Great Throughts Treasury

"For deep the cave of human consciousness; The thoughts, like light, upon its depths may press, Seeking and finding wonders numberless; But never may they altogether pierce The hollow gloom so sensitive and fierce Of the deep bosom: far the light may reach, There is a depth unreached; in clearest speech There is an echo from an unknown place: And in the dim, unknown, untrodden space Our life is hidden; were we all self-known, No longer should we live; a wonder shown Is wonderful no more; and being flies For ever from its own self-scrutinies. Here is the very effort of the soul To keep itself unmingled, safe, and whole In changes and the flitting feints of sense: Here essence holds a calm and sure defence; It is a guarded shrine and sacred grove, A fountain hidden where no foot may rove, A further depth within a sounded sea; A mirror ’tis from hour to hour left free By things reflected: and because ’tis so, Therefore the outer world and all its show Is as the music of the upper wave To the deep Ocean in his sunken cave; A part of its own self, yet but its play, Which doth the sunbeam and the cloud convey To central deeps, where in awful shade The stormless heart receives the things conveyed, Knowing the cloud by darkness, and the light By splendours dying through the infinite." - R. W. Dixon, fully Richard Watson Dixon

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." - Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength." - Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

"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, fully Rachel Louise Carson

"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." - Ralph Nader

"I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?" - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury

"I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet?" - Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West

"I don't really remember the day when I stood behind my camera with Henry Kissinger on the other side. I am sure he doesn't remember it either. But this photograph is here now to prove that no amount of kindness on my part could make this photograph mean exactly what he.. or even I.. wanted it to mean. It's a reminder of the wonder and terror that is a photograph." - Richard Avedon

"But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience." - Richard Dawkins

"If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that na" - Richard Dawkins

"It is interesting to wonder whether taxonomists of the future may regret the way our generation messed around with genomes." - Richard Dawkins

"It seems that it would take less than half a million years to evolve a good camera eye... It's no wonder the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom... It is a geological blink." - Richard Dawkins

"The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite." - Richard Dawkins

"To show how real astronomical wonder can be presented to children, I'll borrow from a book called " - Richard Dawkins

"With so many mind-bytes to be downloaded, so many mental codons to be replicated, it is no wonder that child brains are gullible, open to almost any suggestion, vulnerable to subversion, easy prey to Moonies, Scientologists and nuns. Like immune-deficient patients, children are wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort." - Richard Dawkins

"Yet the final indictment against the television decision-makers is more profound and more serious. Their recent splurge of paranormalism debauches true science and undermines the efforts of their own excellent science departments. The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudo-scientific charlatans. The public appetite for wonder can be fed, through the powerful medium of television, without compromising the principles of honesty and reason." - Richard Dawkins

"What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale ... It is staggeringly small world that is below. In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to look in this direction." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman

"It made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life." - Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright

"My mother's suffering grew into a symbol in my mind, gathering to itself all the poverty, the ignorance, the helplessness; the painful, baffling, hunger-ridden days and hours; the restless moving, the futile seeking, the uncertainty, the fear, the dread; the meaningless pain and the endless suffering. Her life set the emotional tone of my life, colored the men and women I was to meet in the future, conditioned my relation to events that had not yet happened, determined my attitude to situations and circumstances I had yet to face. A somberness of spirit that I was never to lose settled over me during the slow years of my mother's unrelieved suffering, a somberness that was to make me stand apart and look upon excessive joy with suspicion, that was to make me keep forever on the move, as though to escape a nameless fate seeking to overtake me. At the age of twelve, before I had one year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering. At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the sufferings of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful. It made me want to drive coldly to the heart of every question and it open to the core of suffering I knew I would find there. It made me love burrowing into psychology, into realistic and naturalistic fiction and art, into those whirlpools of politics that had the power to claim the whole of men's souls. It directed my loyalties to the side of men in rebellion; it made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life." - Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright

"A sense of wonder is in itself a religious feeling. But in so many people the sense of wonder gets lost. It gets scarred over. It's as though a tortoise shell has grown over it. People reach a stage where they're never surprised, never delighted. They're never suddenly aware of glorious freedom or splendour in their lives. This is very unhappy, very unfortunate. The attitude is often self-induced. It is fear. People are afraid to be happy." - Robertson Davies

"All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance." - Robertson Davies

"But I wonder if people do not attach too much importance to the first-name habit? Every man and woman is a mystery; built like those Chinese puzzles which consist of one box inside another, so that ten or twelve boxes have to be opened before the final solution is found. Not more than two or three people have ever penetrated beyond my outside box, and there are not many people whom I have explored further; if anyone imagines that being on first-name terms with somebody magically strips away all the boxes and reveals the inner treasure he still has a great deal to learn about human nature. There are people, of course, who consist only of one box, and that a cardboard carton, containing nothing at all." - Robertson Davies

"Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer from a leaden oppression that makes me wonder why I ever agreed to speak at all; the Tomb and the Conqueror Worm seem preferable to delivering the stupid and piffling speech I have so carefully prepared." - Robertson Davies

"We have educated ourselves into a world from which wonder, and he fear and dread and splendor and freedom of wonder have been banished. Of course wonder is costly. You couldn't incorporate it into a modern state, because it is the antithesis of the anxiously worshiped security which is what a modern state is asked to give. Wonder is marvelous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. It is undemocratic, discriminatory and pitiless." - Robertson Davies

"The Trial By Existence - Even the bravest that are slain Shall not dissemble their surprise On waking to find valor reign, Even as on earth, in paradise; And where they sought without the sword Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, To find that the utmost reward Of daring should be still to dare. The light of heaven falls whole and white And is not shattered into dyes, The light for ever is morning light; The hills are verdured pasture-wise; The angel hosts with freshness go, And seek with laughter what to brave;— And binding all is the hushed snow Of the far-distant breaking wave. And from a cliff-top is proclaimed The gathering of the souls for birth, The trial by existence named, The obscuration upon earth. And the slant spirits trooping by In streams and cross- and counter-streams Can but give ear to that sweet cry For its suggestion of what dreams! And the more loitering are turned To view once more the sacrifice Of those who for some good discerned Will gladly give up paradise. And a white shimmering concourse rolls Toward the throne to witness there The speeding of devoted souls Which God makes his especial care. And none are taken but who will, Having first heard the life read out That opens earthward, good and ill, Beyond the shadow of a doubt; And very beautifully God limns, And tenderly, life’s little dream, But naught extenuates or dims, Setting the thing that is supreme. Nor is there wanting in the press Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth. The tale of earth’s unhonored things Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun; And the mind whirls and the heart sings, And a shout greets the daring one. But always God speaks at the end: ’One thought in agony of strife The bravest would have by for friend, The memory that he chose the life; But the pure fate to which you go Admits no memory of choice, Or the woe were not earthly woe To which you give the assenting voice.’ And so the choice must be again, But the last choice is still the same; And the awe passes wonder then, And a hush falls for all acclaim. And God has taken a flower of gold And broken it, and used therefrom The mystic link to bind and hold Spirit to matter till death come. ‘Tis of the essence of life here, Though we choose greatly, still to lack The lasting memory at all clear, That life has for us on the wrack Nothing but what we somehow chose; Thus are we wholly stripped of pride In the pain that has but one close, Bearing it crushed and mystified." - Robert Frost

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: 5 I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10 But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. 15 To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20 Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, One on a side. It comes to little more: He is all pine and I am apple-orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. 25 He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. 30 Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him, 35 But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there, Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, 40 Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors.”" - Robert Frost

"The Sound of the Trees - I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace, And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of going But never gets away; And that talks no less for knowing, As it grows wiser and older, That now it means to stay. My feet tug at the floor And my head sways to my shoulder Sometimes when I watch trees sway, From the window or the door. I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some day when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on. I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone." - Robert Frost

"I count each day a little life, With birth and death complete; I cloister it from care and strife And keep it sane and sweet. With eager eyes I greet the morn, Exultant as a boy, Knowing that I am newly born To wonder and to joy. And when the sunset splendors wane And ripe for rest am I, Knowing that I will live again, Exultantly I die. O that all Life were but a Day Sunny and sweet and sane! And that at Even I might say: "I sleep to wake again."" - Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

"If you had a friend strong, simple, true, Who knew your faults and who understood; Who believed in the very best of you, And who cared for you as a father would; Who would stick by you to the very end, Who would smile however the world might frown: I'm sure you would try to please your friend, You never would think to throw him down. And supposing your friend was high and great, And he lived in a palace rich and tall, And sat like a King in shining state, And his praise was loud on the lips of all; Well then, when he turned to you alone, And he singled you out from all the crowd, And he called you up to his golden throne, Oh, wouldn't you just be jolly proud? If you had a friend like this, I say, So sweet and tender, so strong and true, You'd try to please him in every way, You'd live at your bravest -- now, wouldn't you? His worth would shine in the words you penned; You'd shout his praises . . . yet now it's odd! You tell me you haven't got such a friend; You haven't? I wonder . . . What of God?" - Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

"My heart craves to praise Thee, But I am unable. Would my understanding Were as spacious as Solomon’s. Without it my wisdom As yet ill suffices For expounding Thy wonders And Thy deeds of beneficence Wrought for me and all mankind. Without Thee all’s hopeless, And where is the rock Sustaining, suspending The weight of the world? I am as one orphaned; Nay, on Thee I am cast. What then can I do But look to Thee, wait on Thee, In whose hand is the spirit Of all that is living, In whose hand is the breath Of all the creation?" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"Nil admirari is the motto which men of the world always affect. They think it vulgar to wonder, or be enthusiastic. They have so much corruption and so much charlatanism that they think the credit of all high qualities must be delusive." - Samuel Egerton Brydges

"I am not yours, nor lost in you, not lost, although I long to be. Lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still a spirit beautiful and bright, yet I am I, who long to be lost as a light is lost in light. " - Sara Teasdale, born Sara Trevor Teasdale, aka Sara Teasdale Filsinger

"When we’re dancing, the struggle is gone." - Sheila Collins

"Learning to take the heat and receive people's anger in a way that does not undermine your initiative is one of the toughest tasks of leadership. In this sense, exercising leadership might be understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb." - Ronald A. Heifetz

"To see this place would truly be worth a trip to India in itself, and from the spirit of the religion that lived here one can learn more in an hour of viewing than from all the books ever written." - Rudolf Otto

"A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Do not approach the words of the mysteries contained in the divine Scriptures without prayer and beseeching God for help, but say: Lord, grant me to perceive the power in them! Reckon prayer to be the key to the true understanding of the divine Scriptures." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"It is a spiritual gift from God for a man to perceive his sins." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"There is no knowledge that is not impoverished, however rich it should be; but heaven and earth cannot contain the treasures of faith." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"After death no unrepentant person can escape the consequences of his sins, but just as prisoners are led out of their cell bound in chains and brought before the court, so are all souls when they depart hence; they bring with themselves their chains of sins before the dread judgment seat." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?" - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"If we plant a flower or a shrub and water it daily it will grow so tall that in time we shall need a spade and a hoe to uproot it. It is just so, I think, when we commit a fault, however small, each day, and do not cure ourselves of it." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"Youth is a cause of hope for three reasons... And these three reasons may be gathered from the three conditions of the good which is the object of hope - namely, that it is future, arduous and possible... For youth has much of the future before it, and little of the past; and therefore since memory is of the past, and hope of the future, it has little to remember and lives very much in hope. Again, youths, on account of the heat of their nature, are full of spirit, so that their heart expands, and it is owing to the heart being expanded that one tends to that which is arduous; therefore youths are spirited and hopeful. Likewise they who have not suffered defeat, nor had experience of obstacles to their efforts, are prone to count a thing possible to them. Therefore youths, through inexperience of obstacles and of their own shortcomings, easily count a thing possible, and consequently are of good hope." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

"It is not easy to find perfect men in whom there is nothing to criticize." - Saint Vincent de Paul

"War is the practice of the most consummate skill in the art of destruction--destruction of human life and human product. Peace affords the opportunity to develop the best that is in man, both productive and constructive. It is the noblest attribute of man's duty to man, the world over." - Samuel Gompers

"A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?" - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"As happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!" - Samuel Pepys

"The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers." - Sydney J. Harris