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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)
Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful. (A. R. Ammons)
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)
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)
Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. 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)
We carry within us the wonders we seek without us. (Thomas Browne)
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)
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, 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)
-on James Abbot McNeill Whistler...
Few men were as fascinating to know - for a brief time. (William Merritt Chase)
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. (G. K. Chesterton)
The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder. (G. K. Chesterton)
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)
All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. (Charles Dickens)
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. (Albert Einstein)
-lived: AD 23-79, 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)
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)
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)
I never get tired of the blue sky. (Vincent van Gogh)
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)
To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy – and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful. (Robert Anson Heinlein)
What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of the business of making a picture. (Robert Henri)
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)
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)
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)
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)
-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)
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)
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)
-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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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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