Wonder Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

I do not wonder at a snowflake, a shell, a summer landscape, or the glory of the stars; but at the necessity of beauty under which the universe lies.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

Henry David Thoreau

I think, as a politician, [the exiled shah] had realized that the leaders were after their own political interests and they would very much like to establish relations with the [upcoming] regime in the country. But their inhuman behavior was terrifying, along with all the lies that the media would publish. I used to wonder for years, all those who wrote on the [subject] of human rights back then, how did they remain silent after all the inhuman incidents in Iran during the later years? [It was no] coincidence [that] the downfall of the shah [led to an Iran in which] the Iranians no longer had any human rights.

The years have taught me that nothing is less reliable than [machines]... it is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times.

I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if He had taken a poll in the land of Israel?

Harry S. Truman

In a society that judges self-worth on productivity, it's no wonder we fall prey to the misconception that the more we do, the more we're worth

One of the many things I do not understand about Americans is this: what is it like to be a citizen of a superpower, to maintain democratically the means of planetary extinction. I wonder how this contributes to the dreamlife of America, a dreamlife that is so deep and troubled.

I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit.

What's wrong with changing things? Now, I wonder if this self-canceling, centerpoised personality of yours leads you to look at things defensively. I want you to try to detach yourself from yourself and try to see your own viewpoint from the outside, objectively. You are afraid of losing your balance. But change need not unbalance you; life's not a static object, after all. It's a process. There's no holding still. Intellectually you know that, but emotionally you refuse it. Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can't step into the same river twice. Life-evolution-the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy—existence itself—is essentially change.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Old people at the supermarket make you wonder about all those middle-aged people you see jogging the streets to preserve their vascular systems for another fifty years.
And about all the people of all ages all over the country who are eating less, drinking less, smoking less, driving safer and in general looking for a death-proof safety suit to get them over the peak years and down into the valley of old age fit to enjoy the fruits of their abstention and labor.
Will anybody care when they get there?
Will they be able to afford an orange?

And it's one, two, three what are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam!
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates,
There ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! – we're all going to die.

Country Joe McDonald

I often wonder: Who will pick up the pieces of our damaged world? A poet, I think.

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
That such trivial people should muse and thunder
In such lovely language.

I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes when the grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

Being Adam Parrish was a complicated thing, a wonder of muscles and organs, synapses and nerves. He was a miracle of moving parts, a study in survival. The most important thing to Adam Parrish, though, had always been free will, the ability to be his own master. This was the important thing. It had always been the important thing. This was what it was to be Adam.

Maggie Stiefvater

I wonder if I am capable of being somebody's sun, somebody's everything. Am I centered enough now to be the center of somebody else's life?

Elizabeth Gilbert

There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.

Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself.

Turning back the pages of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder if she'll ever do the same; And the thing that I call living is just being satisfied With knowing I've got no one left to blame.

Gordon Lightfoot

The "democracy gap" in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the least worst every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the least worst gets worse.

I feel like a goddess, jailed in her Olympus. Little wonder how the gods toyed with humans. Toyed with women, to watch them squirm, pollinate the seeds of despair; toyed with men, to satiate their Seven Deadly Sins.

Dreams, dreams. I walk them; I live them. I delude myself with them. It's a wonder I can spot reality anymore.

Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the Holy Book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.

Grief is a most peculiar thing; we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.