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Learn to see and to feel life; that is, cultivate imagination, because there are still marvels in the world, because life is a mystery and always will be. But be aware of it. (Josef Albers)
Most of the wonderful places in the world were not made by architects but by the people. (Christopher Alexander)
Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful. (A. R. Ammons)
Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale. (Hans Christian Andersen)
I'm an average enough person to point to the things I've gotten to see that are awe-inspiring. (Laurie Anderson)
The world is a strange and wonderful place. (Laurie Anderson)
Wonder is the desire for knowledge. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. (Aristotle)
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. (Saint Augustine)
Wonder is not a Pollyanna stance, not a denial of reality; wonder is an acknowledgment of the power of the mind to transform. (Christina Baldwin)
Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool. (Mary Catherine Bateson)
The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it. (Charles Baudelaire)
It is a callous age; we have seen so many marvels that we are ashamed to marvel more; the seven wonders of the world have become seven thousand wonders. (L. Frank Baum)
Art does not make social statements, but contributes to society on a deeper, less tangible level. I feel that what we should get from art is a sense of wonder, of something beyond ourselves, that celebrates our 'being' here. (Trevor Bell)
I wonder whether Art has a higher function than to make me feel, appreciate, and enjoy natural objects for their art value. (Bernard Berenson)
Truly all is remarkable and a wellspring of amazement and wonder. Man is so fortunate to dwell in this American Garden of Eden. (Albert Bierstadt)
Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out... (David Bowie)
Stuff your eyes with wonder... See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. (Ray Bradbury)
If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder. (Ray Bradbury)
Seeing the life around, clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right, is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual's temperament and environment. (Bill Brandt, photographer)
Amazement awaits us at every corner. (James Broughton)
We carry within us the wonders we seek without us. (Thomas Browne)
Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever. (Leo Buscaglia)
We can't help but look up at a blue sky. It is open and large, all encompassing. It is Magic. Magnificence. Like living in God's eyeball. (Susan Canavarro)
Clouds are fascinating to paint because they are the only element in a landscape that possesses free movement. (John F. Carlson)
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)
Oh, I wonder if I will ever feel the burst of birth-joy, that knowing that the indescribable, joyous thing that has wooed and wond me has passed through my life and produced one atom of the great reality. (Emily Carr)
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. (Rachel Carson)
Beauty is all about us, but how many are blind! They look at the wonder of this earth and seem to see nothing. People move hectically but give little thought to where they are going. They seek excitement... as if they were lost and desperate. (Pablo Casals)
The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep. (Marc Chagall)
-on James Abbot McNeill Whistler...
Few men were as fascinating to know - for a brief time. (William Merritt Chase)
The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder. (G. K. Chesterton)
I'm wondering where the lions are... (Bruce Cockburn)
Seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armor themselves against wonder. (Leonard Cohen)
I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them. (Charles Darwin)
The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. (Richard Dawkins)
All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. (Charles Dickens)
Share the rediscovery of wonder. (Janet Echelman)
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. (Albert Einstein)
-b.AD 23 d.AD 79, Gaius Plinius Secundus...
Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? (Pliny the Elder)
He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. (M. C. Escher)
How wonderful it is when that moment of true seeing comes and I'm transported to that point when eyes, hand and mind work as the child in all of us. (Alan Feltus)
I am awaiting / perpetually and forever / a renaissance of wonder (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
Even the most mundane objects are things of wonder, if we stop to look at them, and the fact that we are alive is the biggest wonder of all. (David Fontana)
To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way. (E. M. Forster)
While drawing grasses I learn nothing 'about' grass, but wake up to the wonder that there is grass at all. (Frederick Franck)
Be aware of wonder. (Robert Fulghum)
- The Hawaii School...
I'm afloat in the marvellous diversity, the undersea wonder and its brilliant paintability. (Robert Genn)
If the glass there in front of me astounds me more than all the glasses I've seen in painting, and if I even think that the greatest architectural wonder of the world couldn't affect me more than this glass, it's really not worth while going to the Indies to see some temple or other when I have as much and more right in front of me. (Alberto Giacometti)
As long as I'm still moving in that direction - toward wonder - then I know I will always be fine in my soul, which is where it counts. And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it. (Elizabeth Gilbert)
I never get tired of the blue sky. (Vincent van Gogh)
I was struck by how firmly the slender trunks stood in the ground - I began them using a brush, but because of the ground, which was already impasted, one brushstroke simply disappeared. (Vincent van Gogh)
Looking at an early Indian miniature painting feels like snorkeling over a coral reef. There's a sense of intimacy, tenderness and awe. (Alexander Gorlizki)
-The Wind in the Willows, 1908...
All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. (Kenneth Grahame)
Look at everything in the world as if you are seeing it for the first time, and paint everything as if you were seeing it for the last time. (Andrew Hamilton)
God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity. But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance of wonder renewed daily, the source of which is beyond all reason. (Dag Hammarskjold)
What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of the business of making a picture. (Robert Henri)
It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-level art, twisted imagination and a chainsaw. (Damien Hirst)
If you see the world as beautiful, thrilling and mysterious, as I think I do, then you feel quite alive. (David Hockney)
The most profound things are inexpressible. (Jenny Holzer)
One of the main reasons I paint is because I think nature is so wonderful. I want to try to get my feelings of that down on canvas, if possible. (E. J. Hughes)
I've always been fascinated by numbers. Before I was seventeen years old, I had lived in twenty-one different houses. In my mind, each of those houses had a number. (Robert Indiana)
What a strange thing! / to be alive / beneath cherry blossoms. (Kobayashi Issa)
Each painting is fresh and new and a surprise even to myself. (Ann Jackson)
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance. (Samuel Johnson)
Amazement and wonder signify that one's concepts of self and of the world and of other people are ready to be re-formed. (Sidney Jourard)
An empty canvas is a living wonder... far lovelier than certain pictures. (Wassily Kandinsky)
Two things fill the mind with ever increasing wonder and awe. The more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. (Immanuel Kant)
Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me. (Immanuel Kant)
The unconscious is really most marvellous. Waiting there ready to be tapped is all knowledge, all feeling, all understanding... the artist has only to respect it and let it out. (Maryon Kantaroff)
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. (Helen Keller)
- The Water-Babies...
The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see. (Charles Kingsley)
And when the wonder has gone out of a man he is dead... When all comes to all, the most precious element in life is wonder. Love is a great emotion, and power is power, but both love and power are based on wonder. Love without wonder is a sensational affair, and power without wonder is mere force and compulsion. (D. H. Lawrence)
-on experiencing the north country with Tom Thomson...
Imagine a glorious full moon coming over the tops of the spruce, big and yellow, shedding a mysterious light on everything... the moonlight had colour, you could see to paint and be able to appreciate the colour of things. (Arthur Lismer)
If spring came but once a century instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
There they were in abundance, at my feet... so small and unassuming, and yet on closer examination so breathtakingly beautiful... all for asking. (Helen Lucas)
An artist... must actively caress wonder: for fascination, like the desire to play, can be eradicated by the rigors of living. (Eric Maisel)
The more sophisticated we become – as we pierce reality and see the void beyond – the more our sense of wonder is destroyed, along with our reasons for being. (Eric Maisel)
First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first. (Yann Martel)
Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise, / Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes? / That we by tracing magic lines are taught, / How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT? (Marshall McLuhan)
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. (Henry Miller)
Wonder is our erotic affiliation with all of life. If we develop this, enjoy it, and follow its promptings, our wants will be fewer and our needs plainer. (Stephanie Mills)
The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. I'm overwhelmed when I see, in an immense sky, the crescent of the moon, or the sun. (Joan Miro)
I can't begin to describe a day as wonderful as this. One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad. No country could be more extraordinary for a painter. (Claude Monet)
-Anne of Avonlea...
You're never safe from being surprised till you're dead. (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
Painting and sculpture help other people to see what a wonderful world we live in. (Henry Moore)
-on a visit in student days to see Cezanne's Large Bathers...
Seeing that picture, for me, was like Chartres Cathedral. (Henry Moore)
What wonders lie in every mountain day! (John Muir)
The wonder is Mysterious. What is the artist to do next... The moment is all there is... The end will surprise the creative soul. ('Namaste' Maggie Murphy)
We artists have this deep sense of wonder that arose in our childhood and has dominated our lives. This is what makes us all very special people, no matter what our level of pictorial interpretation. (Leonard Niles)
A week ago it was the mountains I thought the most wonderful, and today it's the plains. I guess it's the feeling of bigness in both that carries me away. (Georgia O'Keeffe)
-Messenger
Let me / Keep my mind on what matters / Which is my work, / Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished... (Mary Oliver)
When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. (Mary Oliver)
The modern mind has lost all capacity to wonder. It has lost all capacity to look into the mysterious, into the miraculous - because of knowledge, because it thinks it knows. (Osho)
-camping along the Amazon River...
The need to eat, sleep and dry out plays havoc with your sense of wonder. (Michael Palin)
The fact that the created image, in any media, has never been on the face of the earth before – That's awesome! (Jean Pastula)
Never lose the child-like wonder. It's just too important. It's what drives us. (Randy Pausch)
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. (Edgar Allan Poe)
Sophistication scares the wonder out of us. Cynicism downright annihilates it. Wonder leaves no room for meanness, for where wonder is, kindness is also. Wonder isn't harsh, but as gentle as rain. (Connie Powers)
Advertising is the 'wonder' in Wonder Bread. (Jef I. Richards)
People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I
don't find myself saying, 'Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.' I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it
unfolds. (Carl Rogers)
I've learned... that it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular. (Andy Rooney)
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent. (Rumi)
Wow, what is this? I don't know what's going on, but I like it. (Robert Ryman)
Wonder takes us beyond our limitations by providing an expansive breath of fresh air to sustain the soul of creativity, and creativity allows the spirit to thrive. (Linda Saccoccio)
A desire to make a choice of some kind... I am concerned with magic, awe and wonder, with ontological insecurity. (Michael Sandle)
Awe and wonder must underlie the urgency felt by all artists – musicians, poets, dancers, painters – to sing forth the deep joy of existence. (Carl Schmalz)
Always take time to smell the flowers, and let it fill you with beauty, and rediscover that sense of wonder. (Louis Schwartzberg)
Think and wonder, wonder and think. (Dr. Seuss)
It's good to wish for and look forward to the wondrous things in life. (Mary Smart)
The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion. (Ralph Sockman)
Don't go to sleep when life seems too overwhelming, but stay wide awake, steeped in wonder and passion. It is the only way to live! (Redenta Soprano)
The true wonder of the world is available everywhere, in the minutest parts of our bodies, in the vast expanses of the cosmos, and in the interconnectedness of these and all things. (Michael Stark)
A state of wonder is a state of mind and the process can put one in this place because no two strokes are every time the same. (Margaret Stone)
For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, / Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
I see myself as a child swimming underwater exploring, amazed and absorbed by this visual, tactile and fluid experience... in my paintings it is the fluid quality of the water, ink, paint, silk threads, transparency and light energy that reveal this essence of life... (Ann Timmins)
Sitting on the floor of a room in Japan, looking out on a small garden with flowers blooming and dragonflies hovering in space, I suddenly felt as if I had been too long above my boots. (Mark Tobey)
Now, isn't imagination a precious thing? It peoples the earth with all manner of wonders... (Mark Twain)
Wonder into wonder existence opens. (Lao Tzu)
Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart a love of wonder; the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts; the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life. (Samuel Ullman)
I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering 'bout the big things and asking 'bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. (Alice Walker)
Artists and poets try to recapture and recreate the wonder that we all remember feeling as children. Maybe that's why we are called visionary. (Marney Ward)
Too much of a good thing is wonderful. (Mae West)
-Charlotte's Web...
We must always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder. (E. B. White)
Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. (Alfred North Whitehead)
Wonder is where the beach is! (Bev Willis)
Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; / Look up a second time, and, one by one, / You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, / And wonder how they could elude the sight! (William Wordsworth)
Wonder is involuntary praise. (Edward Young)
The sense of wonder is an innate part of those lucky enough to possess it. The perfectionist, the producer, the critical, search for this wonderful characteristic. (Banne Younker)
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