't help saying it again that it has been an absolute pleasure playing with you.”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Virat Kohli, "Virat Kohli Says it Has Been a Pleasure Playing With Kumar Sangakkara" http://sports.ndtv.com/sri-lanka-vs-india-2015/news/247470-virat-kohli-says-it-has-been-a-pleasure-playing-with-kumar-sangakkara, August 24, 2015. About

Pleasure, Help

“And fully in keeping with the demagogic prejudices of the party, no A. R. F leader would seriously propose participating cooperatively in the struggle of the people of w:Turkey against the fascist regime there… While the A. R. F. reprints maps showing the borders of a supposed "Armenia" proposed in the unratified w:Treaty of Sèvres, the party's literature ignores the native population within the borders of this "Armenia." It should be pointed out that this population, consisting of w:Kurds, Turks, Lazes and others, exceeds six million. One wonders what kind of Armenia the A. R. F. envisions in which Armenians will be an absolute—if not minuscule—minority…”

Monte Melkonian (1957–1993) National Hero of Armenia

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 57.

People, Literature

“She walked down the aisle with all eyes on her and she glowed
Someone chose her above all other women they had known
I can only wonder what it must be like to be
so perfect in a lover's eyes, the only one they see Well, it’s never been me, the chosen one
It’s never been me
If ever I see a chosen one I feel ugly”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"Chosen One" - Live performance at The Tin Angel, Philadelphia PA (29 January 2005) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt4PTtcVh5s Find Me (2007)

Women, Feeling, Lovers, Perfection

“Maula Bakhsh, a peasant, lives in Tamil Nadu and speaks Tamil. In Andhra Pradesh he speaks Telugu. In Bengal, his language is Bengali. Do we think of such a Muslim for whom I have invented the name Maula Bakhsh. Jinnah, Khaliquz Zaman, Maulana Azad, the Aga Khan, M. C. Chagla and the Raja of Mehmudabad… were Muslims. So was Hakku, the elderly grandmother of our locality. She prays 5 times a day. She was so deeply moved by one of Gandhi's speeches that she would repeat his name after Allah and His Prophet. At the age of 70, she stitched her own khadi kafan, because she did not want her body to be wrapped and then buried in a foreign cloth. So when people discuss India's Muslims, I wonder who are they talking about. Maula Bakhsh? Jinnah and Co.? Or Hakku?”

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (1914–1987) Film director, Screenwriter, Novelist, Journalist

'Maula Bakhsh bhi ek Hindustani Mussalman hai', Gagan, in Urdu (Bombay: Mussalman Number, 1975), pp. 96-7 http://web.archive.org/web/20011006030417/http://website.lineone.net/~jon.simmons/roy/010929ij.htm Legacy of a Divided Nation: India's Muslims Since Independence by Mushirul Hasan (1997) C. Hurst & Co. Publishers ISBN 1850653046

People, Age, Thinking, Time

“There are basically three formations of the argument by the Republicans: First, they start by making stuff up. You kind of have to wonder if any of them actually read the bill: 137 new agencies — not true; new IRS agents - not true; 'death panels' - not true; Members aren't covered — not true; no tort reform in it — not true. You know, I want to just advise people watching at home playing that now popular drinking game of you take a shot whenever the Republicans say something that's not true, please assign a designated driver. This is going to be a long afternoon.”

Anthony Weiner (1964) American politician

Speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijmgZGtvkxg on the floor of the House, on Republicans' statements on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (January 19, 2011)

Death, People, Home, Game

“There may have been times when I wondered if there might be a God, but it always seemed to me wildly implausible that a God worth worshipping could allow the Holocaust to occur.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Interview with the Jewish Chronicle https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/interviews/peter-singer-is-he-really-the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world-1.34980, Dan Goldberg, 16 August, 2012.

God, Time

“Ravens and crows. Rats. Mists and clouds. Insects and corruption. Strange events and odd occurences. The ordinary twisted and strange. Wonders. The dead are beginning to walk and some see them. Others do not, but more and more, we all fear the night. These have been our days. They rain upon us beneath a dead sky, crushing us with their fury, until as one, we beg, "Let it begin."”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Journal of the Unknown Scholar, entry for the Feast of Freia, 1000 NE
(27 October 2009)

Fear, Night, Dead

“What do I want to take home from my summer vacation? Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

Life, Home, Thinking, Time

“One crosses the brink of literalness into poetry by desiring, noticing, fixing on something and wondering what to make of it.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

Review of 'Stanley Cavell and the Claim to Reason' Critical Inquiry, vol 6, no 4 Summer 1980 U of C P

“I never thought of it (becoming a classic). It never occurred to me. I was going to be happy if it had a good, strong run, if it was a popular film. I thought it would run its course and that would be that. But it just kept rolling along and it keeps rolling along, and generation after generation keeps showing up to see it. It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of something that means so much to so many people and that just keeps thriving.”

Christopher Lloyd (1938) American actor

Christopher Lloyd Interview http://www.startrek.com/article/christopher-lloyd-interview (October 22, 2010)

Happiness, People, Strong, Parting

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into my home, a place that while drifting helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean I wondered if I would ever see again.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 193

Feeling, Home, Forgetting

“We have only started on our development of our country — we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the surface. The progress has been wonderful enough — but when we compare what we have done with what there is to do, then our past accomplishments are as nothing. When we consider that more power is used merely in ploughing the soil than is used in all the industrial establishments of the country put together, an inkling comes of how much opportunity there b ahead. And now, with so many countries of the world in ferment and with so much unrest everywhere, is an excellent time to suggest something of the things that may be done — in the light of what has been done.
When one speaks of increasing power, machinery, and industry there comes up a picture of a cold, metallic sort of world in which great factories will drive away the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the green fields. And that then we shall have a world composed of metal machines and human machines. With all of that I do not agree. I think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life, we cannot have the time to enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the flowers, and the green fields.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 1; as cited in: William A. Levinson, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther. The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's Universal Code for World-Class Success. CRC Press, 2013. p. xxvii

Life, World, Flowers, Understanding

“The fact that we arrived here via an immensely long string of species that originated in something like Pikaia rather than some other crepuscular blob is a wonderful scientific story, but it is hardly material to our present condition.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

Source: The Crucible of Creation (1998), p. 14.

“I was in my teens when our family faced a medical crisis. My grandfather, with whom I was very close, had a stroke and landed in the hospital. Sitting anxiously at his bedside, I watched nurses come and go, checking his vitals and looking at the monitors attached to his body. I remember sitting there wondering what could I do to make him feel better—to bring back the warm, thoughtful man I knew.”

Sanjay Gupta (1969) journalist, medical correspondent, neurosurgeon

Finding My Path in Life (2011)

Family, Feeling

““Prosthetic Morality Enforcement. The idea is that by analogy, if a part of your body is deficient or missing, you can use a prosthetic limb or artificial organ. Well, our ability to make moral judgements is hard-wired, but it’s been so far outrun by the demands of complex civilization that it can’t keep up. For example…have you ever wondered why discussions in chat rooms or instant messaging turn nasty so easily? Or wander off topic? It’s because the behavioural cues we use to trigger socially acceptable responses aren’t there in a non-face-to-face environment. If you can’t see the other primate, your ethical reasoning is impaired because you can’t build a complete mental image of them—a cognitive frame. It’s why identity theft and online fraud are such a problem: There’s no inhibition against robbery if the victim is faceless. So we need some kind of prosthetic framework to restore our ability to interact with people on the net as if they’re human beings we’re dealing with in person.”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 26, “Liz: It’s Complicated” (pp. 287-288)

People, Idea, Fraud, Problem

“Evolution throws a wonderful light on all the struggles, eccentricities, tortuous developments of the human conscience in the past. It is the only theory of morals that does. And evolution throws just as much light on the ethical and social struggle today; and it is the only theory that does. What a strange age ours is from the religious point of view! What a hopeless age from the philosopher's point of view! Yet it is a very good age, the best that ever was. No evolutionist is a pessimist.”

Joseph McCabe (1867–1955) British writer

The Human Origin of Morals http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/mccabe02.htm (1926), p. 59.

Age, Light, Past

“There is a difference between the ordinary person who may discuss these things occasionally over a pint of beer at the local pub, or worry about them for a while before dropping off to sleep, and the person who makes a serious lifelong commitment to struggling with them and turns that commitment into a part of his or her very self-definition. For one cannot say, I’ve finished theology; now I’ll move on to another subject. There is a sense in which one might say something similar of Akkadian grammar or the family tree of the Hapsburg dynasty, but one cannot reasonably assert it of exploration into God’s revelation, which is, by definition infinite in its implications for human understanding. To be a theological student in the full sense of those words cannot be a temporary state or a preamble to something else, such as the ministerial priesthood or an all-round education. Rather, it is a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder or curiosity, which is the specifically theological mode of faith. As theologians, then, we commit ourselves to the lifelong study and reflection which the satisfaction of such curiosity will need. Our faith is from now on, in St. Anselm’s words, fides quaerens intellectum, “a faith that quests for understanding.””

Aidan Nichols (1948) British theologian

The Shape of Catholic Theology (1991), pp. 18-19.

God, Education, Family, Faith

“She envied Camille. Camille was a tramp, Mildred thought. And things were so much easier for a tramp. There was no conscience, no sense of loss, nothing but a wonderful, relaxed, stretching-cat selfishness. She could go to bed with anyone she wanted to and never see him again and have no feeling of loss or insecurity about it. That was the way Mildred thought it was with Camille. She wished she could be that way, and she knew she couldn't. Couldn't because of her mother. And the unbidden thought entered her mind—if her mother were only dead Mildred's life would be so much simpler. She could have a secret little place to live somewhere. Almost fiercely, she brushed the thought away. "What a foul thing to think," she said to herself ceremoniously. But it was a dream she often had.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

Source: The Wayward Bus (1947), Ch. 13. Mildred is the daughter of Elliot and Bernice Pritchard.

Life, Secret, Dreams, Way

“But no, I just don't think with the scientific evidence now -- I think I read an article yesterday on the death penalty, and 68 percent of the time they make mistakes. And it’s so racist, too. I think more than half the people getting the death penalty are poor blacks. This is the one place, the one remnant of racism in our country is in the court system, enforcing the drug laws and enforcing the death penalty. I don’t even know, but I wonder how many of those, how many have been executed? Over 200, I wonder how many were minorities? You know, if you're rich, you usually don't meet the death penalty.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview with the Concord Monitor Editorial Board, (August 18, 2011)
2011

Death, People, Law, Penalty

“I can't love it — what is there to love? It can't love me — or you either; it can't understand a single word you say to it, or feel one spark of gratitude for all your kindness. Wait till it can show some little affection for me, and then I'll see about loving it. At present it is nothing more than a little selfish, senseless sensualist, and if you see anything adorable in it, it's all very well — I only wonder how you can.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXVIII : Parental Feelings; Arthur to Helen

Love, Feeling, Understanding, Waiting

“He was wondering what society would have been like if we’d socialised cannabis instead of dangerous drugs like alcohol and religion.”

John Brunner book The Stone That Never Came Down

Source: The Stone That Never Came Down (1973), Chapter 3 (p. 26)

Alcohol, Religion

“The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 1014 neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 278

Business

“It seems evident from his unpublished piece that his reading of the Mill-Taylor letters gave Hayek a bit of a shock. He knew, of course, from the Autobiography that Mill had an elevated opinion of Mrs. Taylor. The letters seem to have convinced Hayek that she dominated him. Hayek would doubtless have seen this as a weakness, and he might well have lost some respect for Mill as a result. It may also have provided a convenient explanation for Hayek for why a great mind like Mill might nonetheless “desert” the liberal camp. (Hayek’s hope to lead others to the same conclusion might have helped motivate him to write the book on the correspondence between Mill and Taylor.) Given what has sometimes been said about the dominating personality of Hayek’s second wife, one wonders whether Hayek would later in his life have felt even more commonalities with Mill.”

Bruce Caldwell (economist) (1952) economic historian

"Hayek and Mill", History of Political Economy (2008)

Life, Books, Hope, Motivation

“Life — life — life! 'Tis the sole great thing
This side of death,
Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XI

Life, Death, Spring, Heart

“It was in this man's class that I first began to wonder if people who wrote fiction were not suffering from some kind of disorder--from what I've since come to think of, remembering the wild nocturnal rockings of Albert Vetch, as the midnight disease.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

People, Disease, Thinking, Suffering

“Everybody sat around thinking about Panasonic, the Japanese electronics account. Finally I decided, what the hell, I'll throw a line to loosen them up. "The headline is, the headline is: From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor."”

Jerry Della Femina (1936) American advertising executive

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor (1970), Introduction

Hell, Thinking

“One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.”

Henry James book Hawthorne

Hawthorne, ch. II: Early Manhood.

Life, Country

“Donald Trump: 15,000 people showed up to hear me speak. Bigger than anybody and everybody knows it. A beautiful day with incredible people that were wonderful, great Americans, I will tell you. John McCain goes, "Oh, boy, Trump makes my job difficult. He had 15,000 crazies show up." Crazies. He called them all crazy. I said, they weren't crazy. They were great Americans. These people— if you would have seen these people— you— I know what a crazy is. I know all about crazies. These weren't crazy. So he insulted me and he insulted everybody in that room…
Frank Luntz: He's a war hero.
Donald Trump: He's not a war hero.
Luntz: He's a war hero.
Trump: He is a war hero—
Luntz: Five and a half years in a POW camp.
Trump: He's a war hero 'cause he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you.
Luntz: Do you agree with that?
Trump: He's a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured, OK? You can have— and I believe— perhaps he's a war hero, but— but right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Family Leadership Summit 2015, quoted in
2010s, 2015

Hate, War, People, Beauty

“Now, this… Mountain signified the Church of the living God; the Sun that shone thereon, the comfortable shining of his merciful Face on them that were therein; the Wall, I thought, was the Word, that did make separation between the Christians and the World; and the Gap which was in this Wall, I thought was Jesus Christ, who is the way to God the Father. But forasmuch as the Passage was wonderful narrow… it showed me that none could enter into Life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left this wicked World behind them; for here was only room for Body and Soul, but not for Body and Soul, and Sin.”

John Bunyan book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)

Life, God, World, Way

“When you stop just existing and you start truly living, each moment of the day comes alive with wonder and synchronicity.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 124

“All you have to do is touch my hand
To show me you understand
And something happens to me.
That's some kind of wonderful.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Some Kind of Wonderful (1961), Co-written with Gerry Goffin, first recorded by The Drifters
Song lyrics, Singles

Understanding

“To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that Christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as against the wish and will of kings, nothing against the frightful system of human slavery—almost universal in his time. What he did not say is altogether more wonderful than what he did say. It is marvelous that he said nothing upon the subject of intemperance, nothing about education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature, nothing about art. He said nothing in favor of the home, except to offer a reward to those who would desert their wives and families.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

People, Education, Family, Art

“You know, I've got one of these wonderful ideas that women should all be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances.”

Bernie Ecclestone (1930) British business magnate

Bernie Ecclestone, discussing Danica Patrick, the female driver who finished fourth in the 2005 Indianapolis 500 race. (Los Angeles Times, 6/21/05, p. A-18.)

Women, Idea

“Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up wondering who’s taken over the outside of me. A disgusting old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man. I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to go.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 10, “Bomanz’s Story” (p. 497)

Time

“Bach is, for me, the touchstone that keeps my playing honest. Keeping the intonation pure in double stops, bringing out the various voices where the phrasing requires it, crossing the strings so that there are not inadvertent accents, presenting the structure in such a way that it's clear to the listener without being pedantic - one can't fake things in Bach, and if one gets all of them to work, the music sings in the most wonderful way.”

Hilary Hahn (1979) American violinist

Hilary Hahn on Saint Paul Sunday http://saintpaulsunday.publicradio.org/featured_artists/hahn.html

Music, Way, Singing

Quotes about wonder page 15

Quotes about wonder
page 15