wonder  

The first act of awe, when a person was
struck with the beauty or wonder of
Nature, was the first spiritual experience.

Henryk Skolimowski
    
Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine,
to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance,
to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel
in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

      
I was struck by the fact that I hadn't been awed in a
while.  Did that mean awesome things had disappeared from
my life?  No.  What it did mean was that I'd gotten too
caught up in distractions and mind mucking to recognize
anything as awe-inspiring. . . . I hadn't been paying
attention to the beauty around me.

Sue Patton Thoele

  
We teach children how to measure and how to weigh.  We fail
to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe.

Harold Kushner
   

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday
epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever
how we experience life and the world.

John Milton

   

I am mentally preparing myself for the five-year-old mind.
I want to come down to their physical limitations
and up to their sense of wonder and awe.

Shinichi Suzuki
   
   
   

We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for
our present progress and prosperity.  We should be filled with
awe and joy at what lies over the horizon.  And we should be
filled with absolute determination to make the most of it.

Bill Clinton
   

The most beautiful thing we
can experience is the
mysterious.  It is the source
of all true art and all science.
They to whom this emotion
is a stranger, who can
no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe,
are as good as dead:
their eyes are closed.

Albert Einstein

   

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound
in his or her way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables.
Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

Thomas Aquinas
   

Religious awe is the same organic thrill which
we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.

William James
    

   

Think with awe on the slow and quiet power of time.

Friedrich Schiller
  

Mountains inspire awe in any human
person who has a soul.  They
remind us of our frailty, our
unimportance, of the briefness
of our span upon this earth.  They
touch the heavens, and sail serenely
at an altitude beyond even the
imaginings of a mere mortal.

Elizabeth Aston

   

I stand in awe of my body.

Henry David Thoreau
   
Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Immanuel Kant
   

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Awe is the beginning of wisdom.
Awe is the beginning of education.

Matthew Fox
   

   

"Awe" is just a word to denote a quality of spirituality that cannot be described.  It's a noble emotion of wonder.  It's having your mind blown while getting a glimmer of the unfathomableness of God.  It's getting an understanding of who you are, individually and in the larger scheme of things.  It's catching a ray of knowing the answer to where you come from and where you are going.  Getting closer to the answers of these questions is receiving a peek of how exalted things are.  And it's a promise of what can come.

If you believe that you feel awe, even if you're not really sure, just concentrate on it.  Awe is an evolving feeling that becomes more profound and more full of wonder as your spirituality becomes focused and mature.  The answers, as inarticulate as they may be, grow with the gathering of your spirituality.  For now, feel awe if you have any deepening convictions about your spirituality.  These convictions may be that you can come to know yourself, that there is an eternal power that is the All-Knowing Creative Power, that you've had an inkling that you can come to know God.  Whatever convictions come now, love them, and when you ponder these questions, let yourself move with the awe.

Michael Goddart
    

We must never lose our sense of awe at the magnificence of our planet.

unattributed
   
    

wonder

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Watch for glimpses of the divine order.  Find those experiences,
sights, and sounds which fill you with awe.  Any experience
met with awe can be spiritual:  a safari through an animal
kingdom, taking in a sunset, a hike to an awesome mountaintop.

Susan Santucci