Wonder-which is the seed of knowledge.

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I would 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 disenchantment of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Every scene, even the commonest, is wonderful, if only one can detach oneself, casting off all memory of use and custom and behold it, as it were, for the first time.

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to one with full hands. How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

There is no other start to philosophy but wonder.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

After fifteen minutes nobody looks at a rainbow.

Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore!

There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief without the help of any other argument.

What happens to the hopes and dreams and wonder with which every child is born? Can it be that in working so hard to prepare them for their future roles in society, we are neglecting to offer a vision of their place in the universe?

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.

Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.