The very commonplaces of life are
components of its eternal mystery.

Gertrude Atherton

I no longer feel that life is ordinary.  Everyday life is filled with mystery.
The things we know are only a small part of the things we cannot know
but can only glimpse.  Yet even the smallest of glimpses can sustain us.
Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend
meaning in times of loss and pain.  In surprising ways it is the mysterious
that strengthens us in such times.  I used to try to offer people certainty
in times which were not at all certain and could not be made certain.
I now just offer my companionship and share my sense of mystery,
of the possible, of wonder.

Rachel Naomi Remen
  

If something controls you in a way that
puzzles you, think of it as a mystery.
Mysteries are best approached by closing
your eyes and mouth to experience darkness
and silence.  I find new and healing images
in that dark, silent place away from
emotions that control me.  Do not be
afraid to close your eyes and be silent in
prayer, meditation, rest or sleep.  In those
states you may rediscover a new self.
Then your life, time and thoughts will become yours again and you can live your unique myth.

Bernie Siegel

   

One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time
to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly
envelops us.  All one need do is to notice intelligently, if even
for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded
with autumn colors, an infant smiling.

Simon Greenberg
   
   
The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes
from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet
for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.

Arthur Christopher Benson
  
   

Real faith means holding ourselves open to the unconditional
mystery which we encounter in every sphere of our life and
which cannot be comprised in any formula.  Real faith means
the ability to endure life in the face of this mystery.

Martin Buber
  

There is nothing beautiful or sweet or great in life
that is not mysterious.

François René de Chateaubriand

Perhaps some day, modern people will learn that mystery is not the prison of the mind of people, it is their home.

Walter Farrell

Both the person of science and the person of action live
always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.

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

Albert Einstein
  
  

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Mystery is at the heart of creativity.  That, and surprise.

Julia Cameron
  

Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would
be left to strive for if everything were known?

Charles DeLint
  

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life.
Don't let them scare you unduly,
for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.

R.I. Fitzhenry

   
  

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries
of the earth are never alone or weary of life.

Rachel Carson
  

Mystery is a resource, like coal or gold,
and its preservation is a fine thing.

Tim Cahill

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of one's desire to understand.

Neil Armstrong
   

   

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up
your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination,
but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready
for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of
shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart
for the unexpected guest, an altar for the unknown God.

Henri Frederic Amiel
  

Soon the child's clear eye
is clouded over by ideas
and opinions.  Simple free
being becomes encrusted
with the burdensome armor
of the ego.  Not until years
later does an instinct come
that a vital sense of mystery
has been withdrawn.  The sun
glints through the pines, and the
heart is pierced in a moment
of beauty and strange pain,
like a memory of paradise.
After that day. . .
we become seekers.

Peter Matthiessen

   

When all the words have been written, and all the
phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of
life will still remain.  We may map the terrains
of our lives, measure the farthest reaches of the
universe, but no amount of searching will ever
reveal for certain whether we are all children
of chance or part of a great design.  And who among
us would have it otherwise?  Who would wish to take
the mystery out of the experience of looking
into a newborn infant's eyes?

Kent Nerburn
   
Most of us encounter a great deal more Mystery than we are willing to experience.
Sometimes knowing life requires us to suspend disbelief, to recognize that all our
hard-won knowledge may only be provisional and the world may be quite different
than we believe it to be.  This can be very stressful, even frightening.  But if we are
not willing to wonder, we may have to hang up the phone on life.

Rachel Naomi Remen
   
    

I am entirely on the side of mystery.  
I mean, any attempt to explain away the mystery is ridiculous.
I believe in the profound and unfathomable mystery of life
which has a sort of divine quality about it.

Aldous Huxley
    
Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    

  

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