Quotes about wonder
page 35

“Hold a place for the human race
Keep it open wide
Give it time to fall or climb
But let the time decide
Sometimes you wonder what's in this for you
But you wait and you see'
Cause its all you can do
Just to hold on
Hold on hold out, hold on”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

Hold On Hold Out (1979)

Time, Waiting

“I just think my life's been really blessed, because being in show business I've met wonderful people and I've traveled all over the world…I ain't down yet, and I've had a wonderful life, and I still have more life to go.”

Debbie Reynolds (1932–2016) American actress, singer, and dancer

On being in show business (as quoted in “FLASHBACK: Debbie Reynolds Recalls Poor Upbringing and How Gene Kelly Helped Her Career in Early ET Interviews” https://www.etonline.com/news/206086_debbie_reynolds_recalls_poor_upbringing_and_how_gene_kelly_helped_her_career_early_et_interviews (ET Online; 2016 Dec 29)

Life, People, World, Travel

“(en) "I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow. as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

о религии

Happiness, Age, World, Making love

“As a white stone in the well's cool deepness,
There lays in me one wonderful remembrance.
I am not able and don't want to miss this:
It is my torture and my utter gladness. I think, that he whose look will be directed
Into my eyes, at once will see it whole.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

As a White Stone... (1916)

Thinking

“Will there never come a season
Which shall rid us from the curse?
Of a prose which knows no reason
And an unmelodious verse:
When the world shall cease to wonder
At the genius of an Ass,
And a boy's eccentric blunder
Shall not bring success to pass:When mankind shall be delivered
From the clash of magazines,
And the inkstand shall be shivered
Into countless smithereens:
When there stands a muzzled stripling,
Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
And the Haggards Ride no more.”

James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892) English poet, tutor to Prince Albert Victor

To R. K.

World, Boy, Success, Season

“Riding through the city on my bike all day
Cause the filth took away my license
It doesn't get me down and I feel OK
Cause the sights that I'm seeing are pricelessEverything seems to look as it should
But I wonder what goes on behind doors
A fella looking dapper, but he's sitting with a slapper
Then I see it's a pimp and his crack whore.”

Lily Allen (1985) English singer, songwriter, actress, and television presenter

LDN
Song lyrics, Alright, Still (2006)

Feeling, Whore

“Men of genius and wonderful nerve and determination, who in the Dark Ages would have been conquering princes, have... thrown their ability into Commerce and have conquered, not territory and slaves, but trade and its child, money, from any and every part of the world where trade was to be found.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Men, Money, Age, World

“One of the chief differences between the commerce of the sixteenth century and of the twentieth lies in the wonderful and complicated organizations of the present day. Their magnitude makes even the largest of those of which we have been reading seem insignificant.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Making love, Reading

“Though it has a certain Russian-roulette quality to it, eating fugu is considered a highly aesthetic experience. That makes one wonder about the condition that we, in chauvinistic shorthand, referred to as “human.””

Diane Ackerman book A Natural History of the Senses

Creatures who will one day vanish from the earth in the ultimate subtraction of sensuality that we call death, we spend our lives courting death, fomenting wars, watching sickening horror movies in which maniacs slash and torture their victims, hurrying our own deaths in fast cars, cigarette smoking, suicide. Death obsesses us, as well it might, but our response to it is so strange. Faced with tornadoes chewing up homes, with dust storms ruining crops, floods and earthquakes swallowing up whole cities, with ghostly diseases that gnaw at one’s bone marrow, cripple, or craze—rampant miseries that need no special bidding, but come freely, giving their horror like alms—you’d think human beings would hold out against the forces of Nature, combine their efforts and become allies, not create devastation of their own, not add to one another’s miseries. Death does such fine work without us. How strange that people, whole countries sometimes, wish to be its willing accomplices.
Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 3 “Taste” (p. 170)

Making love

“What I’m really wondering is why notices were posted and invitations sent out at all: If it’s a psychics’ convention, shouldn’t everyone just know where and when to meet?”

Diane Ackerman book A Natural History of the Senses

Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 2 “Touch” (p. 115)

“Now, when anybody starts talking about this [an all-volunteer force] he immediately shifts language. My army is 'volunteer,' your army is 'professional,' and the enemy's army is 'mercenary.' All these three words mean exactly the same thing. I am a volunteer professor, I am a mercenary professor, and I am a professional professor. And all you people around here are mercenary professional people. And I trust you realize that. It's always a puzzle to me why people should think that the term 'mercenary' somehow has a negative connotation. I remind you of that wonderful quotation of Adam Smith when he said, 'You do not owe your daily bread to the benevolence of the baker, but to his proper regard for his own interest.'”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

And this is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary motives are among the least unattractive that we have.
Source: The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives, Sol Tax, edit., chapter: “Recruitment of Military Manpower Solely by Voluntary Means,” chairman: Aristide Zolberg, University of Chicago Press (1967) p. 366, based on the Conference Held at the University of Chicago, December 4-7, 1966, also in Two Lucky People, Milton and Rose Friedman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.

People, Thinking

“I'm your narrator. It's my task to say
Just where and how things happen in our play,
Set the bare stage with words instead of props
And keep on talking till the curtain drops. …
It's an old task — old as the human heart,
Old as those bygone players and their art
Who, in old days when faith was nearer earth,
Played out the mystery of Jesus' birth
In hall or village green or market square
For all who chose to come and see them there,
And, if they knew that King Herod, in his crown,
Was really Wat, the cobbler of the town,
And Tom, the fool, played Abraham the Wise,
They did not care. They saw with other eyes.
The story was their own — not far away,
As real as if it happened yesterday,
Full of all awe and wonder yet so near,
A marvelous thing that could have happened here
In their own town — a star that could have blazed
On their own shepherds, leaving them amazed,
Frightened and questioning and following still
To the bare stable — and the miracle.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Narrator
Source: A Child is Born (1942)

Faith, Fools, Art, Star

“It is better the truth should come little by little. I have learned that, being a priest. Perhaps, in the old days, they ate knowledge too fast.
Nevertheless, we make a beginning. it is not for the metal alone we go to the Dead Places now — there are the books and the writings. They are hard to learn. And the magic tools are broken — but we can look at them and wonder. At least, we make a beginning. And, when I am chief priest we shall go beyond the great river. We shall go to the Place of the Gods — the place newyork — not one man but a company. We shall look for the images of the gods and find the god ASHING and the others — the gods Lincoln and Biltmore and Moses. But they were men who built the city, not gods or demons. They were men. I remember the dead man's face. They were men who were here before us. We must build again.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

Men, God, Truth, Books

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.
Source: The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (1972), pp. 36-37

People, Nature, Dependency, Perfection

“Ichthyology, the study of fishes. It looks like a big, boring word, but it's actually quite exciting, because ichthyology is the only "ology" with "YOLO" in it. Now, to the cool kids in the audience, you already know, YOLO stands for "you only live once," and because I only have one life, I'm going to spend it doing what I always dreamt of doing: seeing the hidden wonders of the world and discovering new species. And that's what I get to do.”

Prosanta Chakrabarty (1978) American ichthyologist

Source: Clues to prehistoric times, found in blind cavefish https://www.ted.com/talks/prosanta_chakrabarty_clues_to_prehistoric_times_found_in_blind_cavefish (February 2016)

Life, World, Fish, Study

“And so this great Teacher has traced out for us the Qualifications demanded for passing through the first portal of Initiation, for that Birth of the Christ in the human Spirit, which is the passing of that doorway. I have run over, roughly and inadequately I know, the wonderful teaching which comes from Him to illuminate us, but none the less you can see it is an exacting demand, none the less you will see how you must shake yourself free from many prejudices, customs, thoughtless ways of life, if you would find the Master and be reckoned by Him among His disciples. p. 82”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Life, Way, Birth, Teachers

“To all of my wonderful supporters, I know you are disappointed, but I also want you to know that our incredible journey is just beginning”

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

via a Twitter video (2;28) https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/1347339437617815552 posted January 7, 2020 2020s, 2021, January 2021

Disappointment, Support

“Look—I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand like my dad, they lay in bed wondering, can I keep my health care, can I pay my mortgage. Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it.But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don′t look like you or worship the way you do or don′t get their news from the same source as you do. We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.If we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we are willing to stand in the other person′s shoes—as my mom would say—just for a moment, stand in their shoes. Because here′s the thing about life: there′s no accounting for what fate will deal you.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Life, Fate, War, Health

“Every evening at the same hour when the weather was calm, I used to go on deck and bless God for all the wonders of His creation. I loved to consider the care of God's Providence which extends even to the little fishes.”

Théodore Guérin (1798–1856) Catholic saint and nun from France

Third Journal of Travel (1844-1845)

Love, God, Making love, Fish

“Physics is my religious belief. In the sense that in physics we discover a fantastically wonderful world out there that’s rich in potential, rich in realization, and that has ample scope for fantasy, because the laws are so strange and there’s so much stuff out there to understand. And when you understand it, you understand how that could be.
I learn that I myself am very small. But I am also very large because I contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said. I can process information. I can understand things. I can imagine. I can have fun. That’s the essence of my religion. I learn my religion from the study of what the world is and how it works.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

as quoted by Claudia Dreyfus in: [January 21, 2021, A Prodigy Who Cracked Open the Cosmos (an interview with Franck Wilczek), Quanta Magazine, https://www.quantamagazine.org/frank-wilczek-cracked-open-the-cosmos-20210112/]

World, Religion, Law, Imagination

“I have outlived the diagnosis, I’ve been able to receive and hear and process some of the most wonderful, nice things about me that I might not have ever heard had I not gotten sick. Again think, how many people who pass away never hear the eulogies, never hear the thank-yous? I’ve been very lucky, folks, in I can’t tell you how many ways.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

2020s, I’ve Had a Year to Think About What’s Important (2020)

People, Way, Thinking

“Life is like music, made of highs, mids and lows. Equalize the various tones so that you can make it wonderful.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La vita è come la musica, fatta di alti, medi e bassi. Equalizza i vari toni affinché tu riesca a renderla meravigliosa.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Making love, Music

“And now I salute thee with awe, with veneration, and wonder, ancient India, of whom I am the adept, the India of the highest splendor of art and philosophy. May thy awakening astonish the Occident, decadent, mean, daily dwindling, slayer of nations, slayer of Gods, slayer of souls, which yet bows down still, ancient India, before the prodigies of thy primordial conceptions!”

Pierre Loti (1850–1923) French writer

Source: attributed and quoted in Josyer, G R. Sanskrit Civilization, International Academy of Sanskrit Research. Mysore 1966 p. 1

https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture

God, Art, Soul

“I was born in 1948. I can’t recall a world before television…Initially there was nothing on it but “snow,” and then the nightly advent of a targetlike device called “the test pattern,” which people actually gathered to watch.
I imagine that the World Wide Web and its modest wonders are no more than the test pattern for whatever the twenty-first century will regard as its equivalent medium.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

People, World, Imagination

“But one no longer wonders when one realizes that in the higher classes there is an unerring instinct of what tends to maintain and of what tends to destroy the organization by virtue of which they enjoy their privileges. The fashionable lady had certainly not reasoned out that if there were no capitalists and no army to defend them, her husband would have no fortune, and she could not have her entertainments and her ball-dresses. And the artist certainly does not argue that he needs the capitalists and the troops to defend them, so that they may buy his pictures. But instinct, replacing reason in this instance, guides them unerringly. And it is precisely this instinct which leads all men, with few exceptions, to support all the religious, political, and economic institutions which are to their advantage.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Men, Fashion, Support

“You felt something huge and marvelous of which you are part, and in the moments you described, you forgot yourself for you were one with your world and with the sky above it, and even the stars looking down. There is nothing larger or more wonderful than that. Still, there are those who would prefer self. They will accept any belief, no matter how foolish, if it guarantees them personal immortality. I know people like that. But there are others who know themselves well enough to realize how limiting that is.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 24, “People from the Sea” (p. 382)

People, World, Star, Parting

“I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, "Why don't you admit that the hummingbird, the butterfly, and the Bird-of-Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?" And I always say, "Well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a riverbank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, that's in its eye and boring through its eyeballs and is slowly turning it blind. The creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm."”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate and so therefore [sic] when I make these films, I prefer to show what I know to be the facts, what I know to be true, and then people can deduce what they will from that. "Sir David Attenborough" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sir-david-attenborough/, interview with Ed Bradley, CBS News (7 November 2002)

God, People, Boy, Bird

“In the Far East, compulsory labor can work wonders, just like here... If only Belgium wanted to see that. This could create "inexhaustible resources and exploiting the soil and peoples of the Far East can only be brought to civilization and well-being in this way."”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

ISBN 9789463962094 Prince Leopold II in a 1863 travel note in admiration for Ferdinand de Lesseps when visiting Egypt and the digging sites of the Suez Canal by tens of thousands of cheap workers.
Source: https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-3 Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020

People, Way

“Persons whom I saw thirty years ago and with whom I was intimate now appear on the page, and this compels me to declare that The Story of the Stone is a book of the deepest feelings and the truest words. Unless, however, one has in fact experienced such events or been deluded by such feelings, reading it is like "chewing wax" absentmindedly, never understanding the miraculous wonders of what one has witnessed.”

Zhiyanzhai

Comment in the 1760 manuscript of Dream of the Red Chamber, as quoted by Anthony C. Yu in Rereading the Stone (Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 7

Books, Feeling, Understanding, Appearance

“It's a wonderful thing to be optimistic. It keeps you healthy and it keeps you resilient.”

Daniel Kahneman (1934) Israeli-American psychologist

Positive

“Now if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth,
Well I wonder what would happen to this world.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

I Wonder What Would Happen to this World
Song lyrics, Living Room Suite (1978)

Life, World, Time

“Meaning can be found in all sorts of places. For most individuals it is found in the love of the people and places around them: in friends, family and loved ones, in culture, place and wonder. A sense of purpose is found in working out what is meaningful in our lives and then orientating ourselves over time as closely as possible to those centres of meaning. Using ourselves up on identity politics, social justice (in this manifestation) and intersectionality is a waste of a life.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019)

Love, Life, People, Making love

“The strange thing is that what makes a wonderful story for some could be quite boring for others. It’s quite rare to find a story that everyone loves. But I think the best stories are those where the underdog somehow finds a way to succeed, hopefully with friends helping along the way.”

Debbie Dadey (1959) American children's writer

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR DEBBIE DADEY https://rhyskeller.com/debbie-dadey-author-interview/ (February 13, 2018)

Love, Making love, Way, Thinking

“Kylar woke two hours before dawn and briefly wondered if death would be too high a price to pay for a full night’s sleep.”

Brent Weeks book The Way of Shadows

Source: The Way of Shadows (2008), Chapter 33 (p. 282)

Death, Sleep, Night

“Lynda Carter played Wonder Woman and was one of the first female superheroes. It gives me more of an encouragement that we can be strong and can do whatever a guy can do.”

Thuy Trang (1973–2001) Vietnamese actress (1973-2001)

Power Rangers Unlimited: Thuy Trang Interview https://myriahac.tripod.com/id8.html (December 24, 1994)

Guy, Strong

“My nightmares are almost always about war - wandering the streets, searching for something that's lost forever. But it's possible for me to will myself to have pleasant dreams. For me, the most wonder fragrance in the world is new film. You open the canister for the first time and breathe deeply. That night, the same wonderful fragrance fills your dreams. It's grand.”

Ishirō Honda (1911–1993) Japanese film director

Honda, interviewed by James Bailey, Tokyo Journal, April 1991

War, World, Dreams, Search

“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

People, Faith

“This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

World, Thinking, Science

“The Universal Zulu Nation stands to acknowledge wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, and equality, peace, unity, love, and having fun, work, overcoming the negative through the positive, science, mathematics, faith, facts, and the wonders of God, whether we call him Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, or Jah.”

Afrika Bambaataa (1957) American DJ, record producer and activist

Love, Wisdom, God, Peace

“The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Understanding, Personality

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Happiness, Gratitude

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Motivational, Deep, Inspirational, Leadership

“It’s always good to be recognized for hard work you’ve done in the years past. While you’re doing it, you don’t think of it so much. You’re just working. It’s a wonderful thing for someone to acknowledge it.”

Barbara Eden (1931) American actress and singer

'I Dream of Jeannie' star Barbara Eden describes working with Larry Hagman, Elvis and Lucille Ball https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/i-dream-of-jeannie-star-barbara-eden-describes-working-with-larry-hagman-elvis-and-lucille-ball (October 6, 2017)

Thinking, Past

“Even if teen-age children aren't making a sound, it's quieter when they're gone. They put a boiling in the air around them. As they left, the whole house seemed to sigh and settle. No wonder poltergeists infest only houses with adolescent children.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter V

Children, Age, Housing

“We know who we are. People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Ellen Page (1987) Canadian actress

Elliot Page Is Ready for This Moment https://time.com/5947032/elliot-page/, 16 March 2021 2021

People, World, Feeling, Idea

“Pipes are wonderful. They are doing wonderful things.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

The How and Why of Fitting Things Together

“O'er the rugged mountain's brow
Clara threw the twins she nursed,
And remarked, "I wonder now
Which will reach the bottom first?"”

Harry Graham (1874–1936) British writer

Calculating Clara
Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes (1899)

Mountain

“I spend countless minutes thinking of you
Wondering if you love me too, why am I sure you do?
I’m just so sure you do
The spark in your eyes took over my mind
And there’s nothing I can do, not run nor hide
I surrender, surrender to your charm
There is nothing that I won’t do for you”

Zhiar Ali (1999) Kurdish human rights activist and artist

Addicted To Your Love https://genius.com/Zhiar-ali-addicted-to-your-love-lyrics, 2018 Song lyrics

Love, Thinking

“To the greatest fans and the greatest sport in the world, thank you! Thank you for all the wonderful memories. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but I’m at peace with it. Chase your dreams, work hard, and watch what happens. Good bye boxing.”

Manny Pacquiao (1978) Filipino boxer, basketball player, singer and politician, dancer.

Manny Pacquiao announcing his retirement from boxing, September 29, 2021. https://twitter.com/MannyPacquiao/status/1443063035627651078

World, Peace, Dreams, Decision

“One of our national characteristics is not to do things without careful deliberation. Those who are privileged to direct the aspirations of a quarter of the world’s population have a wonderful opportunity but a fearful responsibility.”

Soong Mei-ling (1897–2003) Chiang Kai-shek's wife, First Lady of the Republic of China

China Emergent (May 1942)

World, Fear

“Time cannot be mastered, just like the unpredictable wind that leaves us wondering which direction it is going to blow next.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Time

“When I heard I was nominated, I thought an actress should only focus on acting, and I didn't want to feel anxious wondering if I will get awarded.”

Kim Hye-ja (1941) South Korean actress

On her nomination for Grand Prize (Daesang) in "'Daesang' winner Kim Hye Ja says Nam Joo Hyuk convinced her to attend the 'Baeksang Arts Awards'" in Allkpop (2 May 2019) https://www.allkpop.com/article/2019/05/daesang-winner-kim-hye-ja-says-nam-joo-hyuk-convinced-her-to-attend-the-baeksang-arts-awards

Feeling

“I used to wonder what it was like to be rich. Now I am and it turns out to be mostly headaches.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Citizen of the Galaxy

Source: Citizen of the Galaxy (1957), Chapter 20 (p. 224)

“I have often wondered why anger is considered by some Western religions to be a sin. It is such a marvelous protection against evil.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Marianne Trilogy, Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore (1985), Chapter 2 (p. 45)

Religion, Evil, Anger

“As men, you stand at the center of the universe. You spout pearls of wisdom that shape the future of the world. So when your female friend comes to you, you might wonder: ‘Is she hoping to share her sadness with me? No, she must be hoping to learn something from me!’”

Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian

Source: "The ‘Punchline Queens’ Ripping Into Chinese Comedy’s Boys’ Club" in Sixth Tone https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006067/the-punchline-queens-ripping-into-chinese-comedys-boys-club (21 August 2020)

Wisdom, Men, World, Sadness

“The writing seemed to just spiral out of me, and if I had to pick a time when I really started this journey it would be that wonderful quiet morning on a verandah so many years ago in the Colombian countryside...”

Irene Sabatini (1967) writer from Zimbabwe

Source: Irene Sabatini Website https://irenesabatini.com/

Time

“I think my life has been wonderful. I have done what I felt like. I was given courage and I was given adventure and that has carried me along. And then also a sense of humor and a little bit of common sense. It has been a very rich life.”

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden

Source: 2007: Movie Icons, ISBN 9783822822081 , page 174 , Verlag Taschen GmbH

Life, Courage, Thinking, Sense

“A warrior never worries about his fear. Instead, he thinks about the wonders of "seeing" the flow of energy! The rest is frills, unimportant frills.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

Fear, Thinking

“We unwittingly focus on fear and distrust, as if those were the only possible options available to us, while all along we have the alternative of deliberately centering our attention on the opposite, the mystery, the wonder of what is happening to us.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Eagle's Gift, (1981)

Fear

“Is there anything sadder, I wonder, than an assassin with nobody left to kill?”

Michael Moorcock The Cornelius Quartet

The Cornelius Quartet, The English Assassin (1972)
Source: The Alternative Apocalypse 1 (p. 399)

“I was in my youth and in the days of my intoxication extravagance and excitement that unveiling of the angelic world and the manifestation of the wonders of power took place in my heart, spirit, conscience and intellect.”

Ruzbihan Baqli (1128–1209) Persian poet, mystic, and Sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p. 112

Youth, World, Angels, Heart

“Just resume living. I know some people seem to not want to give up on the wonderful pandemic, but you know what? It’s over. There’s always going to be a variant. You shouldn’t have to wear masks.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Sen. Chris Coons and Caitlin Flanagan, Natural Immunity, (2021)

People

“Despite everything else that’s facing us, and despite all the bleak news about people not believing and everything, it’s obvious that people do believe. The people of the archdiocese are people of wonderful faith.”

Edmund Whalen (1958) roman-catholic clergyman

Source: Bishop-elect Edmund J. Whalen Fluently Reaches the Faithful https://cny.org/stories/bishop-elect-edmund-j-whalen-fluently-reaches-the-faithful,20259 (December 4, 2019)

People, Faith

“This is life. People stumble and grope blindly hither and thither, wondering if they did the right thing, occasionally knocking something over and hoping no-one noticed, striving for illusory goals, addled with guilt and insecurity.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Source: Derb Quotes https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/derb-quotes-john-derbyshire/, National Review, November 20, 2003.

Life, People, Hope

“I'm so happy to be a part of this ... era of wonderful nonsense.”

Helen Kane (1904–1966) American actress

Source: Interview (1959)

Happiness, Parting

“The wonderful part of acting of acting is you don't know what your playmate is going to be offering as that obstacle, and that's the surprising part, that's the magical part, so it's like a game of tennis, you don't know what's going to be thrown at you, you've got to be on you toes.”

Joy Tanner (1966) American actress

Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joy_Tanner

Game, Parting

“And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart,
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.
So, don’t give up on love
when it seems that all is lost,
for there is always hope
if we’re prepared to pay the cost”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://twitter.com/AKarpouzos/status/1467166433176084481

Love, Hope, Heart, Country

“There was something wonderful about being able to look up and see what that physical representation was going to look like. It is one of the things that I miss, now that we’re in a much more digital age.”

Jeff "Swampy" Marsh (1960) American television director, writer, producer, storyboard artist and actor

Source: ‘Phineas and Ferb’ Creators Discuss ‘Candace Against the Universe’ — and the Possibility of More Sequels https://decider.com/2020/08/28/dan-povenmire-jeff-marsh-phineas-and-ferb-ending/ (August 28, 2020)

Age

“If you want some adventure, if you want to work hard, if you want to do work with teams, if you want to see an idea from conception through its ultimate goal, science is a wonderful field to work in. It is highly rewarding.”

Carol Raymond researcher

Source: NASA People - Carol Raymond https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/380/carol-raymond/ - Published 3 January 2020 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20211206185649/https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/380/carol-raymond/

Idea, Science

“You were white, you were brown, you were red, you were dust. You were both and neither. When you took baths, you’d stare at your brown arms against your white legs in the water and wonder what they were doing together in the same body.”

Tommy Orange book There There

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Charles, Ron, What does it mean to be Native American? A new novel offers a bracing answer., https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/what-does-it-mean-to-be-native-american-a-new-novel-offers-a-bracing-answer/2018/05/29/a508d0ba-6289-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.be19d7820b31, 9 August 2018, The Washington Post, May 29, 2018]

Water

“I'm going to do whatever I can to show how thankful I am for my crewmates. It's wonderful having all of these folks up here (in International Space Station). We haven't been up here together that long, but wow it sure has been wonderful already.”

Mark T. Vande Hei (1966) American astronaut

Source: Mark T. Vande Hei (2021) cited in " This is how astronauts celebrate Thanksgiving in space https://www.wxow.com/news/daybreak/this-is-how-astronauts-celebrate-thanksgiving-in-space/article_f4b7b303-60e0-5e22-98bb-a7dd078c21e1.html" on WXOW, 25 November 2021.

“New Year's Eve is literally filled with good cheer and happy thoughts, as we all try to put our best foot forward. This openness and generosity are the spirit of this wonderful holiday, when it is so important to warm parents’ hearts with kindness and loving care, to hug them if they are near you, and to tell everyone around you how dear they are to you and that happiness is all about love, children, family, and friends.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2021

Love, Happiness, Children, Family

“I believe that China will successfully hold a simple, safe and wonderful Winter Olympic Games.”

Zoran Tegeltija (1961) Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: Zoran Tegeltija (2021) cited in: " BiH official wishes Beijing Winter Olympics full success http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/20211231/df0ec6b8d3774e88b2b4ae3838e72d5a/c.html" in Xinhuanet, 31 December 2021.

Game, Winter

“I look into the faces of the people passing by,
The glad ones and the sad ones, and the lined with misery,
And I wonder why the sorrow or the twinkle in the eye;
But the pale and weary faces are the ones that trouble me.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: The Path to Home (1919), p.22 - Faces, stanza 1.

People, Sadness

“What's in a kiss?
Have you ever wondered just what it is?
More perhaps than just a moment of bliss?
Tell me what's in a kiss.
What's in a dream?
Is it all the things you'd like to have been?
All the places that you haven't yet seen?
Tell me what's in a dream.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"What's in a Kiss?" (song) Gilbert O'Sullivan, "What's in a Kiss?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouajeMalTcw (song on YouTube) Gilbert O'Sullivan, "What's in a Kiss?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-C3LsISY6Q (A 1981 live performance, with other material. On YouTube) Song lyrics

Dreams, Kiss

“Some day the world will need a man! I stand beside his cot at night
And wonder if I'm teaching him, as best I can, to know the right.
I am the father of a boy - his life is mine to make or mar -
And he no better can become than what my daily teachings are”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: Just Folks (1917), The Man To Be, lines from stanza 3.

Life, World, Boy, Night

“My former wife is a truly wonderful person.”

Burt Lancaster (1913–1994) American actor and producer

other quotes

Personality

“Mass schooling damages children. We don’t need any more of it. And under the guise that it is the same thing as education, it has been picking our pockets just as Socrates predicted it would thousands of years ago. One of the surest ways to recognize real education is by the fact that it doesn’t cost very much, doesn’t depend on expensive toys or gadgets. The experiences that produce it and the Mass schooling that propels it are nearly free. It is hard to turn a dollar on education. But schooling is a wonderful hustle, getting sharper all the time.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), p. 70

Children, Education, School, Way

“I've come to believe that genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us... I began to wonder, reluctantly, whether it was possible that being in school itself was what was dumbing them down. Was it possible I had been hired not to enlarge children's power, but to diminish it? That seemed crazy on the face of it, but slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.”

John Taylor Gatto book Dumbing Us Down

Source: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992), pp. xxxiii-xxxiv

Children, Age, School, Behavior

“I deny that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that it should ever be necessary for any reasonable creature to violate all the laws of justice, mercy, and truth. No circumstances can make it necessary for a man to burst in sunder all the ties of humanity. It can never be necessary for a rational being to sink himself below a brute. A man can be under no necessity of degrading himself into a wolf. The absurdity of the supposition is so glaring, that one would wonder any one can help seeing it.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Source: 1770s, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774)

Truth, Justice, Law, Wolf

“[T]he main work of life lies in carrying on worthily the great common task of civilization: to play one's due part in the enterprise of feeding some hundreds of millions of men, in seeing that they are protected against violence and fraud, that they have access to justice, and as far as may be to education, that they have some freedom to pursue life and happiness, and are not cut off altogether from the wonders and beauties of the world and the mind of man. To succeed in doing this is civilization: to fail is the defeat of civilization. For civilization is, ultimately, the process whereby a human society in search, as Aristotle puts it, of a "good life for man", gradually overcomes the obstacles, material and other, that stand in its way and makes man increasingly master of his environment.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "Peace and Strife as Elements in Life: The Ideal of “Unhindered Activity”", pp. 37-38

Life, Men, Happiness, World

“God picks the least in order to do His most wonderful work. In this way there's no boasting that can happen in the Lord's vineyard. So sometimes young people look at a priest and say, "Oh, he must be an angel."”

Eduardo Nevares (1954) Roman Catholic bishop

No, we’re no angels — angels are only in heaven. We're men doing the very best we can to serve God and to serve His holy people and to fall in love with God and with the people. If you really hear the call of the Lord, be generous because it’s a wonderful life. After 34 years as a priest, I can really and honestly say I have no regrets. Five years a bishop — Q&A with Bishop Nevares https://www.catholicsun.org/2015/07/17/five-years-a-bishop-qa-with-bishop-nevares/ (17 July 2015)

God, People, Angels, Way

“I remember wondering smokily whether anyone ever loves a person. People seem to love dreams instead, and for the lucky ones, the person is close to the dream. But it’s a dream all the same, a sticky dream. You unload the person, and the dream stays with you.”

Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) American speculative fiction writer

Source: Short fiction, The Martian and the Moron (1949), p. 44

Love, People, Dreams, Personality

“To destroy wonder and mystery, is to destroy the only elements that make existence tolerable.”

Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) American author

Quoted in The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith (1979)

“Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.”

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

"Trump says Biden's plan to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan is a 'wonderful and positive thing to do'" https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biden-afghanistan-pullout-wonderful-and-positive-thing-to-do-2021-4?r=US&IR=T, Business Insider, 19 April 2021 2021, April 2021

“Impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. And so does fear.”

Pema Chödron (1936) American philosopher

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Fear, Courage

“It is a private matter [sexuality], but if there are opportunities to say something . . . I wonder if, if it would be beneficial to someone else, that responsibility is on you. It’s complicated.”

Jonathan Bailey (1988) British actor

"Jonathan Bailey: From Broadchurch to the West End: the star of Sondheim’s smash hit Company in The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/from-broadchurch-to-the-west-end-the-star-of-sondheims-smash-hit-company-mjppfprkr (31 October 2018)

“Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors. And this I will tell you as well: One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none.”

Charles de Lint book Moonheart

Part 3, Chapter 7 (p. 386)
Moonheart (1984)

World

“The very highest states—of awe and joy, wonder and love, meaning and creativity—emerge from this bittersweet nature of reality. We experience them not because life is perfect—but because it's not.”

Susan Cain book Bittersweet

Bittersweet, Chapter 4 at pp. 92-93

Love, Life, Nature, Reality

“Priesthood still is the most marvelous gift and mystery – there is no end to the wonder of it; it's a joyful life.”

John Joseph Gerry (1927–2017) Australian priest

Holy Spirit takes care of early ‘wobbly knees’ https://catholicleader.com.au/news/holy-spirit-takes-care-of-early-wobbly-knees/ (9 July 2015)

Life

“[F]inancial markets can be considered one of the great wonders of the world.”

Henry Kaufman (1927) American economist

On Money and Markets (2000)

World

“I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 316

“When you’re young you never doubt yourself. You never wonder if you’re justified. But as a man gets older he learns to doubt. Whether he can do a thing—whether he should.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Source: Doomsday Morning (1957), Chapter 13 (p. 103)

Learning

“Now, some of you might wonder how come I have ten children, right? One of the main reasons is because I want to have my own picket line.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Children

“On the Death of Jim Larkin

Not with public words now can his greatness
Be told to the children, for he was more
Than a labour-agitating orator —
The flashing flaming sword merely bore witness
To the coming of the dawn. ‘Awake and look!
The flowers are growing for you, and wonderful trees,
And beyond are not the serf’s grey docks, but seas —
Excitement out of the creator’s poetry book.

When the Full Moon’s in the River the ghost of bread
Must not haunt all your weary wanderings home.
The ships that were dark galleys can become
Pine forests under the winter’s starry plough
And the brown gantries will be the lifted hand
Of man the dreamer whom the gods endow.’

And thus I hear Jim Larkin shout above
The crowd who wanted him to turn aside
From Reality coming to free them. Terrified
They hid in the clouds of dope and would not move.
They ate the opium of the murderer’s story
In the Sunday newspapers; they stood to stare
Not at a blackbird, but at a millionaire
Whose horses ran for serfdom’s greater glory.

And Tyranny trampled them in Dublin’s gutter,
Until Larkin came along and cried
The call of Freedom and the call of Pride,
And Slavery crept to its hands and knees,
And Nineteen Thirteen cheered from out the utter
Degradation of their miseries.”

Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) poet

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND1NCf1ZRFM

Death, God, Children, Books

“Misunderstandings are the main ruin of wonderful human relationships.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Le incomprensioni sono la principale rovina di meravigliose relazioni umane.
Source: prevale.net

“A wonderful relationship consists of two people who manage to become children again. Living and loving each other as teenagers in one way: purely.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Una meravigliosa relazione è composta da due persone che riescono a tornare bambini. Vivere ed amarsi da adolescenti, in un unico modo: puramente.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Children, People, Way