TERMS STARTING WITH
Wonder: An object of magical power. Some Wonders are simple objects that perform only a small trick or hold a tiny amount of Quintessence, while others are legendary artifacts capable of phenomenal feats of magic and holding great amounts of mystical energy.
Wonderful.” The legend is retold in Clement,
WonderPop "language" (WPOP) An implementation of {POP} for the {PDP-10} made by Robert Rae "rhr@aiai.ed.ac.uk" in Edinburgh in 1976. WonderPop used "cages" for different {data types} and introduced {processes}, {properties} and some {typed identifiers}. (2016-12-24)
Wonder rabbi: In Jewish mystic lore, a Hasidistic rabbi of great mystic knowledge and magic powers.
wonder-book of common things
wondered ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Wonder ::: a. --> Having performed wonders; able to perform wonderful things.
wonderer ::: n. --> One who wonders.
wonderful ::: a. --> Adapted to excite wonder or admiration; surprising; strange; astonishing.
wonderful ::: capable of eliciting wonder; filled with wonder; astonishing. Wonderful, the Wonderful, All-Wonderful, All-Wonderful"s. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as a personification of the Deity.)
wonderfully ::: eliciting wonder; astonishing.
wonderingly ::: adv. --> In a wondering manner.
wondering ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Wonder
wonderland ::: a land of wonders or marvels. Also fig.
wonderland ::: n. --> A land full of wonders, or marvels.
wonderly ::: adv. --> Wonderfully; wondrously.
wonderment ::: n. --> Surprise; astonishment; a wonderful appearance; a wonder.
wonder ::: n. 1. An event inexplicable by the laws of nature; a miracle; something strange and surprising brought about by a supernatural force. 2. A miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon. 3. The emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration. 4. Something strange, unexpected, or extraordinary. Wonder, wonder"s, Wonder"s, wonders, wonder-book, wonder-couch, wonder-dance, wonder-flecks, wonder-flowers, wonder-hues, wonder-plastics, wonder-rounds, wonder-rush, wonder-tree, wonder-web, wonder-weft, Wonder-worker, Wonder-worker"s, wonder-works, wonder-world, wonder-worlds. *adj. 5. Arousing awe or admiration; wonderful. v. 6. To be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; marvel (often followed by at); to think or speculate curiously (at or about); be curious to know. *wonders, wondered, wondering.
wonder ::: n. --> That emotion which is excited by novelty, or the presentation to the sight or mind of something new, unusual, strange, great, extraordinary, or not well understood; surprise; astonishment; admiration; amazement.
A cause of wonder; that which excites surprise; a strange thing; a prodigy; a miracle. ::: v. i.
wonderous ::: a. --> Same as Wondrous.
wonder-plastics
wonders ::: adv. --> See Wondrous.
wonderstruck ::: a. --> Struck with wonder, admiration, or surprise.
wonder-weft
wonder-worker ::: n. --> One who performs wonders, or miracles.
wonder-working ::: a. --> Doing wonders or surprising things.
wonderwork ::: n. --> A wonderful work or act; a prodigy; a miracle.
TERMS ANYWHERE
[124] GENIUS: BESTIAL LOVE / GREAT AND WONDERFUL
AcArya. (P. Acariya; Thai AchAn; T. slob dpon; C. asheli; J. ajari; K. asari 阿闍梨). In Sanskrit, "teacher" or "master"; the term literally means "one who teaches the AcAra (proper conduct)," but it has come into general use as a title for religious teachers. In early Buddhism, it refers specifically to someone who teaches the supra dharma and is used in contrast to the UPADHYAYA (P. upajjhAya) or "preceptor." (See ACARIYA entry supra.) The title AcArya becomes particularly important in VAJRAYANA Buddhism, where the officiant of a tantric ritual is often viewed as the vajra master (VAJRACARYA). The term has recently been adopted by Tibetan monastic universities in India as a degree (similar to a Master of Arts) conferred upon graduation. In Japan, the term refers to a wise teacher, saint, holy person, or a wonder-worker who is most often a Buddhist monk. The term is used by many Japanese Buddhist traditions, including ZEN, TENDAI, and SHINGON. Within the Japanese Zen context, an ajari is a formal title given to those who have been training for five years or more.
active brahman ::: same as sagun.a brahman, the dynamic aspect of brahman which is expressed in the cosmic movement, "a universal Divine, one in being, multiple in personality and power, who conveys to us, when we enter into the consciousness of his universal forces, a sense of infinite quality and will and act and world-wide knowledge and a one yet innumerable delight"; realised by the mind separately from the santaṁ brahma or silent brahman, it is an aspect of universal being which "though wonderfully freed, uplifted and illumined, supports only the present self-expression of the Cosmic Spirit and does not transform, as would a transcendental Descent, the ambiguous symbols and veiled mysteries of a world of Ignorance". active samat samata
Adbhitanya [possibly corruption of Sanskrit adbhutama or adbhutva from adbhuta marvelous, wonderful] In the Vishnu-Purana (3:2), adbhuta is the name of the Indra of the ninth manvantara. Commentary quoted by Blavatsky refers to the first continent once “inhabited by the Sons of Sveta-dwipa [the White Island], the blessed, and Adbhitanya, east and west, the first, the one and the pure . . .” (SD 2:319). Another name for this land or primevally inhabited part of the earth is Adi-varsha.
Adbhuta-Brahmana (Sanskrit) Adbhuta-brāhmaṇa [from adbhuta wonderful, marvelous + brāhmaṇa portion of the Vedas treating of ritual, prayer, sacrifices, and mantra] One of the eight Brahmanas belonging to the Sama-Veda, dealing with omens, auguries, and extraordinary wonders.
Adbhuta: Wonderful.
Adbhuta-dharma (Sanskrit) Adbhuta-dharma [from adbhuta wonderful, marvelous + dharma law, truth, religion] One of the nine angas (divisions of Buddhist texts) that treats of marvels and wonders.
adbhutah ::: wonderful.
admirable ::: a. --> Fitted to excite wonder; wonderful; marvelous.
Having qualities to excite wonder united with approbation; deserving the highest praise; most excellent; -- used of persons or things.
admirableness ::: n. --> The quality of being admirable; wonderful excellence.
admiration ::: n. --> Wonder; astonishment.
Wonder mingled with approbation or delight; an emotion excited by a person or thing possessed of wonderful or high excellence; as, admiration of a beautiful woman, of a landscape, of virtue.
Cause of admiration; something to excite wonder, or pleased surprise; a prodigy.
admirative ::: a. --> Relating to or expressing admiration or wonder.
admired ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Admire ::: a. --> Regarded with wonder and delight; highly prized; as, an admired poem.
Wonderful; also, admirable.
admires ::: 1. Regards with pleased surprise, or with wonder mingled with esteem, approbation, or affection; and in modern usage, gazed on with pleasure. admired, admiring. adj. 2. Regarded with admiration; wondered at; contemplated with wonder mingled with esteem, etc.
admire ::: v. t. --> To regard with wonder or astonishment; to view with surprise; to marvel at.
To regard with wonder and delight; to look upon with an elevated feeling of pleasure, as something which calls out approbation, esteem, love, or reverence; to estimate or prize highly; as, to admire a person of high moral worth, to admire a landscape. ::: v. i.
agape ::: adv. & a. --> Gaping, as with wonder, expectation, or eager attention. ::: n. --> The love feast of the primitive Christians, being a meal partaken of in connection with the communion.
Ahriman (Persian) [from ah (Avestan) conscious life + riman the corruptor, disturber of order in the cosmos, the corruptor of mind] Personification of the evil spirit in the world. According to Mazdean philosophy, life originates from two principles: Ahura-Mazda (the light principle) and Ahriman (darkness). Shahrestani, 12th century Islamic scholar, in Al-Melall Va Al-Nehal (Nations and Sects) writes that “Magis were of three sects: Geomarathians, Zurvanians and Zoroastrians. They all shared the view that two principles govern the universe: Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. Ahura-Mazda is the being who pre-existed and Ahriman the created one.” He further narrates allegorically that “Ahura-Mazda wondered how it would be if he had a rival. From this thought Ahriman, the evil spirit, was born, who revolted against the light and declined to abide by its laws. A battle took place between the armies of the two. The Angels came forward as mediators and agreed upon a truce that the underworld be given to Ahriman for seven thousand years and then to the Ahura-Mazda for another seven thousand years. The creatures who previously existed all vanished. Then Man, Gaeo-Marth, and an animal, taurus, appeared. They both died. From man’s head, sprouted a rhubarb and from rhubarb male and female, Mashia and Mashiana, were born, who were mankind’s progenitors. From the head of the taurus all animals originated. Their belief is that light gave mankind two choices: to remain as bodiless spirits keeping away from Ahriman, or to clothe themselves with bodies to fight against him; mankind chose the latter. The destruction of Ahriman’s army would be the day of resurrection. Man’s reason for clothing himself in a physical body was to enable him to battle against Ahriman; and his salvation depends upon defeating him.”
Alice in Wonderland experience
alliteration: The use of repeated consonants in neighbouring words. It appears most often at the beginning of those words, e.g. wonderful wilderness. It can create a strong effect by introducing pattern into the language. See assonance.
all- ::: prefix: Wholly, altogether, infinitely. Since 1600, the number of these [combinations] has been enormously extended, all-** having become a possible prefix, in poetry at least, to almost any adjective of quality. all-affirming, All-Beautiful, All-Beautiful"s, All-Bliss, All-Blissful, All-causing, all-concealing, all-conquering, All-Conscient, All-Conscious, all-containing, All-containing, all-creating, all-defeating, All-Delight, all-discovering, all-embracing, all-fulfilling, all-harbouring, all-inhabiting, all-knowing, All-knowing, All-Knowledge, all-levelling, All-Life, All-love, All-Love, all-negating, all-powerful, all-revealing, All-ruler, all-ruling, all-seeing, All-seeing, all-seeking, all-shaping, all-supporting, all-sustaining, all-swallowing, All-Truth, All-vision, All-Wisdom, all-wise, All-Wise, all-witnessing, All-Wonderful, All-Wonderful"s.**
Amal: “On the plane described, we find what is concealed on earth by the form of things. A wonder is revealed.”“By the way, the word ‘Here’ in the line: Here sheltered behind form’s insensible screen does not refer to the plane described but to our earth.”
Amal: “The ‘Bird of Wonder’ is the unimaginably beautiful carrier of the higher consciousness.”
Amal: “The reference is to the Mind in its own realm where it dominates both Life and Matter and does all sorts of wonderful things, drawing its strength from the Divine Power who is called ‘the World-Magician’.
Amal: “When Ashwapati enters the occult cave he finds among other wonders hidden from the outer consciousness an orderly guide, as in an index, to all the mysteries of existence, mysteries such as the Rig Veda offers though its system of ordinary objects like those we find in outer life—especially cows which were a very important part of the Vedic peoples day to day career.”
amazed ::: greatly surprised; astounded; suddenly filled with wonder; astonished. amazing, amazement.
amazedness ::: n. --> The state of being amazed, or confounded with fear, surprise, or wonder.
amazement ::: n. --> The condition of being amazed; bewilderment [Obs.]; overwhelming wonder, as from surprise, sudden fear, horror, or admiration.
Frenzy; madness.
amaze ::: v. t. --> To bewilder; to stupefy; to bring into a maze.
To confound, as by fear, wonder, extreme surprise; to overwhelm with wonder; to astound; to astonish greatly.
Bewilderment, arising from fear, surprise, or wonder; amazement. ::: v. i.
amazing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Amaze ::: a. --> Causing amazement; very wonderful; as, amazing grace.
anandaloka (anandaloka; ananda-loka; ananda loka) ::: the world anandaloka (loka) of the supreme bliss (ananda) of saccidananda, the plane of "the joy of absolute identity in innumerable oneness", where all "consciousness is of the bliss of the Infinite, all power is power of the bliss of the Infinite, all forms and activities are forms and activities of the bliss of the Infinite"; there is also "a repetition of the Ananda plane in each lower world of consciousness", but "in the lower planes not only is it reached by a sort of dissolution into it of the pure mind or the life-sense or the physical awareness, but it is, as it were, itself diluted by the dissolved form of mind, life or matter, held in the dilution and turned into a poor thinness wonderful to the lower consciousness but not comparable to its true intensities".
Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divines! Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe. But human nature bounded, egoistic and obscure is inapt to receive these great Presences or to support their mighty action. Only when the Four have founded their harmony and freedom of movement in the transformed mind and life and body, can those other rarer Powers manifest in the earth move- ment and the supramental action become possible.
angel, 2 and I wondered if that fact might rule him out. Then there was Longfellow’s Sandalphon.
apparition ::: n. --> The act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility.
The thing appearing; a visible object; a form.
An unexpected, wonderful, or preternatural appearance; a ghost; a specter; a phantom.
The first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured; -- opposed to occultation.
appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman
Arthur, King (Welsh) A dual figure: historical ruler who held up for forty years or so the Saxon incursions; said to have passed (not died) at or after the Battle of Camlan (540 AD). The mythological Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon, or Uthr Ben, the Wonderful Head. In Prydwen, his Ship of Glass, he made an expedition into Annwn (the underworld) to obtain the Pair Dadeni, or cauldron of reincarnation, the symbol of initiation. As the king that was and shall be, he appears in the Welsh version of the coming of the Kalki-avatara, which will come to pass at the end of the present yuga. After Camlan he was taken to Ynys Afallen (Apple-tree Island), to be healed of his wounds and to await his return. But the apple tree of the island, as we see in the 6th-century poem “Afallenan” by Myrddin Gwyllt, is the Tree of Wisdom. The poem tells how the tree had to be hidden and guarded, but the time would come when it should be known again: then Arthur would return, and Cadwalaor, and then “shall Wales rejoice; bright shall be her dragon (leader). The horns of joy shall sound the Song of Peace and serenity. Before the Child of the Sun, bold in his courses, evil shall be rooted out. Bards shall triumph.”
astonished ::: 1. Amazed, filled with sudden and overpowering surprise or wonder. 2. Filled with consternation; dismayed. astonishing.
astonishing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Astonish ::: a. --> Very wonderful; of a nature to excite astonishment; as, an astonishing event.
astonishment ::: n. --> The condition of one who is stunned. Hence: Numbness; loss of sensation; stupor; loss of sense.
Dismay; consternation.
The overpowering emotion excited when something unaccountable, wonderful, or dreadful is presented to the mind; an intense degree of surprise; amazement.
The object causing such an emotion.
astonish ::: v. t. --> To stun; to render senseless, as by a blow.
To strike with sudden fear, terror, or wonder; to amaze; to surprise greatly, as with something unaccountable; to confound with some sudden emotion or passion.
Atman(Sanskrit) ::: The root of atman is hardly known; its origin is uncertain, but the general meaning is that of"self." The highest part of man -- self, pure consciousness per se. The essential and radical power orfaculty in man which gives to him, and indeed to every other entity or thing, its knowledge or sentientconsciousness of selfhood. This is not the ego.This principle (atman) is a universal one; but during incarnations its lowest parts take on attributes,because it is linked with the buddhi, as the buddhi is linked with the manas, as the manas is linked to thekama, and so on down the scale.Atman is also sometimes used of the universal self or spirit which is called in the Sanskrit writingsBrahman (neuter), and the Brahman or universal spirit is also called the paramatman.Man is rooted in the kosmos surrounding him by three principles, which can hardly be said to be abovethe first or atman, but are, so to say, that same atman's highest and most glorious parts.The inmost link with the Unutterable was called in ancient India by the term ``self,'' which has often beenmistranslated "soul." The Sanskrit word is atman and applies, in psychology, to the human entity. Theupper end of the link, so to speak, was called paramatman, or the ``self beyond,'' i.e., the permanentSELF -- words which describe neatly and clearly to those who have studied this wonderful philosophy,somewhat of the nature and essence of the being which man is, and the source from which, inbeginningless and endless duration, he sprang. Child of earth and child of heaven, he contains both inhimself.We say that the atman is universal, and so it is. It is the universal selfhood, that feeling or consciousnessof selfhood which is the same in every human being, and even in all the inferior beings of the hierarchy,even in those of the beast kingdom under us, and dimly perceptible in the plant world, and which is latenteven in the minerals. This is the pure cognition, the abstract idea, of self. It differs not at all throughoutthe hierarchy, except in degree of self-recognition. Though universal, it belongs (so far as we areconcerned in our present stage of evolution) to the fourth kosmic plane, though it is our seventh principlecounting upwards.
ava (Mahalakshmi bhava; Mahaluxmi bhava) ::: the Mahalaks.mi aspect of devibhava; the temperament of Mahalaks.mi, the personality of the sakti or devi who "is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace".Mah Mahalaksmi-Mahakali
avyAkṛta. (P. avyAkata; T. lung du ma bstan pa/lung ma bstan; C. wuji; J. muki; K. mugi 無). In Sanskrit, "indeterminate" or "unascertainable"; used to refer to the fourteen "indeterminate" or "unanswered" questions (avyAkṛtavastu) to which the Buddha refuses to respond. The American translator of PAli texts HENRY CLARKE WARREN rendered the term as "questions which tend not to edification." These questions involve various metaphysical assertions that were used in traditional India to evaluate a thinker's philosophical lineage. There are a number of versions of these "unanswerables," but one common list includes fourteen such questions, three sets of which are framed as "four alternatives" (CATUsKOtI): (1) Is the world eternal?, (2) Is the world not eternal?, (3) Is the world both eternal and not eternal?, (4) Is the world neither eternal nor not eternal?; (5) Is the world endless?, (6) Is the world not endless?, (7) Is the world both endless and not endless?, (8) Is the world neither endless nor not endless?; (9) Does the tathAgata exist after death?, (10) Does the tathAgata not exist after death?, (11) Does the tathAgata both exist and not exist after death?, (12) Does the tathAgata neither exist nor not exist after death?; (13) Are the soul (jīva) and the body identical?, and (14) Are the soul and the body not identical? It was in response to such questions that the Buddha famously asked whether a man shot by a poisoned arrow would spend time wondering about the height of the archer and the kind of wood used for the arrow, or whether he should seek to remove the arrow before it killed him. Likening these fourteen questions to such pointless speculation, he called them "a jungle, a wilderness, a puppet-show, a writhing, and a fetter, and is coupled with misery, ruin, despair, and agony, and does not tend to aversion, absence of passion, cessation, quiescence, knowledge, supreme wisdom, and nirvAna." The Buddha thus asserted that all these questions had to be set aside as unanswerable for being either unexplainable conceptually or "wrongly framed" (P. thapanīya). Questions that were "wrongly framed" inevitably derive from mistaken assumptions and are thus the products of wrong reflection (AYONIsOMANASKARA); therefore, any answer given to them would necessarily be either misleading or irrelevant. The Buddha's famous silence on these questions has been variously interpreted, with some seeing his refusal to answer these questions as deriving from the inherent limitations involved in using concepts to talk about such rarified existential questions. Because it is impossible to expect that concepts can do justice, for example, to an enlightened person's state of being after death, the Buddha simply remains silent when asked this and other "unanswerable" questions. The implication, therefore, is that it is not necessarily the case that the Buddha does not "know" the answer to these questions, but merely that he realizes the conceptual limitations inherent in trying to answer them definitively and thus refuses to respond. Yet other commentators explained that the Buddha declined to answer the question of whether the world (that is, SAMSARA) will ever end because the answer ("no") would prove too discouraging to his audience.
awed ::: 1. inspired or influenced by a feeling of fearful wonderment or reverence; 2. Inspired with reverential wonder combined with an element of latent fear.
awe ::: n. --> Dread; great fear mingled with respect.
The emotion inspired by something dreadful and sublime; an undefined sense of the dreadful and the sublime; reverential fear, or solemn wonder; profound reverence. ::: v. t. --> To strike with fear and reverence; to inspire with awe; to
awful ::: 1. Inspiring fear; terrible, dreadful, appalling, awe-inspiring. 2. Extremely impressive. 3. Profoundly inspired by a feeling of fearful wonderment or reverence.
Bahya, ben Joseph Ibn Padudah: (c. 1050) Philosopher and ethicist. The title of his work, The Duties of the Heart (Heb. Hobot ha-Leba-bot), indicates its purpose, i.e., to teach ethical conduct. First part demonstrates pure conception of God, unity and attributes. His basic principle of ethics is thankfulness to God, for His creating the wonderful world; the goal of religious ethical conduct is love of God. A second work ascribed to him is the Torot ha-Nefesh, i.e., Doctrines of the Soul, which deals primarily with the soul, but also with other subjects and evinces a strong neo-Platonic strain. See Jewish Philosophy -- M.W.
balaam ::: n. --> A paragraph describing something wonderful, used to fill out a newspaper column; -- an allusion to the miracle of Balaam&
Baubo The Matron Baubo, the enchantress “before she succeeds in reconciling the soul — Demeter, to its new position, finds herself obliged to assume the sexual forms of an infant. Baubo is matter, the physical body; and the intellectual, as yet pure astral soul can be ensnared into its new terrestrial prison but by the display of innocent babyhood. Until then, doomed to her fate, Demeter, or Magna-mater, the Soul, wonders and hesitates and suffers; but once having partaken of the magic potion prepared by Baubo, she forgets her sorrows; for a certain time she parts with that consciousness of higher intellect that she was possessed of before entering the body of a child. Thenceforth she must seek to rejoin it again; and when the age of reason arrives for the child, the struggle — forgotten for a few years of infancy — begins again” (IU 2:112).
Behind the tales that have clustered around this wonderful bird, there was a deep symbology: “Simorgh was the guardian of the ancient Persian Mysteries. It is expected to reappear at the end of the cycle as a gigantic bird-lion. Esoterically, it stands as the symbol of the Manvantaric cycle” (TG 299). Simorgh symbolizes the ancient knowledge and the creative life force. In later Persian literature, it represents the perfect man who has exalted himself to the highest degree of freedom.
bewondered ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Bewonder
bewonder ::: v. t. --> To fill with wonder.
To wonder at; to admire.
Birds of Wonder
Blavatsky states that Sanskrit has never been known nor spoken in its true systematized form except by the initiated Brahmins. This form of Sanskrit was called — as well as by other names — Vach, the mystic speech, which resides in the sounds of the mantra. “The chanting of a Mantra is not a prayer, but rather a magical sentence in which the law of Occult causation connects itself with, and depends on, the will and acts of its singer. It is a succession of Sanskrit sounds, and when its strings of words and sentences is pronounced according to the magical formulae in the Atharva Veda, but understood by the few, some Mantras produce an instantaneous and very wonderful effect” (BCW 14:428n). This Vach, or the mystic self of Sanskrit, was the sacerdotal speech of the initiated Brahmins and was studied by initiates from all over the world.
brag ::: v. i. --> To talk about one&
BrahmA. [alt. MahAbrahmA] (T. Tshangs pa; C. Fantian; J. Bonten; K. Pomch'on 梵天). An Indian divinity who was adopted into the Buddhist pantheon as a protector of the teachings (DHARMAPALA) and king of the BRAHMALOKA (in the narrow sense of that term). A particular form of the god BrahmA, called SAHAMPATI, plays a crucial role in the inception of the Buddhist dispensation or teaching (sASANA). During the seven weeks following his enlightenment, the newly awakened buddha GAUTAMA was unsure as to whether he should teach, wondering whether there would be anyone in this world who would be able to duplicate his experience. BrahmA descended to earth and convinced him that there were persons "with little dust in their eyes" who would be able to understand his teachings. The Buddha then surveyed the world to determine the most suitable persons to hear the DHARMA. Seeing that his former meditation teachers had died, he chose the "group of five" (PANCAVARGIKA) and proceeded to ṚsIPATANA, where he taught his first sermon, the "Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma" (DHARMACAKRAPRAVARTANASuTRA; P. DHAMMACAKKAPPAVATTANASUTTA). Because of this intervention, BrahmA is considered one of the main dharmapAlas. BUDDHAGHOSA explains, however, that the compassionate Buddha never had any hesitation about teaching the dharma but felt that if he were implored by the god BrahmA, who was revered in the world, it would lend credence to his mission. BrahmA is depicted with four faces and four arms, and his primary attributes are the lotus and the CAKRA. The figure of BrahmA also fused with early Indian BODHISATTVAs such as PADMAPAnI (AVALOKITEsVARA). In Tibet the dharmapAla TSHANGS PA DKAR PO is a fusion of BrahmA and PE HAR RGYAL PO.
buddhapAda. (T. sangs rgyas kyi zhabs; C. fozu; J. bussoku; K. pulchok 佛足). In Sanskrit and PAli, lit. "the feet of the Buddha"; typically referring to "the Buddha's footprints," which became objects of religious veneration in early Buddhism. There are typically three kinds of footprints of the Buddha, all of which are treated as a type of relic (sARĪRA, DHATU). At the incipiency of the tradition, the Buddha's footprints were a popular aniconic representation of the Buddha; the oldest of these, from the BHARHUT reliquary mound (STuPA), dates to the second century BCE. The second are natural indentations in rock that are said to have been made by the Buddha's feet; an example is the Sri Lankan mountain known as srī PAda, or "Holy Foot," which is named after an impression in the rock of the mountain's summit that the Sinhalese people believe to be a footprint of GAUTAMA Buddha. Both these first and second types are concave images and are presumed to be a sign of the Buddha's former presence in a specific place. Such footprints are also often important as traditional evidence of a visit by the Buddha to a distant land. The third form of footprint are convex images carved in stone, metal, or wood (or in some cases painted), which represent the soles of the Buddha's feet in elaborate detail and are often covered with all manner of auspicious symbols. They may bear the specific physical marks (LAKsAnA) said to be present on the feet of a fully awakened being, such as having toes that are all the same length, or having dharma-wheels (DHARMACAKRA) inscribed on the soles (see MAHAPURUsALAKsAnA). In the PAli tradition, there is a practice of making buddhapAda in which the central wheel is surrounded by a retinue (parivAra) of 108 auspicious signs, called MAnGALA. Symbolically, the footprints point to the reality of the Buddha's erstwhile physical presence in our world. At the same time, the footprints also indicate his current absence and thus may encourage the observer to reflect on nonattachment. Veneration of the Buddha's footprints occurs throughout the Buddhist world but is particularly popular in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. Of his footprints, tradition reports that the Buddha said, "In the future, intelligent beings will see the scriptures and understand. Those of less intelligence will wonder whether the Buddha appeared in the world. In order to remove their doubts, I have set my footprints in stone."
Buddhochinga (Sanskrit) Buddhociṅga “The name of a great Indian Arhat who went to China in the 4th century to propagate Buddhism and converted masses of people by means of miracles and most wonderful magic feats” (TG 68).
Wonder: An object of magical power. Some Wonders are simple objects that perform only a small trick or hold a tiny amount of Quintessence, while others are legendary artifacts capable of phenomenal feats of magic and holding great amounts of mystical energy.
Wonderful.” The legend is retold in Clement,
WonderPop "language" (WPOP) An implementation of {POP} for the {PDP-10} made by Robert Rae "rhr@aiai.ed.ac.uk" in Edinburgh in 1976. WonderPop used "cages" for different {data types} and introduced {processes}, {properties} and some {typed identifiers}. (2016-12-24)
Wonder rabbi: In Jewish mystic lore, a Hasidistic rabbi of great mystic knowledge and magic powers.
Cartesianism: The philosophy of the French thinker, Rene Descartes (Cartesius) 1596-1650. After completing his formal education at the Jesuit College at La Fleche, he spent the years 1612-1621 in travel and military service. The reminder of his life was devoted to study and writing. He died in Sweden, where he had gone in 1649 to tutor Queen Christina. His principal works are: Discours de la methode, (preface to his Geometric, Meteores, Dieptrique) Meditationes de prima philosophia, Principia philosophiae, Passions de l'ame, Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Le monde. Descartes is justly regarded as one of the founders of modern epistemology. Dissatisfied with the lack of agreement among philosophers, he decided that philosophy needed a new method, that of mathematics. He began by resolving to doubt everything which could not pass the test of his criterion of truth, viz. the clearness and distinctness of ideas. Anything which could pass this test was to be readmitted as self-evident. From self-evident truths, he deduced other truths which logically follow from them. Three kinds of ideas were distinguished: innate, by which he seems to mean little more than the mental power to think things or thoughts; adventitious, which come to him from without; factitious, produced within his own mind. He found most difficulty with the second type of ideas. The first reality discovered through his method is the thinking self. Though he might doubt nearly all else, Descartes could not reasonably doubt that he, who was thinking, existed as a res cogitans. This is the intuition enunciated in the famous aphorism: I think, therefore I am, Cogito ergo sum. This is not offered by Descartes as a compressed syllogism, but as an immediate intuition of his own thinking mind. Another reality, whose existence was obvious to Descartes, was God, the Supreme Being. Though he offered several proofs of the Divine Existence, he was convinced that he knew this also by an innate idea, and so, clearly and distinctly. But he did not find any clear ideas of an extra-mental, bodily world. He suspected its existence, but logical demonstration was needed to establish this truth. His adventitious ideas carry the vague suggestion that they are caused by bodies in an external world. By arguing that God would be a deceiver, in allowing him to think that bodies exist if they do not, he eventually convinced himself of the reality of bodies, his own and others. There are, then, three kinds of substance according to Descartes: Created spirits, i.e. the finite soul-substance of each man: these are immaterial agencies capable of performing spiritual operations, loosely united with bodies, but not extended since thought is their very essence. Uncreated Spirit, i.e. God, confined neither to space nor time, All-Good and All-Powerful, though his Existence can be known clearly, his Nature cannot be known adequately by men on earth, He is the God of Christianity, Creator, Providence and Final Cause of the universe. Bodies, i.e. created, physical substances existing independently of human thought and having as their chief attribute, extension. Cartesian physics regards bodies as the result of the introduction of "vortices", i.e. whorls of motion, into extension. Divisibility, figurability and mobility, are the notes of extension, which appears to be little more thin what Descartes' Scholastic teachers called geometrical space. God is the First Cause of all motion in the physical universe, which is conceived as a mechanical system operated by its Maker. Even the bodies of animals are automata. Sensation is the critical problem in Cartesian psychology; it is viewed by Descartes as a function of the soul, but he was never able to find a satisfactory explanation of the apparent fact that the soul is moved by the body when sensation occurs. The theory of animal spirits provided Descartes with a sort of bridge between mind and matter, since these spirits are supposed to be very subtle matter, halfway, as it were, between thought and extension in their nature. However, this theory of sensation is the weakest link in the Cartesian explanation of cognition. Intellectual error is accounted for by Descartes in his theory of assent, which makes judgment an act of free will. Where the will over-reaches the intellect, judgment may be false. That the will is absolutely free in man, capable even of choosing what is presented by the intellect as the less desirable of two alternatives, is probably a vestige of Scotism retained from his college course in Scholasticism. Common-sense and moderation are the keynotes of Descartes' famous rules for the regulation of his own conduct during his nine years of methodic doubt, and this ethical attitude continued throughout his life. He believed that man is responsible ultimately to God for the courses of action that he may choose. He admitted that conflicts may occur between human passions and human reason. A virtuous life is made possible by the knowledge of what is right and the consequent control of the lower tendencies of human nature. Six primary passions are described by Descartes wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sorrow. These are passive states of consciousness, partly caused by the body, acting through the animal spirits, and partly caused by the soul. Under rational control, they enable the soul to will what is good for the body. Descartes' terminology suggests that there are psychological faculties, but he insists that these powers are not really distinct from the soul itself, which is man's sole psychic agency. Descartes was a practical Catholic all his life and he tried to develop proofs of the existence of God, an explanation of the Eucharist, of the nature of religious faith, and of the operation of Divine Providence, using his philosophy as the basis for a new theology. This attempted theology has not found favor with Catholic theologians in general.
charmed ::: 1. Delighted or fascinated. 2. Marked by good fortune or privilege. 3. Protected from evil and harm as by a magical power vested in an amulet, etc. 4. Filled with wonder and delight.
(c) In aesthetics: Rhythmic vitality; expression; wonderful quality; style full of spirit, energy or vivacity. -- W.T.C.
Concerning the labyrinth of ancient Egypt, “Herodotus, preserved for posterity the remembrance of that wonder of the world, the great Labyrinth. . . . Herodotus says that he found therein 3,000 chambers; half subterranean and the other half above-ground. ‘The upper chambers,’ he says, ‘I myself passed through and examined in detail. In the underground ones (which may exist till now, for all the archaeologists know), the keepers of the building would not let me in, for they contain the sepulchres of the kings who built the Labyrinth, and also those of the sacred crocodiles. The upper chambers I saw and examined with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human productions’ ” (IU 1:522-3).
daijue ermiao. (待絶二妙). In Chinese, "marvelous in comparison and marvelous in its own right." In the TIANTAI school's system of doctrinal classification (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI), Buddhist teachings and scriptures were classified into four modes of instruction (according to their different doctrinal themes; see TIANTAI BAJIAO) and five periods (according to the presumed chronological order by which the Buddha propounded them; see WUSHI). The most sophisticated pedagogical mode and the culminating chronological period are called, respectively, "the perfect teaching" (YUANJIAO) and the "Fahua-Niepan period." The teachings and scriptures associated with the highest mode and the culminating period-the paradigmatic example being the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra") and the teachings it embodied for the Tiantai school-are called truly "marvelous" for two reasons. First, they are "marvelous in comparison to the teachings and scriptures of all other 'modes' and 'periods'" (xiangdai miao) because they are the definitive expressions of the Buddha's teachings; second, they are also "marvelous in their own right" (juedai miao), i.e., they are wonderful and profound in an absolute sense, and not just comparatively.
Death ::: Death occurs when a general break-up of the constitution of man takes place; nor is this break-up amatter of sudden occurrence, with the exceptions of course of such cases as mortal accidents or suicides.Death is always preceded, varying in each individual case, by a certain time spent in the withdrawal ofthe monadic individuality from an incarnation, and this withdrawal of course takes place coincidentlywith a decay of the seven-principle being which man is in physical incarnation. This decay precedesphysical dissolution, and is a preparation of and by the consciousness-center for the forthcomingexistence in the invisible realms. This withdrawal actually is a preparation for the life to come ininvisible realms, and as the septenary entity on this earth so decays, it may truly be said to beapproaching rebirth in the next sphere.Death occurs, physically speaking, with the cessation of activity of the pulsating heart. There is the lastbeat, and this is followed by immediate, instantaneous unconsciousness, for nature is very merciful inthese things. But death is not yet complete, for the brain is the last organ of the physical body really todie, and for some time after the heart has ceased beating, the brain and its memory still remain activeand, although unconsciously so, the human ego for this short length of time, passes in review every eventof the preceding life. This great or small panoramic picture of the past is purely automatic, so to say; yetthe soul-consciousness of the reincarnating ego watches this wonderful review incident by incident, areview which includes the entire course of thought and action of the life just closed. The entity is, for thetime being, entirely unconscious of everything else except this. Temporarily it lives in the past, andmemory dislodges from the akasic record, so to speak, event after event, to the smallest detail: passesthem all in review, and in regular order from the beginning to the end, and thus sees all its past life as anall-inclusive panorama of picture succeeding picture.There are very definite ethical and psychological reasons inhering in this process, for this process forms areconstruction of both the good and the evil done in the past life, and imprints this strongly as a record onthe fabric of the spiritual memory of the passing being. Then the mortal and material portions sink intooblivion, while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of these memories into thedevachan or heaven-world of postmortem rest and recuperation. Thus comes the end called death; andunconsciousness, complete and undisturbed, succeeds, until there occurs what the ancients called thesecond death.The lower triad (prana, linga-sarira, sthula-sarira) is now definitely cast off, and the remaining quaternaryis free. The physical body of the lower triad follows the course of natural decay, and its various hosts oflife-atoms proceed whither their natural attractions draw them. The linga-sarira or model-body remains inthe astral realms, and finally fades out. The life-atoms of the prana, or electrical field, fly instantly backat the moment of physical dissolution to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.This leaves man, therefore, no longer a heptad or septenary entity, but a quaternary consisting of theupper duad (atma-buddhi) and the intermediate duad (manas-kama). The second death then takes place.Death and the adjective dead are mere words by which the human mind seeks to express thoughts whichit gathers from a more or less consistent observation of the phenomena of the material world. Death isdissolution of a component entity or thing. The dead, therefore, are merely dissolving bodies -- entitieswhich have reached their term on this our physical plane. Dissolution is common to all things, becauseall physical things are composite: they are not absolute things. They are born; they grow; they reachmaturity; they enjoy, as the expression runs, a certain term of life in the full bloom of their powers; thenthey "die." That is the ordinary way of expressing what men call death; and the corresponding adjectiveis dead, when we say that such things or entities are dead.Do you find death per se anywhere? No. You find nothing but action; you find nothing but movement;you find nothing but change. Nothing stands still or is annihilated. What is called death itself shouts forthto us the fact of movement and change. Absolute inertia is unknown in nature or in the human mind; itdoes not exist.
delighted ::: greatly pleased, filled with wonder and delight.
Deva(s)(Sanskrit) ::: A word meaning celestial being, of which there are various classes. This has been a greatpuzzle for most of our Occidental Orientalists. They cannot understand the distinctions that thewonderful old philosophers of the Orient make as regards the various classes of the devas. They say, insubstance: "What funny contradictions there are in these teachings, which in many respects are profoundand seem wonderful. Some of these devas or divine beings are said to be less than man; some of thesewritings even say that a good man is nobler than any god. And yet other parts of these teachings declarethat there are gods higher even than the devas, and yet are called devas. What does this mean?"The devas or celestial beings, one class of them, are the unself-conscious sparks of divinity, cyclingdown into matter in order to bring out from within themselves and to unfold or evolve self-consciousness,the svabhava of divinity within. They then begin their reascent always on the luminous arc, which neverends, in a sense; and they are gods, self-conscious gods, henceforth taking a definite and divine part inthe "great work," as the mystics have said, of being builders, evolvers, leaders of hierarchies. In otherwords, they are monads which have become their own innermost selves, which have passed thering-pass-not separating the spiritual from the divine.
Dharani (Sanskrit) Dhāraṇī [from the verbal root dhṛ to bear, support] In Buddhism, a mystical verse or mantra; in Hinduism, verses from the Rig-Veda. “In days of old these mantras or Dharani were all considered mystical and practically efficacious in their use. At present, however, it is the Yogacharya school alone which proves the claim in practice. When chanted according to given instructions a Dharani produces wonderful effects. Its occult power, however, does not reside in the words but in the inflexion or accent given and the resulting sound originated thereby” (TG 100).
Dhyana(Sanskrit) ::: A term signifying profound spiritualintellectual contemplation with utter detachment from allobjects of a sensuous and lower mental character. In Buddhism it is one of the six paramitas ofperfection. One who is adept or expert in the practice of dhyana, which by the way is a wonderfulspiritual exercise if the proper idea of it be grasped, is carried in thought entirely out of all relations withthe material and merely psychological spheres of being and of consciousness, and into lofty spiritualplanes. Instead of dhyana being a subtraction from the elements of consciousness, it is rather a throwingoff or casting aside of the crippling sheaths of ethereal matter which surround the consciousness, thusallowing the dhyanin, or practicer of this form of true yoga, to enter into the highest parts of his ownconstitution and temporarily to become at one with and, therefore, to commune with the gods. It is atemporary becoming at one with the upper triad of man considered as a septenary, in other words, withhis monadic essence. Man's consciousness in this state or condition becomes purely buddhi, or ratherbuddhic, with the highest parts of the manas acting as upadhi or vehicle for the retention of what theconsciousness therein experiences. From this term is drawn the phrase dhyani-chohans ordhyani-buddhas -- words so frequently used in theosophical literature and so frequently misconceived asto their real meaning. (See also Samadhi)
dianyan. (J. tengen; K. choman 點眼). In Chinese, lit. "dotting the eyes," also known as "opening the eyes" (KAIYAN; T. spyan phye); a consecration ceremony for a buddha image (BUDDHĀBHIsEKA) that serves to make the icon come alive. The term refers to a ceremony, or series of ceremonies, that accompanies the installation of a buddha image or painting, which specifically involves dotting the pupils onto the inert eyes of the icon in order to animate it. Until this ceremony is performed, the icon remains nothing more than an inert block of wood or lump of clay; once its eyes are dotted, however, the image is thought to become invested with the power and charisma of a living buddha. The related term kaiyan has the same denotation, but may in some contexts it refer more broadly to "opening up the eyes" of an image by ritually dropping eye drops into its eyes. Both dianyan or kaiyan occurred in conjunction with esoteric Buddhist rituals. The Yiqie rulai anxiang sanmei yigui jing provides an elaborate set of instructions on how to consecrate buddha images, in which "dotting the eyes" accompanies the performance of other esoteric practices, such as MANTRA and MUDRĀ. When a bodhisattva wonders why buddha images are installed if the DHARMAKĀYA of a buddha has no physical form, the Buddha replies that images are used as an expedient for guiding neophytes who have first aroused the thought of enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPĀDA). In Korea, where this term choman is typically used for this ceremony rather than kaean (C. kaiyan), there were different "dotting the eyes" consecrations for different types of Buddhist images and requisites, including images of a buddha, ARHAT, the ten kings of hell (shiwang), and the kings of heaven, as well as in conjunction with ceremonies for erecting a STuPA or offering robes (KAsĀYA). Through these choman ceremonies, Buddhist artifacts are transformed from mere physical objects into spiritually sanctioned religious items imbued with spiritual efficacy. The Korean Chinon chip ("Mantra Anthology"), extant in several editions of which the oldest is dated 1476, includes a "mantra for dotting the eyes" (choman mun) along with its Sanskrit and Chinese transliterations. In Japan, this ceremony is usually called kaigen (C. kaiyan) rather than tengen. In Chinese CHAN texts, "dotting the eyes" of a buddha image is also sometimes used as a metaphor for a Chan adept's final achievement of awakening. See also NETRAPRATIstHĀPANA.
Divine Soul ::: In occultism the divine soul is the garment of the divine ego, as the divine ego is the garment or child ofthe divine monad. The divine monad we may call the inner god, and this would mean that the divine ego,its offspring, is the inner Buddha, or the inner Christ; and hence the divine soul is the expression of theinner Buddha or of the inner Christ in manifestation on earth as the manushya-buddha or christ-man.It should be stated here that of the several monads which in their combination form the entire septenaryconstitution of man each such monad has its own ego-child, and this latter has its own soul. It is thiscombination, mystic, wonderful, mysterious, which makes of man the complex entity he is, and whichentitles him to the term which the occultism of the archaic ages has always given to him: the microcosm,a reflection or copy in the small of the macrocosm or kosmic entity.
Doctrine of Signatures ::: A Hermetic principle that essentially states: the form of an object determines the archetypes it represents. This works through symbolic resonance. When applied to materia for usage in talismanic magic, for instance, this means that the form of the materia determines how it should be used. For example, star anise is a wonderful Lunar herb because it is shaped like a star. Form determines function.
dweeb An even lower form of life than the {spod}, found in much the same habitat as the former. though more prevailent on {talker systems}. Unlike spods, upon receiving the desired response to the question "Are you male or female?", dweebs will then engage upon a detailed description of themselves and how wonderful they are, often in the hopes of truly impressing the other with their "charm" and "wit". Nearly all dweebs are male, but very few actually live up to the image that they present. Dweebs, unfortunately, are often the cause of ill-will, and may well bring a bad reputation to the system in question. They are often, however, easy to wind up and can be the source of great mirth to the seasoned user.
eighty-twenty rule "programming" The program-design version of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the problem can be solved with 20% of the effort that it would take to solve the whole problem. For example, parsing {e-mail addresses} in "From:" lines in e-mail messages is notoriously difficult if you follow the RFC 2822 specification. However, about 60% of actual "From:" lines are in the format "From: Their Name "user@host"", with a far more constrained idea of what can be in "user" or "host" than in RFC 2822. Another 25% just add double-quotes around "Their Name". Matching just those two patterns would thus cover 85% of "From:" lines, with a tiny portion of the code required to fully implement RFC2822. (Adding support for "From: user@host" and "From: user@host (Their Name) " brings coverage to almost 100%, leaving only really baroque things that RFC-2822 permits, like "From: Pete(A wonderful \) chap) "pete(his account)@silly.test(his host)" or the like.) It is an eternal question whether too much attention is paid to the 80/20 rule (leading to systems that are irrevocably broken for "unusual" cases), or too little (leading to systems that sacrifice usability in the typical case, just so that rare cases can work properly). Compare: {KISS Principle} (2003-11-17)
eighty-twenty rule ::: (programming) The program-design version of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the problem can be solved with 20% of the effort that it would take to solve the whole problem.For example, parsing e-mail addresses in From: lines in e-mail messages is notoriously difficult if you follow the RFC 2822 specification. However, about those two patterns would thus cover 85% of From: lines, with a tiny portion of the code required to fully implement RFC2822.(Adding support for From: and From: (Their Name) brings coverage to almost 100%, leaving only really baroque things that RFC-2822 permits, like From: Pete(A wonderful \) chap) pete(his account)@silly.test(his host) or the like.)It is an eternal question whether too much attention is paid to the 80/20 rule (leading to systems that are irrevocably broken for unusual cases), or too little (leading to systems that sacrifice usability in the typical case, just so that rare cases can work properly).Compare: KISS Principle(2003-11-17)
enchantment ::: n. --> The act of enchanting; the production of certain wonderful effects by the aid of demons, or the agency of supposed spirits; the use of magic arts, spells, or charms; incantation.
The effect produced by the act; the state of being enchanted; as, to break an enchantment.
That which captivates the heart and senses; an influence or power which fascinates or highly delights.
Ephesus The chief of the twelve Ionic cities on the coast of Asia Minor, where the cultures of western Asia and Greece blended. Associated with Artemis or Diana of the Ephesians, Greek name of the Mylitta, Cybele, etc., of the Asiatic cults. The Ephesian Artemis is represented as a female figure with many breasts, the Great Mother Multimamma. The original temple was built in the 6th century BC, burnt in 356 BC and so magnificently restored that it was enumerated among the seven wonders of the world.
escurial ::: n. --> A palace and mausoleum of the kinds of Spain, being a vast and wonderful structure about twenty-five miles northwest of Madrid.
exclaim ::: v. t. & i. --> To cry out from earnestness or passion; to utter with vehemence; to call out or declare loudly; to protest vehemently; to vociferate; to shout; as, to exclaim against oppression with wonder or astonishment; "The field is won!" he exclaimed. ::: n. --> Outcry; clamor.
exclamation ::: n. --> A loud calling or crying out; outcry; loud or emphatic utterance; vehement vociferation; clamor; that which is cried out, as an expression of feeling; sudden expression of sound or words indicative of emotion, as in surprise, pain, grief, joy, anger, etc.
A word expressing outcry; an interjection; a word expressing passion, as wonder, fear, or grief.
A mark or sign by which outcry or emphatic utterance is marked; thus [!]; -- called also exclamation point.
Existence ::: Existence is not merely a glorious or a vain, a wonderful or a dismal panorama of a constant mutation of becoming. There is something eternal, immutable, imperishable, a timeless self-existence; that is not affected by the mutations of Nature. It is their impartial witness, neither affecting nor affected, neither acting nor acted upon, neither virtuous nor sinful, but always pure, complete, great and unwounded. Neither grieving nor rejoicing at all that afflicts and attracts the egoistic being, it is the friend of none, the enemy of none, but one equal self of all.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 19, Page: 303
extraordinary ::: a. --> Beyond or out of the common order or method; not usual, customary, regular, or ordinary; as, extraordinary evils; extraordinary remedies.
Exceeding the common degree, measure. or condition; hence, remarkable; uncommon; rare; wonderful; as, extraordinary talents or grandeur.
Employed or sent upon an unusual or special service; as, an ambassador extraordinary.
ey ::: n. --> An island.
See Egg. ::: --> An interj. of wonder or inquiry.
fable ::: n. --> A Feigned story or tale, intended to instruct or amuse; a fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept; an apologue. See the Note under Apologue.
The plot, story, or connected series of events, forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.
Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.
Fiction; untruth; falsehood.
facility ::: n. --> The quality of being easily performed; freedom from difficulty; ease; as, the facility of an operation.
Ease in performance; readiness proceeding from skill or use; dexterity; as, practice gives a wonderful facility in executing works of art.
Easiness to be persuaded; readiness or compliance; -- usually in a bad sense; pliancy.
Easiness of access; complaisance; affability.
farlie ::: n. --> An unusual or unexpected thing; a wonder. See Fearly.
ferly ::: n. --> Singular; wonderful; extraordinary.
A wonder; a marvel.
flabbergast ::: v. t. --> To astonish; to strike with wonder, esp. by extraordinary statements.
flecks ::: a spot or small patch of colour, light, etc. wonder-flecks.
from Sanskrit shishya meaning disciple or student. A monotheistic religion that originated during the 15th century AD in the Punjab of India, founded by Guru Nanak Dev who taught a life of simplicity and honesty. The One God is called Ek Onkar, and is often referred to as Wahe Guru (wonderful lord). By tradition, a Sikh man takes the surname Singh (lion), and a Sikh woman takes the name Kaur (princess).
gag ::: Equivalent to choke, but connotes more disgust. Hey, this is Fortran code. No wonder the C compiler gagged. See also barf.[Jargon File]
gag Equivalent to {choke}, but connotes more disgust. "Hey, this is Fortran code. No wonder the C compiler gagged." See also {barf}. [{Jargon File}]
gapingstock ::: n. --> One who is an object of open-mouthed wonder.
gargantuan ::: a. --> Characteristic of Gargantua, a gigantic, wonderful personage; enormous; prodigious; inordinate.
gaze ::: n. 1. The act of looking steadily, intently and with fixed attention. v. 2. To look long and fixedly, esp. in wonder or admiration, poet. **gazes, gazed, gazing, sun-gaze, Truth-gaze, star-gazer, outward-gazing, sun-gazing.**
geason ::: a. --> Rare; wonderful.
good now ::: --> An exclamation of wonder, surprise, or entreaty.
Good Thing "convention" (From the 1930 Sellar and Yeatman parody "1066 And All That") Often capitalised; always pronounced as if capitalised. 1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position to notice: "The {Trailblazer}'s 19.2 K{baud} {PEP} mode with {on-the-fly} {Lempel-Ziv compression} is a Good Thing for sites relaying {netnews}". 2. Something that can't possibly have any ill side-effects and may save considerable grief later: "Removing the {self-modifying code} from that {shared library} would be a Good Thing". 3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in "{Yacc} is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that the thing has drastically reduced a programmer's work load. Opposite: {Bad Thing}, compare {big win}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-05-07)
Good Thing ::: (convention) (From the 1930 Sellar and Yeatman parody 1066 And All That) Often capitalised; always pronounced as if capitalised.1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position to notice: The Trailblazer's 19.2 Kbaud PEP mode with on-the-fly Lempel-Ziv compression is a Good Thing for sites relaying netnews.2. Something that can't possibly have any ill side-effects and may save considerable grief later: Removing the self-modifying code from that shared library would be a Good Thing.3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in Yacc is a Good Thing, specifically connotes that the thing has drastically reduced a programmer's work load.Opposite: Bad Thing, compare big win.[Jargon File] (1995-05-07)
Great and Wonderful—when Michael came
Gyan (Persian) Also Gian-ben-Gian, Gyan-ben-Gian. According to the Persian legend, Gyan was king of the peris or sylphs. He had a wonderful shield which served as a protection against evil or black magic — the sorcery of the devs. Blavatsky remarks that Gyan might be spelled Gnan (which corresponds to the Sanskrit jnana), meaning true or occult wisdom. His shield, “produced on the principles of astrology, destroyed charms, enchantments, and bad spells, could not prevail against Iblis, who was an agent of Fate (or Karma)” (SD 2:394).
“He never laid claim to spiritual powers, but proved to have a right to such claim. He used to pass into a dead trance from thirty-seven to forty-nine hours without awakening, and then knew all he had to know, and demonstrated the fact by prophesying futurity and never making a mistake. It is he who prophesied before the Kings Louis XV. and XVI., and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Many were the still-living witnesses in the first quarter of this century who testified to his marvellous memory; he could read a paper in the morning and, though hardly glancing at it, could repeat its contents without missing one word days afterwards; he could write with two hands at once, the right hand writing a piece of poetry, the left a diplomatic paper of the greatest importance. He read sealed letters without touching them, while still in the hand of those who brought them to him. He was the greatest adept in transmuting metals, making gold and the most marvellous diamonds, an art, he said, he had learned from certain Brahmans in India, who taught him the artificial crystallisation (‘quickening’) of pure carbon. As our Brother Kenneth Mackenzie has it: — ‘In 1780, when on a visit to the French Ambassador to the Hague, he broke to pieces with a hammer a superb diamond of his own manufacture, the counterpart of which, also manufactured by himself, he had just before sold to a jeweller for 5500 louis d’or.’ He was the friend and confidant of Count Orloff in 1772 at Vienna, whom he had helped and saved in St. Petersburg in 1762, when concerned in the famous political conspiracies of that time; he also became intimate with Frederick the Great of Prussia. As a matter of course, he had numerous enemies, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if all the gossip invented about him is now attributed to his own confessions: e.g., that he was over five hundred years old; also, that he claimed personal intimacy ‘with the Saviour and his twelve Apostles, and that he had reproved Peter for his bad temper’ — the latter clashing somewhat in point of time with the former, if he had really claimed to be only five hundred years old. If he said that ‘he had been born in Chaldea and professed to possess the secrets of the Egyptian magicians and sage,’ he may have spoken truth without making any miraculous claim. There are Initiates, and not the highest either, who are placed in a condition to remember more than one of their past lives. But we have good reason to know that St. Germain could never have claimed ‘personal intimacy’ with the Saviour. However that may be, Count St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries. But Europe knew him not. Perchance some may recognise him at the next Terreur, which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not one country alone” (TG 308-9).
“He was a natural clairvoyant of most wonderful powers. With no education or acquaintance with science he wrote works which are now proved to be full of scientific truths; but then, as he says himself, what he wrote upon, he ‘saw it as in a great Deep in the Eternal.’ He had ‘a thorough view of the universe, as in a chaos,’ which yet ‘opened itself in him, from time to time, as in a young plant.’ He was a thorough born Mystic, and evidently of a constitution which is most rare; one of those fine natures whose material envelope impedes in no way the direct, even if only occasional, intercommunion between the intellectual and the spiritual Ego. It is this Ego which Jacob Boehme, like so many other untrained mystics, mistook for God; ‘Man must acknowledge,’ he writes, ‘that his knowledge is not his own, but from God, who manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the Soul of Man, in what measure he pleases.’ Had this great Theosophist mastered Eastern Occultism he might have expressed it otherwise. He would have known then that the ‘god’ who spoke through his poor uncultured and untrained brain, was his own divine Ego, the omniscient Deity within himself, and that what that Deity gave out was not in ‘what measure he pleased,’ but in the measure of the capacities of the mortal and temporary dwelling IT informed” (TG 60).
heyday ::: interj. --> An expression of frolic and exultation, and sometimes of wonder. ::: n. --> The time of triumph and exultation; hence, joy, high spirits, frolicsomeness; wildness.
Horse In the ancient Mediterranean and Northern European mythologies, used in connection with the sun and standing as a symbol for the solar powers or the sun itself. The sun is frequently represented in ancient thought as being drawn along the heavens by means of horses. In ancient Persia and Greece, individual heroes, as for instance Hushenk and Bellerophon, are said to have obtained mastery over and consequent use of wonderful horses with which they were enabled to approach the sun. In Scandinavian mythology, horses were represented as carrying the heroes into the under- and over-world, and as mounts of the Valkyries they bore the fallen heroes to Valhalla.
How these magnificent lines from Savitri continue to reverberate in the mind and heart and soul I do not know. I know only this, that Savitri, as Mother has said, is”a mantra for the transformation of the world.” As understanding grows within, not in the mind but in the inner cathedral which is always drenched in light, certain lines repeat themselves as mantra and I share what comes to me in a spirit of wonder and hushed elation.
Human mediumship is a voluntary, or more often involuntary, subjection to the lower planes of astral substance which, while more ethereal than ordinary matter, yet are of a quality more gross, more powerful, and usually more malefic. Entrance into these astral realms produces a species of astral intoxication, from the delusion of strange because unknown and often unequilibrated forces, deceptive astral pictures; and the astral intoxication is increased because of considering these experiences as wonder-phenomena. In other words, the conditions and experiences sensed are as genuine, and as unreliable and utterly useless, as are the hallucinations of the delirious or insane. Only an occultist of masterful will and great purity of life can rise consciously to the spiritual plane and, looking down on the astral levels below, understand, control, and remember what he sees. In untrained mediumship the atoms and molecules of the astrally “controlled” body which the alien astral entity uses to mold into a form and to move with its own desire-impulses, retain this astral psychomagnetic imprint. With repeated trances, the medium grows continuously and progressively less than his individual self, because of his thoughts and feelings becoming mixed with, overlaid, or blurred by ideas and emotions which per se are abnormal and misleading. He therefore becomes irresponsible as a source of genuine spiritual knowledge and prevision, and still less responsible as a guardian of sacred truths. Because of this, untrained mediumship precludes initiation into the Mysteries as the person’s faith in his astral “control” would dominate him instead of the rules of the sanctuary.
Huyin Daoji. (J. Koin Dosai; K. Hoŭn Toje 湖隱道濟) (1150-1209). Chinese monk and thaumaturge who is associated with the YANGQI PAI of the LINJI ZONG of CHAN school; he is most commonly known in Chinese as JIGONG (Sire Ji) and sometimes as Jidian (Crazy Ji). A popular subject in vernacular Chinese fiction and plays, it has become difficult to separate the historical Jigong from the legend. Jigong is said to have been a native of Linhai in present-day Zhejiang province. He later visited the Chan master Xiatang Huiyuan (1103-1176), received the full monastic precepts at his monastery of Lingyinsi (present-day Jiangsu province), and became his disciple. After he left Xiatang's side, Jigong is said to have led the life of an itinerant holy man. During this period, Jigong's antinomian behavior, most notably his drinking and meat eating, along with his accomplishments as a trickster and wonderworker, became the subject of popular folklore. His unconventional behavior seems to have led to his ostracism from the SAMGHA. Jigong later moved to the monastery of Jingcisi, where he died in 1209. His teachings are recorded in the Jidian chanshi yulu (first printed in 1569).
Ichchha-sakti (Sanskrit) Icchā-śakti [from icchā desire, will + śakti power] Will power or the force of desire; this power of the will is one of the occult forces of nature. Its most ordinary manifestation on the physical plane is the generation of the nerve currents necessary to set certain muscles in motion for the accomplishment of the desired object, and the paralysing of other muscles. A yogi generally performs his wonders by using ichchha-sakti combined with kriya-sakti. Desire arouses or motivates the will, which then moves in accordance with the direction given it through the desire, which always partakes of mental activity. From this general basis the adept with his knowledge of the laws of nature can utilize certain desires of a lofty character, which arouse the corresponding will on the different planes.
Iddhi (Pali) Iddhi [from the verbal root sidh to succeed, attain an objective, reach accomplishment] Equivalent to the Sanskrit siddhi, used to signify the powers or attributes of perfection: powers of various kinds, spiritual and intellectual as well as astral and physical, acquired through training, discipline, initiation, and individual holiness. In Buddhism it is generally rendered “occult power.” There are two classes of iddhis, the higher of which, according to the Digha-Nikaya and other Buddhist works, are eight in number: 1) the power to project mind-made images of oneself; 2) to become invisible; 3) to pass through solid things, such as a wall; 4) to penetrate solid ground as if it were water; 5) to walk on water; 6) to fly through the air; 7) to touch sun and moon; and 8) to ascend into the highest heavens. The same work represents the Buddha as saying: “It is because I see danger in the practice of these mystic wonders that I loathe and abhor and am ashamed thereof” (1:213) — a true statement although iddhis are powers of the most desirable kind when pertaining to the higher nature, for they are of spiritual, intellectual, and higher psychical character. It is only when iddhis or siddhis are limited to the meaning of the gross astral psychic attributes that the Buddha properly condemns them as being dangerous always, and to the ambitious and selfish person extremely perilous. Further, it was an offense against the regulations of the Brotherhood (Samgha) for any member to display any powers before the laity.
In Alice in Wonderland experience subjects perceive objects (including animals and other humans, or parts of humans, animals, or objects) as appearing substantially smaller than in reality. Generally, the object appears far away or extremely close at the same time. Alternate term for this is somaesthetic aura. Also see
inconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscient and the Ignorance may be mere empty abstractions and can be dismissed as irrelevant jargon if one has not come in collision with them or plunged into their dark and bottomless reality. But to me they are realities, concrete powers whose resistance is present everywhere and at all times in its tremendous and boundless mass.” *Letters on Savitri
". . . in its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in Itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities, something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. It is this that we see at the basis of the material world and speak of nowadays as the Inconscient — the Inconscient Ocean of the Rigveda in which the One was hidden and arose in the form of this universe — or, as it is sometimes called, the non-being, Asat.” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it — ‘an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force".” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient is the last resort of the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
"The body, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga :::
"The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of strivings without ultimate issue or the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the superconscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal.” The Life Divine
"Men have not learnt yet to recognise the Inconscient on which the whole material world they see is built, or the Ignorance of which their whole nature including their knowledge is built; they think that these words are only abstract metaphysical jargon flung about by the philosophers in their clouds or laboured out in long and wearisome books like The Life Divine. Letters on Savitri :::
"Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone" but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone". One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don"t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
**inconscient, Inconscient"s.**
Inner God ::: Mystics of all the ages have united in teaching this fact of the existence and ever-present power of anindividual inner god in each human being, as the first principle or primordial energy governing theprogress of man out of material life into the spiritual. Indeed, the doctrine is so perfectly universal, and isso consistent with everything that man knows when he reflects over the matter of his own spiritual andintellectual nature, that it is small wonder that this doctrine should have acquired foremost place inhuman religious and philosophical consciousness. Indeed, it may be called the very foundation-stone onwhich were builded the great systems of religious and philosophical thinking of the past; and rightly so,because this doctrine is founded on nature herself.The inner god in man, man's own inner, essential divinity, is the root of him, whence flow forth ininspiring streams into the psychological apparatus of his constitution all the inspirations of genius, all theurgings to betterment. All powers, all faculties, all characteristics of individuality, which blossomthrough evolution into individual manifestation, are the fruitage of the working in man's constitution ofthose life-giving and inspiring streams of spiritual energy.The radiant light which streams forth from that immortal center or core of our inmost being, which is ourinner god, lightens the pathway of each one of us; and it is from this light that we obtain idealconceptions. It is by this radiant light in our hearts that we can guide our feet towards an ever largerfulfilling in daily life of the beautiful conceptions which we as mere human beings dimly or clearlyperceive, as the case may be.The divine fire which moves through universal Nature is the source of the individualized divine firecoming from man's inner god.The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call the inner god the Christ Immanent, the immanentChristos; in Buddhism it is called the living Buddha within; in Brahmanism it is spoken of as the Brahmain his Brahmapura or Brahma-city, which is the inner constitution.Hence, call it by what name you please, the reflective and mystical mind intuitively realizes that thereworks through him a divine flame, a divine life, a divine light, and that this by whatever name we maycall it, is himself, his essential SELF. (See also God)
Internet Relay Chat "chat, messaging" (IRC) /I-R-C/, occasionally /*rk/ A {client-server} {chat} system of large (often worldwide) networks. IRC is structured as networks of {Internet} {servers}, each accepting connections from {client} programs, one per user. The IRC community and the {Usenet} and {MUD} communities overlap to some extent, including both {hackers} and regular folks who have discovered the wonders of computer networks. Some {Usenet} jargon has been adopted on IRC, as have some conventions such as {emoticons}. There is also a vigorous native jargon (see the entry for "{chat}"). The largest and first IRC network is {EFNet}, with a smaller breakaway network called the {Undernet} having existed since 1992, and dozens of other networks having appeared (and sometimes disappeared) since. See also {nick}, {bot}, {op}. {Yahoo's IRC index (http://yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Chat/IRC/)}. (1998-01-25)
Internet Relay Chat ::: (chat, messaging) (IRC) /I-R-C/, occasionally /*rk/ A client-server chat system of large (often worldwide) networks. IRC is structured as networks of Internet servers, each accepting connections from client programs, one per user.The IRC community and the Usenet and MUD communities overlap to some extent, including both hackers and regular folks who have discovered the wonders of conventions such as emoticons. There is also a vigorous native jargon (see the entry for chat).The largest and first IRC network is EFNet, with a smaller breakaway network called the Undernet having existed since 1992, and dozens of other networks having appeared (and sometimes disappeared) since.See also nick, bot, op. . (1998-01-25)
“Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone’ but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone’. One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don’t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
It is customary to regard the later Atlanteans as a race of sorcerers because, according to the narratives told concerning the doom of Atlantis and its inhabitants (cf SD 2:427), many deliberately followed the left-hand path — yet not all were black magicians, for there were millions in all ages of Atlantis who earnestly essayed to preserve the wisdom of their semi-spiritual forebears of the third root-race. There were wonderful civilizations during the millions of years of Atlantean development surpassing in material things anything that is known today.
“it is upon the document issued from the Vatican containing the story of the so-called trial and condemnation of Cagliostro that most later students and historians of the checkered and wonderful career of that remarkable man assume that Cagliostro and Guiseppe Balsamo were one individual.
Jhumur: “I have often wondered if this has anything to do with the passion-play. I feel that. In the root meaning of the word in Latin is there a sense of the word as suffering? In the French you have patir, patir is to suffer. To me it always brings in the holocaust and the coming down of the avatar into the human condition. [Ed. note: ML passiõn—(s. of passiõ) Christ’s sufferings on the cross, any of the Biblical accounts of these. ( late OE passiõn-), special use of LL passiõ suffering, submission, deriv. of L passus , ptp, of patî to suffer, submit.]
Kevattasutta. (C. Jiangu jing; J. Kengokyo; K. Kyon'go kyong 堅固經). In Pāli, "Sermon to Kevatta" [alt. Kevaddhasuttanta]; eleventh sutta of the DĪGHANIKĀYA (a separate DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the twenty-fourth sutra in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHĀGAMA), preached by the Buddha to the householder Kevatta [alt. Kevaddha] in the Pāvārika mango grove at NĀLANDĀ. According to the Pāli account, Kevatta approached the Buddha and asked him to order a monk disciple to perform a miracle in order to inspire faith among the Buddha's followers dwelling in Nālandā. The Buddha responded that there are three kinds of wonder, the wonder of supranormal powers (iddhipātihāriya), the wonder of manifestation (ādesanāpātihāriya), and the wonder of education (anusāsanīpātihāriya). The wonder of supranormal powers is composed of the ability to make multiple bodies of oneself, to become invisible, to pass through solid objects, to penetrate the earth, to walk on water, to fly through the sky, to touch the sun and moon, and to reach the highest heaven of BRAHMĀ. The wonder of manifestation is the ability to read the thoughts and feelings of others. The Buddha declared all these wonders to be trivial and disparages their display as vulgar. Far superior to these, he says, is the wonder of education, which leads to awakening to the teaching and entering the Buddhist order, training in the restraint of action and speech, observance of minor points of morality, guarding the senses, mindfulness, contentment with little, freedom from the five hindrances, joy and peace of mind, the four meditative absorptions, insight (Nānadassana; JNĀNADARsANA) into the conditioned nature and impermanence of body and mind, knowledge of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni), and the destruction of the contaminants (āsavakkhaya; S. ĀSRAVAKsAYA).
killer micro [Popularised by Eugene Brooks] A {microprocessor}-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the downsizers. Used especially of {RISC} architectures. The popularity of the phrase "attack of the killer micros" is doubtless reinforced by the movie title "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" (one of the {canonical} examples of so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers). This has even more flavour now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within {massively parallel computers}). [{Jargon File}]
legend ::: n. --> That which is appointed to be read; especially, a chronicle or register of the lives of saints, formerly read at matins, and in the refectories of religious houses.
A story respecting saints; especially, one of a marvelous nature.
Any wonderful story coming down from the past, but not verifiable by historical record; a myth; a fable.
An inscription, motto, or title, esp. one surrounding the
Life-Atoms ::: The physical body is composed essentially of energy, of energies rather, in the forms that are spoken ofin modern physical science as electrons and protons. These are in constant movement; they areincessantly active, and are what theosophists call the imbodiments or manifestations of life-atoms. Theselife-atoms are inbuilt into man's body during the physical life which he leads on earth, although they arenot derivative from outside, but spring forth from within himself -- at least a great majority of them aresuch. This is equivalent to saying that they compose both his physical as well as his intermediate nature,which latter is obviously higher than the physical.When the man dies -- that is to say, when the physical body dies -- its elements pass, each and all, intotheir respective and appropriate spheres: some into the soil, to which those that go there are drawn bymagnetic affinity, an affinity impressed upon their life-energies by the man when alive, whoseovershadowing will and desires, whose overlordship and power, gave them that direction. Others passinto the vegetation from the same reason that the former are impelled to the mineral kingdom; others passinto the various beasts with which they have, at the man's death, magnetic affinity, psychic affinity moreaccurately, an affinity which the man has impressed upon them by his desires and various impulses; andthose which take this path go to form the interior or intermediate apparatus of the beasts into which theypass. So much for the course pursued by the life-atoms of the man's lowest principles.But there are other life-atoms belonging to him. There are life-atoms, in fact, belonging to the sphere ofeach one of the seven principles of man's constitution. This means that there are life-atoms belonging tohis intermediate nature and to his spiritual nature and to all grades intermediate between these two higherparts of him. And in all cases, as the monad "ascends" or "rises" through the spheres, as he goes step bystep higher on his wonderful postmortem journey, on each such step he discards or casts off thelife-atoms belonging to each one of these steps or stages of the journey. With each step, he leaves behindthe more material of these life-atoms until, when he has reached the culmination of his wonderfulpostmortem peregrination, he is, as Paul of the Christians said, living in "a spiritual body" -- that is tosay, he has become a spiritual energy, a monad.Nature permits no absolute standing still for anything, anywhere. All things are full of life, full of energy,full of movement; they are both energy and matter, both spirit and substance; and these two arefundamentally one -- phases of the underlying reality, of which we see but the maya or illusory forms.The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man'sconstitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are asnumerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, decillions upondecillions of them, in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a being which isliving, moving, growing, never standing still -- evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimatelybecomes divinity.
LINCtape "storage" A formatted, block-oriented, high-reliability, {random access} tape system used on the {Laboratory Instrument Computer}. The tape was 3/4" wide. The funny {DECtape} is actually a variant of the original LINCtape. According to {Wesley Clark}, DEC tried to "improve" the LINCtape system, which mechanically, was wonderfully simple and elegant. The DEC version had pressure fingers and tape guides to force alignment as well as huge {DC} servo motors and complex control circuitry. These literally shredded the tape to bits if not carefully adjusted, and required frequent cleaning to remove all the shedded tape oxide. That was amazing, because the tape had a micro-thin plastic layer OVER the oxide to protect it. What happened was that all the forced alignment stuff caused shredding at the edge. An independent company, Computer Operations[?], built LINCtape drives for use in nuclear submarines. This was based on the tape system's high reliability. Correspondent Brian Converse has a picture of himself holding a LINCtape punched full of 1/4" holes. It still worked! (1999-03-29)
Madhav: “Aswapathy is in the mid-world. He is neither in the nether realms of struggle and obscurity nor in the brighter worlds above of power and rapture. He is in realms of Beauty that point to still happier altitudes. The Birds of Wonder are the marvellous beings of that region, the angels, who call upon the higher worlds of Light to manifest in their world.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Aswapathy steps into a veritable wonderland of the Glory of God. The Glory is pictured as a huge Bird whose wings are brooding over the new creation to come. Just as a hen broods over its egg, these Wings enfold and incubate the new truth in the offing.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The Scripture Wonderful refers to the Supreme Knowledge. The Spirit-mate of Life hopes to divine the Supreme Knowledge in the transcript made by Life of God’s intention; but that script, however bright and attractive is a product of her fancy. The true Word lies covered under her fanciful rendering. The Supreme Knowledge that holds the key to the celestial beatitudes escapes him.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “These are adjectives that apply to Aswapathy himself. He is a vehicle carrying the wonders of paradise, the wonders of heaven, which he has seen and experienced.” The Book of the Divine Mother
magician ::: Magician Someone who is skilled in the mysterious and hidden art of magick, with the ability to attain objectives, acquire knowledge, and perform 'works of wonder' using supernatural or non-rational means. Some of the more modern magicians, such as Aleister Crowley and those who follow the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the Ordo Templi Orientis, describe magick in rational terms, using definitions (meanings of words, terms or phrases), postulates (starting assumptions from which other statements are logically derived) and theorems (statements which can be proved on the basis of explicitly stated or previously agreed assumptions).
Mahākapphina. (P. Mahākappina; T. Ka pi na chen po; C. Mohejiebinna; J. Makakohinna; K. Mahagoppinna 摩訶劫賓那). Sanskrit proper name of an eminent ARHAT deemed by the Buddha foremost among those who taught monks. According to Pāli accounts (where he is referred to as Mahākappina), he was older than the Buddha and had been the king of a frontier kingdom whose capital was Kukkutavatī. His wife was a princess from the city of Sāgala named Anojā. Mahākappina was endowed with a great intellect and every day he sent messengers from his city to inquire if scholars were traveling through his realm. One day, merchants from Sāvatthi (S. sRĀVASTĪ) visited Kukkutavatī and told the king about the Buddha and his teachings. On hearing the news, the king was overjoyed and, presenting the travelers with a gift of thousands of coins, resolved to meet the Buddha himself. Setting out for Sāvatthi with his retinue, Mahākappina found his path blocked by three rivers. These he crossed by means of an "asseveration of truth" (see SATYAVACANA), in which he declared, "If this teacher indeed be a perfect buddha, let not even the hooves of my horses get wet." When the royal delegation approached the Buddha, he preached to them, whereupon all of them attained arhatship and entered the order. When Anojā and the other royal wives heard the news, they resolved to follow their husbands and enter the order as nuns. When the Buddha preached to the women they all attained stream-entry (P. sotāpanna; S. SROTAĀPANNA) and took ordination. Mahākappina used to spend his time in the bliss of meditative absorption (P. JHĀNA; S. DHYĀNA) and was wont to exclaim, "Oh joy, Oh joy." While dwelling at the Maddakucchi Deer Park, he wondered whether he needed to attend the fortnightly confessional (P. UPOSATHA; S. UPOsADHA). The Buddha, knowing his thoughts, appeared before him and instructed him to attend. Thinking Mahākappina too inactive, he instructed him to teach the dharma to others. Mahākappina complied, and by means of a single sermon a thousand recluses attained arhatship. In the Mahāyāna sutras, where he is known by his Sanskrit name, Mahākapphina, he is listed among the monks in audience for the preaching of the SUKHĀVATĪVYuHASuTRA.
Mahasabha (Sanskrit) Mahāsabhā [from mahā great + sabhā assembly, gathering, collection, bundle] The bundle of wonderful (mayavi or illusionary) things given to the Pandavas by Mayasura, the architect of the daityas who was versed in magic, astronomy, and military science.
MAHASAKTI ::: Original Power, supreme Nature, holding in herself infinite existence and creating the wonders of the cosmos.
Manasaputra(s)(Sanskrit) ::: This is a compound word: manas, "mind," putra, "son" -- "sons of mind." The teaching is thatthere exists a Hierarchy of Compassion, which H. P. Blavatsky sometimes called the Hierarchy of Mercyor of Pity. This is the light side of nature as contrasted with its matter side or shadow side, its night side.It is from this Hierarchy of Compassion that came those semi-divine entities at about the middle periodof the third root-race of this round, who incarnated in the semi-conscious, quasi-senseless men of thatperiod. These advanced entities are otherwise known as the solar lhas as the Tibetans call them, the solarspirits, who were the men of a former kalpa, and who during the third root-race thus sacrificedthemselves in order to give us intellectual light -- incarnating in those senseless psychophysical shells inorder to awaken the divine flame of egoity and self-consciousness in the sleeping egos which we thenwere. They are ourselves because belonging to the same spiritray that we do; yet we, more strictlyspeaking, were those halfunconscious, half-awakened egos whom they touched with the divine fire oftheir own being. This, our "awakening," was called by H. P. Blavatsky, the incarnation of themanasaputras, or the sons of mind or light. Had that incarnation not taken place, we indeed should havecontinued our evolution by merely "natural" causes, but it would have been slow almost beyondcomprehension, almost interminable; but that act of self-sacrifice, through their immense pity, theirimmense love, though, indeed, acting under karmic impulse, awakened the divine fire in our own selves,gave us light and comprehension and understanding. From that time we ourselves became "sons of thegods," the faculty of self-consciousness in us was awakened, our eyes were opened, responsibilitybecame ours; and our feet were set then definitely upon the path, that inner path, quiet, wonderful,leading us inwards back to our spiritual home.The manasaputras are our higher natures and, paradoxical as it is, are more largely evolved beings thanwe are. They were the spiritual entities who "quickened" our personal egos, which were thus evolved intoself-consciousness, relatively small though that yet be. One, and yet many! As you can light an infinitenumber of candles from one lighted candle, so from a spark of consciousness can you quicken andenliven innumerable other consciousnesses, lying, so to speak, in sleep or latent in the life-atoms.These manasaputras, children of mahat, are said to have quickened and enlightened in us themanas-manas of our manas septenary, because they themselves are typically manasic in their essentialcharacteristic or svabhava. Their own essential or manasic vibrations, so to say, could cause that essenceof manas in ourselves to vibrate in sympathy, much as the sounding of a musical note will causesympathetic response in something like it, a similar note in other things. (See also Agnishvattas)
marginal "jargon" 1. Extremely small. "A marginal increase in {core} can decrease {GC} time drastically." In everyday terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your desk if you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort through it. 2. Of extremely small merit. "This proposed new feature seems rather marginal to me." 3. Of extremely small probability of {win}ning. "The power supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it fried." [{Jargon File}] (1994-10-21)
marginal ::: (jargon) 1. Extremely small. A marginal increase in core can decrease GC time drastically. In everyday terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your desk if you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort through it.2. Of extremely small merit. This proposed new feature seems rather marginal to me.3. Of extremely small probability of winning. The power supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it fried.[Jargon File] (1994-10-21)
marvellous ::: causing wonder or astonishment. marvellously.
marvel ::: n. 1. Something that causes feelings of wonder, astonishment or admiration. Marvel, marvel"s, marvels. *v. 2. To become filled with wonder or astonishment. marvelled, marvelling, marvel-fraught, marvel-house, marvel-mooned, marvel-wefts. adv. marvellingly. See also: *Winged marvel
marvel ::: n. --> That which causes wonder; a prodigy; a miracle.
Wonder. ::: v. i. --> To be struck with surprise, astonishment, or wonder; to wonder.
marvelously ::: adv. --> In a marvelous manner; wonderfully; strangely.
marvelousness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being marvelous; wonderfulness; strangeness.
marvelous ::: n. --> Exciting wonder or surprise; astonishing; wonderful.
Partaking of the character of miracle, or supernatural power; incredible.
Mayasabha (Sanskrit) Māyāsabhā [from māyā illusion + sabhā assembly] An assemblage of illusions; one of the wonderful gifts given to the Pandavas in the Mahabharata by Mayasura.
Maya(Sanskrit) ::: The word comes from the root ma, meaning "to measure," and by a figure of speech it alsocomes to mean "to effect," "to form," and hence "to limit." There is an English word mete, meaning "tomeasure out," from the same IndoEuropean root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, in theGreek as med, and it is found in the Latin also in the same form.Ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy maya was understood very differently from what it isnow usually understood to be. As a technical term, maya has come to mean the fabrication by man's mindof ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, hence the illusory aspect of man's thoughts as heconsiders and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings; and thence was derived thesense which it technically bears, "illusion." It does not mean that the exterior world is nonexistent; if itwere, it obviously could not be illusory. It exists, but is not. It is "measured out" or is "limited," or itstands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in theirreality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye.The familiar illustrations of maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanicalteachings have taken and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: Aman at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope isthere, but no serpent. The second illustration is what is called the "horns of the hare." The animal calledthe hare has no horns, but when it also is seen at eventide, its long ears seem to project from its head insuch fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns,but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there.That is what maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mindperverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the realinterpretation and meaning of the world or of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by risingup, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards towards thatplane where truth abides in fullness.H. P. Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine:Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism -- though it regards the objectiveUniverse and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion -- draws a practical distinction betweencollective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objectiverelations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.The teaching is that maya is thus called from the action of mulaprakriti or root-nature, the coordinateprinciple of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call parabrahman. From the momentwhen manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say that everything in nature from that pointonwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good andevil, consciousness and nonconsciousness, etc., and that all these things are essentially mayic or illusory-- real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that theself-conscious soul learns truth. It might be said, in conclusion, that another and very convenient way ofconsidering maya is to understand it to mean "limitation," "restriction," and therefore imperfect cognitionand recognition of reality. The imperfect mind does not see perfect truth. It labors under an illusioncorresponding with its own imperfections, under a maya, a limitation. Magical practices are frequentlycalled maya in the ancient Hindu books.
Mayasura (Sanskrit) Māyāsura The asura mentioned in the Mahabharata, who presented the Pandava brothers with a gift of a bundle of wonderful things.
mighty ::: n. --> Possessing might; having great power or authority.
Accomplished by might; hence, extraordinary; wonderful.
Denoting and extraordinary degree or quality in respect of size, character, importance, consequences, etc.
A warrior of great force and courage. ::: adv.
mirabilary ::: n. --> One who, or a work which, narrates wonderful things; one who writes of wonders.
mirable ::: a. --> Wonderful; admirable.
miracle ::: n. --> A wonder or wonderful thing.
Specifically: An event or effect contrary to the established constitution and course of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature; a supernatural event, or one transcending the ordinary laws by which the universe is governed.
A miracle play.
A story or legend abounding in miracles.
Miracles [from Latin] Originally signifying some phenomenon in nature or human life which was considered highly noteworthy, extraordinarily remarkable, or a cause of wonderment; from this developed in Christian thought a conception regarding happenings originating in God Almighty, which were supposed to be contrary to or transcending the laws of nature. There are marvels enough in nature, and marvels that may be wrought in and upon nature by nature’s laws used by the developed wisdom and will power of the initiate or adept, to correspond to most, if not all, of the most extraordinary so-called miracles of Christian theology; but all such wondrous phenomena are wrought by means of a knowledge of the laws of nature, and it is nature and its laws which are behind them all, and actually prove them as realities. To suggest that anything can be contrary to nature is an absurdity. Thus miracles actually are unusual phenomena, produced by the use of natural means.
miraculous ::: a. --> Of the nature of a miracle; performed by supernatural power; effected by the direct agency of almighty power, and not by natural causes.
Supernatural; wonderful.
Wonder-working.
mirifical ::: a. --> Working wonders; wonderful.
mirificent ::: a. --> Wonderful.
Mirific word: The hidden name of God, said to produce wonders when properly pronounced.
monstrous ::: a. --> Marvelous; strange.
Having the qualities of a monster; deviating greatly from the natural form or character; abnormal; as, a monstrous birth.
Extraordinary in a way to excite wonder, dislike, apprehension, etc.; -- said of size, appearance, color, sound, etc.; as, a monstrous height; a monstrous ox; a monstrous story.
Extraordinary on account of ugliness, viciousness, or wickedness; hateful; horrible; dreadful.
Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this Universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play. One is her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness. Another embo&es her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force. A third is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace. The fourth is equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact per- fection in all things. Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection are their several attributes and it Is these powers that they bring with them into the world. To the four we give the four great names, Maheshvari, Mahakali, Mabalakshmi, Mahasarasvati.
mysterious ::: simultaneously arousing wonder and inquisitiveness, and eluding explanation or comprehension. Also, of God, rites, etc. mysteriously.
mystery ::: a. --> A profound secret; something wholly unknown, or something kept cautiously concealed, and therefore exciting curiosity or wonder; something which has not been or can not be explained; hence, specifically, that which is beyond human comprehension.
A kind of secret religious celebration, to which none were admitted except those who had been initiated by certain preparatory ceremonies; -- usually plural; as, the Eleusinian mysteries.
The consecrated elements in the eucharist.
myth ::: n. --> A story of great but unknown age which originally embodied a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; an ancient legend of a god, a hero, the origin of a race, etc.; a wonder story of prehistoric origin; a popular fable which is, or has been, received as historical.
A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
Nolini: “Usually the first spiritual experience comes as wonder. The birds symbolise the forces at play in this level of Wonder, beings in that consciousness of Wonder.”
Paths of Wisdom or Ways of Wisdom Used in the Hebrew Qabbalah, especially in the Sepher Yetsirah (the book of formation) in which formation or creation is set forth in a series of numbers. The Zohar (iii, 290a), as well as the Sepher Yetsirah (1, i), state that Wisdom (Hochmah) generates or arranges all things by means of “thirty-two wonderful paths of wisdom.” The number 32 consists of the ten Sephiroth added to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet — the latter represented in the Zohar as the 22 utterances of the Divine Speech. Again man is regarded as being the synthesis of the 22 letters, which with the addition of the ten Sephiroth makes the complete synthesis of creation.
Path, The ::: Universal nature, our great parent, exists inseparably in each one of us, in each entity everywhere, and noseparation of the part from the whole, of the individual from the kosmos, is possible in any other than apurely illusory sense. This points out to us with unerring definiteness and also directs us to the sublimepath to utter reality. It is the path inwards, ever onwards within, which is endless and which leads intovast inner realms of wisdom and knowledge; for, as all the great world philosophies tell us so truly, ifyou know yourself you then know the universe, because each one of you is an inseparable part of it and itis all in you, its child.It is obvious from this last reflection that the sole essential difference between any two grades of theevolving entities which infill and compose the kosmos is a difference of consciousness, of understanding;and this consciousness and understanding come to the evolving entity in only one way -- by unwrappingor unfolding the intrinsic faculties or powers of that entity's own inner being. This is the path, as themystics of all ages have put it.The pathway is within yourself. There is no other pathway for you individually than the pathway leadingever inwards towards your own inner god. The pathway of another is the same pathway for that other;but it is not your pathway, because your pathway is your Self, as it is for that other one his Self -- andyet, wonder of wonders, mystery of mysteries, the Self is the same in all. All tread the same pathway, buteach man must tread it himself, and no one can tread it for another; and this pathway leads to unutterablesplendor, to unutterable expansion of consciousness, to unthinkable bliss, to perfect peace.
phenomenal ::: a. --> Relating to, or of the nature of, a phenomenon; hence, extraordinary; wonderful; as, a phenomenal memory.
Porphyry refers to the Magi as the learned men among the Persians who are in the service of the deity (Abst 4:16), while Philo Judaeus describes them as the most wonderful inquirers into the hidden mysteries of nature: holy men who set themselves apart from everything else on this earth, “contemplated the divine virtues and understood the divine nature of the gods and spirits, the more clearly; and so, initiated others into the same mysteries, which consist in one holding an uninterrupted intercourse with these invisible beings during life” (IU 1:94-5). It is likely that the use of the name and the order survived in times when their true dignity was no longer apparent.
portentous ::: a. --> Of the nature of a portent; containing portents; foreshadowing, esp. foreshadowing ill; ominous.
Hence: Monstrous; prodigious; wonderful; dreadful; as, a beast of portentous size.
prātihārya. (P. pātihāriya; T. cho 'phrul; C. shixian; J. jigen; K. sihyon 示現). In Sanskrit, "wonder" or "miracle," miraculous powers generally said to be exclusive to a buddha. In this sense, the term is sometimes distinguished from ṚDDHI, or "magical powers," which results from the attainment of states of DHYĀNA. Among the many miracles ascribed to the Buddha, two are particularly famous and are widely depicted in Buddhist iconography. Both took place at sRĀVASTĪ, where the Buddha defeated a group of TĪRTHIKAs. The first is the so-called "dual miracle" (YAMAKAPRĀTIHĀRYA) in which the Buddha caused both fire and water to emanate from his body. The second is the "great miracle" (MAHĀPRĀTIHĀRYA) in which the Buddha, seated on a great lotus, multiplied himself until the sky was filled with buddhas, some seated, some standing, some walking, some lying down, each teaching the dharma. Three categories of miracles (triprātihārya) are also enumerated. The first, the "miracle of magical power" (rddhiprātihārya) includes the myriad supranormal powers of the Buddha, including the power to fly and to appear and disappear. The second, the "miracle of foretelling" (ādesanāprātihārya), refers to the Buddha's ability to know the thoughts of others. The third, the "miracle of instruction," is the Buddha's unique ability to teach the dharma. Eight deeds of the Buddha, sometimes referred to as miracles, are commonly depicted during the Pāla period. Taking place at the eight "great sites" (MAHĀSTHĀNA), the eight are (1) the miracle of his birth at LUMBINĪ, (2) the defeat of MĀRA and achievement of buddhahood at BODHGAYĀ, (3) the turning of the wheel of the dharma (DHARMACAKRA) at ṚsIPATANA (SĀRNĀTH), (4) miracles performed at sRĀVASTĪ, (5) the descent from the TRĀYASTRIMsA heaven at SĀMKĀsYA, (6) the taming of the elephant NĀLĀGIRI at RĀJAGṚHA, (7) the receipt of the monkey's gift of honey at VAIsĀLĪ, and (8) the passage into PARINIRVĀnA at KUsINAGARĪ. (See also BAXIANG).
prodigious ::: a. --> Of the nature of a prodigy; marvelous; wonderful; portentous.
Extraordinary in bulk, extent, quantity, or degree; very great; vast; huge; immense; as, a prodigious mountain; a prodigious creature; a prodigious blunder.
prodigiously ::: adv. --> Enormously; wonderfully; astonishingly; as, prodigiously great.
Very much; extremely; as, he was prodigiously pleased.
prodigiousness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being prodigious; the state of having qualities that excite wonder or astonishment; enormousness; vastness.
prodigy ::: n. --> Something extraordinary, or out of the usual course of nature, from which omens are drawn; a portent; as, eclipses and meteors were anciently deemed prodigies.
Anything so extraordinary as to excite wonder or astonishment; a marvel; as, a prodigy of learning.
A production out of ordinary course of nature; an abnormal development; a monster.
prodigy ::: something wonderful or marvellous; a wonder.
Psychic Powers ::: The lowest powers of the intermediate or soul-nature in the human being, and we are exercising andusing them all the time -- yes, and we cannot even control them properly! Men's emotional thoughts arevagrant, wandering, uncertain, lacking precision, without positive direction, and feebly governed. Theaverage man cannot even keep his emotions and thoughts in the grip of his self-conscious will. Hisweakest passions lead him astray. It is this part of his nature whence flow his "psychic powers." It isman's work to transmute them and to turn them to employment which is good and useful and holy.Indeed, the average man cannot control the ordinary psycho-astral-physical powers that he commonlyuses; and when, forsooth, people talk about cultivating occult powers, by which they mean merelypsychic powers, it simply shows that through ignorance they know not to what they refer. Their mindsare clouded as regards the actual facts. Those who talk so glibly of cultivating occult powers are just thepeople who cannot be trusted as real guides, for before they themselves can crawl in these mysteriousregions of life, they seem to desire to teach other people how to run and to leap. What most people reallymean, apparently, when they speak of cultivating occult powers is "I want to get power over otherpeople." Such individuals are totally unfit to wield occult powers of any kind, for the motive is in mostcases purely selfish, and their minds are beclouded and darkened with ignorance.The so-called psychic powers have the same relation to genuine spiritual powers that baby-talk has to thediscourse of a wise philosopher. Before occult powers of any kind can be cultivated safely, man mustlearn the first lesson of the mystic knowledge, which is to control himself; and all powers that later hegains must be laid on the altar of impersonal service -- on the altar of service to mankind.Psychic powers will come to men as a natural development of their inner faculties, as evolution performsits wonderful work in future ages. New senses, and new organs corresponding to these new senses, bothinterior and exterior, will come into active functioning in the distant future. But it is perilous both tosanity and to health to attempt to force the development of these prematurely, and unless the training anddiscipline be done under the watchful and compassionate eye of a genuine occult teacher who knowswhat he is about. The world even today contains hundreds of thousands of "sensitives" who are the firstfeeble forerunners of what future evolution will make common in the human race; but these sensitivesare usually in a very unfortunate and trying situation, for they themselves misunderstand what is in them,and they are misunderstood by their fellows. (See also Occultism)
Ragnarok (Icelandic) [from ragna plural of regin ruler + rok sentence, judgment, reason, ground, origin] In Norse mythology, the time when the ruling powers (gods) return to their ground, are reabsorbed in their divine origin. The judgment is their evaluation of the life that has just been completed. Ragnarok has commonly been called the twilight of the gods, probably because of confusion with rokkr (twilight). It has also been interpreted as they age of fire and smoke, because in Swedish rok means smoke. However, in Icelandic it has a more sacred meaning referring to wonders and signs, and the departure of the gods to their home ground, the source of their being.
README file ::: (convention) An introduction traditionally included in the top-level directory of a Unix source distribution, containing a pointer to more detailed be named README, or READ.ME, or rarely ReadMe or readme.txt or some other variant.In the Macintosh and IBM PC worlds, software is not usually distributed in source form, and the README is more likely to contain user-oriented material like last-minute documentation changes, error workarounds, and restrictions.The README convention probably follows the famous scene in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland in which Alice confronts magic munchies labelled Eat Me and Drink Me.[Jargon File] (1995-02-28)
README file "convention, documentation" A {text file} traditionally included in the top-level {directory} of a {software} distribution, containing pointers to {documentation}, credits, revision history, notes, etc. Originally found in {Unix} source distributions, the convention has spread to many other products. The file may be named README, READ.ME, ReadMe or readme.txt or some other variant. In the {Macintosh} and {IBM PC} worlds, software is not usually distributed in source form, and the README is more likely to contain user-oriented material like last-minute documentation changes, error workarounds, and restrictions. The README convention probably follows the famous scene in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" in which Alice confronts magic munchies labeled "Eat Me" and "Drink Me". [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-28)
Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal "humour" Back in the good old days - the "Golden Era" of computers, it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones that understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real computer programmer said things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate to computers - they're so impersonal". (A previous work [1] points out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.) But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12-year-old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own Personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with {TRASH-80s}. There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire to -- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings). LANGUAGES The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use {Fortran}. Quiche Eaters use {Pascal}. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of Pascal, gave a talk once at which he was asked how to pronounce his name. He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert', or call me by value, 'Worth'." One can tell immediately from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is call-by-value-return, as implemented in the {IBM 370} {Fortran-G} and H compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to get their jobs done - they are perfectly happy with a {keypunch}, a {Fortran IV} {compiler}, and a beer. Real Programmers do List Processing in Fortran. Real Programmers do String Manipulation in Fortran. Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in Fortran. Real Programmers do {Artificial Intelligence} programs in Fortran. If you can't do it in Fortran, do it in {assembly language}. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing. STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING The academics in computer science have gotten into the "structured programming" rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some special language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly which constructs, of course, and the examples they use to show their particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some obscure journal or another - clearly not enough of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000-line programs that WORKED. (Really!) Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000-line Fortran program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world won't help you solve a problem like that - it takes actual talent. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured Programming: Real Programmers aren't afraid to use {GOTOs}. Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting confused. Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements - they make the code more interesting. Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 {nanoseconds} in the middle of a tight loop. Real Programmers don't need comments - the code is obvious. Since Fortran doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not using them. Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using {assigned GOTOs}. Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in certain circles. Wirth (the above-mentioned Quiche Eater) actually wrote an entire book [2] contending that you could write a program based on data structures, instead of the other way around. As all Real Programmers know, the only useful data structure is the Array. Strings, lists, structures, sets - these are all special cases of arrays and can be treated that way just as easily without messing up your programing language with all sorts of complications. The worst thing about fancy data types is that you have to declare them, and Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have implicit typing based on the first letter of the (six character) variable name. OPERATING SYSTEMS What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God forbid - CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even little old ladies and grade school students can understand and use CP/M. Unix is a lot more complicated of course - the typical Unix hacker never can remember what the PRINT command is called this week - but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People don't do Serious Work on Unix systems: they send jokes around the world on {UUCP}-net and write adventure games and research papers. No, your Real Programmer uses OS 370. A good programmer can find and understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte {core dump} without using a hex calculator. (I have actually seen this done.) OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the programming staff is encouraged. The best way to approach the system is through a keypunch. Some people claim there is a Time Sharing system that runs on OS 370, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken. PROGRAMMING TOOLS What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel of the computer. Back in the days when computers had front panels, this was actually done occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew the entire bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in whenever it got destroyed by his program. (Back then, memory was memory - it didn't go away when the power went off. Today, memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or remembers things long after they're better forgotten.) Legend has it that {Seymore Cray}, inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of Control Data's computers, actually toggled the first operating system for the CDC7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered on. Seymore, needless to say, is a Real Programmer. One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas Instruments. One day he got a long distance call from a user whose system had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone. The moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually includes a keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just a front panel and a telephone in emergencies. In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work in doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real Programmer in this situation has to do his work with a "text editor" program. Most systems supply several text editors to select from, and the Real Programmer must be careful to pick one that reflects his personal style. Many people believe that the best text editors in the world were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use on their Alto and Dorado computers [3]. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer would ever use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse. Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named operating systems - {Emacs} and {VI} being two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No the Real Programmer wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor - complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise. It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your program, or even worse - introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine. For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a program that is close to working. They find it much easier to just patch the binary {object code} directly, using a wonderful program called SUPERZAP (or its equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works so well that many working programs on IBM systems bear no relation to the original Fortran code. In many cases, the original source code is no longer available. When it comes time to fix a program like this, no manager would even think of sending anything less than a Real Programmer to do the job - no Quiche Eating structured programmer would even know where to start. This is called "job security". Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers: Fortran preprocessors like {MORTRAN} and {RATFOR}. The Cuisinarts of programming - great for making Quiche. See comments above on structured programming. Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps. Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity, destroy most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it impossible to modify the operating system code with negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient. Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner cannot leave his important programs unguarded [5]. THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure that no Real Programmer would be caught dead writing accounts-receivable programs in {COBOL}, or sorting {mailing lists} for People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of earth-shaking importance (literally!). Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers. Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding Russian transmissions. It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the Russkies. Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating systems for cruise missiles. Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of large ground-based Fortran programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and improvisation - hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern-matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter. The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within 80 +/-3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program (or a Pascal programmer) for navigation to these tolerances. As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S. Government - mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should be. Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real Programmer horizon. It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense Department decided that all Defense programs should be written in some grand unified language called "ADA" ((C), DoD). For a while, it seemed that ADA was destined to become a language that went against all the precepts of Real Programming - a language with structure, a language with data types, {strong typing}, and semicolons. In short, a language designed to cripple the creativity of the typical Real Programmer. Fortunately, the language adopted by DoD has enough interesting features to make it approachable -- it's incredibly complex, includes methods for messing with the operating system and rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it [6]. (Dijkstra, as I'm sure you know, was the author of "GoTos Considered Harmful" - a landmark work in programming methodology, applauded by Pascal programmers and Quiche Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language. The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work on something slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we know it, providing there's enough money in it. There are several Real Programmers building video games at Atari, for example. (But not playing them - a Real Programmer knows how to beat the machine every time: no challenge in that.) Everyone working at LucasFilm is a Real Programmer. (It would be crazy to turn down the money of fifty million Star Trek fans.) The proportion of Real Programmers in Computer Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mostly because nobody has found a use for computer graphics yet. On the other hand, all computer graphics is done in Fortran, so there are a fair number of people doing graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs. THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works - with computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him to do what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is careful not to express this opinion out loud). Occasionally, the Real Programmer does step out of the office for a breath of fresh air and a beer or two. Some tips on recognizing Real Programmers away from the computer room: At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking about operating system security and how to get around it. At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper. At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in the sand. At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George, he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary." In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time. THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITAT What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers. Considering the amount of money it costs to keep one on the staff, it's best to put him (or her) in an environment where he can get his work done. The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal. Surrounding this terminal are: Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office. Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush. Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages. Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969. Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled cheese bars - the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine. Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-stuff Oreos for special occasions. Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.) The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50 hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it that way. Bad response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer - it gives him a chance to catch a little sleep between compiles. If there is not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things more challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation. In general: No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night). Real Programmers don't wear neckties. Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes. Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9]. A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He does, however, know the entire {ASCII} (or EBCDIC) code table. Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee. THE FUTURE What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being brought up with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of them have never seen a computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone graduating from school these days can do hex arithmetic without a calculator. College graduates these days are soft - protected from the realities of programming by source level debuggers, text editors that count parentheses, and "user friendly" operating systems. Worst of all, some of these alleged "computer scientists" manage to get degrees without ever learning Fortran! Are we destined to become an industry of Unix hackers and Pascal programmers? From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS 370 nor Fortran show any signs of dying out, despite all the efforts of Pascal programmers the world over. Even more subtle tricks, like adding structured coding constructs to Fortran have failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have come out with Fortran 77 compilers, but every one of them has a way of converting itself back into a Fortran 66 compiler at the drop of an option card - to compile DO loops like God meant them to be. Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy of any Real Programmer - two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the fact that it's "structured", even 'C' programming can be appreciated by the Real Programmer: after all, there's no type checking, variable names are seven (ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type is thrown in - like having the best parts of Fortran and assembly language in one place. (Not to mention some of the more creative uses for
Ribhu (Sanskrit) Ṛbhu Clever, skillful, inventive; applied to Indra, Agni, and the adityas in the Rig-Veda. As a noun, an artist, smith, builder. Also the name of three semi-divine beings, Ribhu, Vaja, and Vibhvan, the name of the first being applied to the three; “thought by some to represent the three seasons of the year, and celebrated for their skill as artists; they are supposed to dwell in the solar sphere, and are the artists who formed the horses of Indra, the carriage of the Asvins, and the miraculous cow of Brihaspati; they made their parents young, and performed other wonderful works; they are supposed to take their ease and remain idle for twelve days (the twelve intercalary days of the winter solstice) every year in the house of the Sun. (Agohya); after which they recommence working; when the gods heard of their skill, they sent Agni to them with the one cup of their rival Tvashtri, the artificer of the gods, bidding the Ribhus construct four cups from it; when they had successfully executed this task, the gods received the Ribhus amongst themselves and allowed them to partake of their sacrifices; they appear generally as accompanying Indra, especially at the evening sacrifice” (M-Wms Dict). In the Puranas, Ribhu is a son of Brahman, while Sankaracharya’s guru enumerates him as one of the seven kumaras (SD 1:457).
romance ::: n. --> A species of fictitious writing, originally composed in meter in the Romance dialects, and afterward in prose, such as the tales of the court of Arthur, and of Amadis of Gaul; hence, any fictitious and wonderful tale; a sort of novel, especially one which treats of surprising adventures usually befalling a hero or a heroine; a tale of extravagant adventures, of love, and the like.
An adventure, or series of extraordinary events, resembling those narrated in romances; as, his courtship, or his life,
round ::: n. 1. A completed course of time, series of events or operations, etc., ending at a point corresponding to that at the beginning. 2. A going around from place to place as in a habitual or definite circuit. 3. A recurring period of time, succession of events, duties, etc. 4. Moving in or forming a circle. round"s, rounds. wonder-rounds. 5. A composition for two or more voices in which each voice enters at a different time with the same melody. rounds. v. 6. Brings to a highly developed, finished, or refined state.
saga "jargon" (WPI) A {cuspy} but bogus raving story about N {random} broken people. Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by {Guy Steele} (GLS): Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at {MIT} for many years. One April, we both flew from Boston to California for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some people at {Stanford}, particularly our mutual friend {Richard Gabriel} (RPG). RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to {Palo Alto} (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to {El Camino Bignum}). Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University and about 40 miles south of San Francisco. We ate at The Good Earth, a "health food" restaurant, very popular, the sort whose milkshakes all contain honey and protein powder. JONL ordered such a shake - the waitress claimed the flavour of the day was "lalaberry". I still have no idea what that might be, but it became a running joke. It was the colour of raspberry, and JONL said it tasted rather bitter. I ate a better tostada there than I have ever had in a Mexican restaurant. After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of intriguing flavours. It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If you don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's - MOVE!" Also, Uncle Gaylord (a real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name ice cream makers to print their ingredients on the package (like air and plastic and other non-natural garbage). JONL and I had first discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had flown to a computer-science conference in {Berkeley}, California, the first time either of us had been on the West Coast. When not in the conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length of Telegraph Avenue, which (like Harvard Square in Cambridge) was lined with picturesque street vendors and interesting little shops. On that street we discovered Uncle Gaylord's Berkeley store. The ice cream there was very good. During that August visit JONL went absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular flavour, ginger honey. Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth - indeed, after every lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit --- a trip to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory. We had arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there at least four times. Each time, JONL would get ginger honey ice cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice that drove the Europeans mad! That's why they sought a route to the East! They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste meat." After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were getting a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase him: "Wow! Ginger! The spice that makes rotten meat taste good!" "Say! Why don't we find some dog that's been run over and sat in the sun for a week and put some *ginger* on it for dinner?!" "Right! With a lalaberry shake!" And so on. This failed to faze JONL; he took it in good humour, as long as we kept returning to Uncle Gaylord's. He loves ginger honey ice cream. Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up (putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them JONL and I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their choosing. I unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had je ne sais quoi du jour, but RPG and JONL had lapin (rabbit). (Waitress: "Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh today." RPG: "Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any *ginger*!") We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M Boston time, so JONL and I were rather droopy. But it wasn't yet midnight. Off to Uncle Gaylord's! Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto. In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north instead of south. JONL and I wouldn't have known the difference had RPG not mentioned it. We still knew very little of the local geography. I did figure out, however, that we were headed in the direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley. RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked. I was drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes. When he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the way over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San Francisco Bay. Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue". I mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Avenue; RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more. Eventually we pulled up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's. Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy, and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after all. JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night, and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.) He said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley! It looked like a barn! But this place looks *just like* the one back in Palo Alto!" RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to when I'm in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too. Remember, they're a chain." JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant - he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley, not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that there is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto. JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy at the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first, evidently their standard procedure with that flavour, as not too many people like it. JONL said, "I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone." The guy behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first. "Some people think it tastes like soap." JONL insisted, "Look, I *love* ginger. I eat Chinese food. I eat raw ginger roots. I already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto. I *know* I like that flavour!" At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his eye and winked. Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the forty-third time. At this point, RPG clued me in fully. RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream shops and generally having a good old time. At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?" JONL said, "Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it?" Now Uncle Gaylord publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make his ice cream at home. So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he and JONL pored over it for a while. But the g.b.t.c. could contain his curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like that stuff, huh?" JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it constantly back in Palo Alto for the past two days. In fact, I think this batch is about as good as the cones I got back in Palo Alto!" G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're *in* Palo Alto!" JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a fit of giggles. He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed, "I've been hacked!" [My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative of the raspberry found out there called an "ollalieberry" - ESR] [Ironic footnote: it appears that the {meme} about ginger vs. rotting meat may be an urban legend. It's not borne out by an examination of mediaeval recipes or period purchase records for spices, and appears full-blown in the works of Samuel Pegge, a gourmand and notorious flake case who originated numerous food myths. - ESR] [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-08)
saga ::: (jargon) (WPI) A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random broken people.Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy Steele (GLS):Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at MIT for many years. One April, we both flew from Boston to California for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some people at Stanford, particularly our mutual friend Richard Gabriel (RPG).RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to Palo Alto (going logical south on route 101, parallel to El Camino Bignum). Palo Alto is raspberry, and JONL said it tasted rather bitter. I ate a better tostada there than I have ever had in a Mexican restaurant.After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of intriguing flavours. It's a very good. During that August visit JONL went absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular flavour, ginger honey.Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth - indeed, after every lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit -- a trip to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in failed to faze JONL; he took it in good humour, as long as we kept returning to Uncle Gaylord's. He loves ginger honey ice cream.Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up (putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them JONL and I took them out to a (rabbit). (Waitress: Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh today. RPG: Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any *ginger*!)We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M Boston time, so JONL and I were rather droopy. But it wasn't yet midnight. Off to Uncle Gaylord's!Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto. In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north instead of south. JONL headed in the direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley.RPG said Fine! and we drove on for a while and talked. I was drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes. When he awoke, RPG said, Gee, said Right! and maneuvered some more. Eventually we pulled up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy, and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after all.JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night, and looks much different from in Berkeley! It looked like a barn! But this place looks *just like* the one back in Palo Alto!RPG deadpanned, Well, this is the one *I* always come to when I'm in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too. Remember, they're a chain.JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant - he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley, not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that there is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy at the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first, evidently their standard procedure with that flavour, as not too many people like it.JONL said, I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone. The guy behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first. Some people think it tastes like ginger roots. I already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto. I *know* I like that flavour!At the words back in Palo Alto the guy behind the counter got a very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his eye and winked. Through my launched into his spiel (makes rotten meat a dish for princes) for the forty-third time. At this point, RPG clued me in fully.RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream shops and generally having a good old time.At length the g.b.t.c. said, How's the ginger honey? JONL said, Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it? Now Uncle Gaylord publishes all his recipes and for the past two days. In fact, I think this batch is about as good as the cones I got back in Palo Alto!G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, You're *in* Palo Alto!JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a fit of giggles. He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed, I've been hacked![My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative of the raspberry found out there called an ollalieberry - ESR][Ironic footnote: it appears that the meme about ginger vs. rotting meat may be an urban legend. It's not borne out by an examination of mediaeval recipes or Samuel Pegge, a gourmand and notorious flake case who originated numerous food myths. - ESR][Jargon File] (1994-12-08)
SahāMpati. (P. Sahampati; T. Mi mjed kyi bdag po; C. Suopo shijie zhu; J. Shabasekaishu; K. Saba segye chu 娑婆世界主). In Sanskrit, "Lord of the Sahā World," the epithet of a BRAHMĀ deity. The first concentration (DHYĀNA) of the realm of subtle materiality (RuPADHĀTU; see RuPĀVACARADHYĀNA) has three levels, called BRAHMAKĀYIKA, BRAHMAPUROHITA, and MAHĀBRAHMĀ. The most senior of the deities of this third and highest level within the first concentration is called Brahmā SahāMpati. He plays a crucial role in the inception of the Buddhist teaching (sĀSANA). After his enlightenment, the newly enlightened Buddha is said to have wondered whether there was anyone in this world who would be able to understand his teaching. Brahmā SahāMpati then appeared to him and implored him to teach, convincing him that there were persons "with little dust in their eyes" who would be able to understand his teachings. According to BUDDHAGHOSA, the Buddha had every intention to teach but feigned reluctance in order that Brahmā SahāMpati would make the request, knowing that if the most powerful divinity in the SAHĀLOKA implored the Buddha to teach, those who honored Brahmā would heed the Buddha's teachings. Brahmā SahāMpati also assured the Buddha that in their last lifetimes, none of the buddhas of the past had had a teacher other than the DHARMA they discovered themselves. According to some accounts, he is divinity not of the mahābrahmā realm but rather of the sUDDHĀVĀSA.
SAID wonder
Samguk yusa. (三國遺事). In Korean, "Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms"; a collection of historical records and legends from the Three Kingdoms period in Korea, attributed to the Korean monk IRYoN (1206-1289), although the extant version may well have been expanded and emended by one of his disciples. The Samguk yusa was written c. 1282-1289, during the period of Mongol suzerainty over Korea, which began in 1259. In his miscellany, Iryon includes a variety of hagiographies of eminent monks in the early Korean Buddhist tradition, often drawing from local accounts of conduct (haengjang) rather than official biographies, and from stories of early Korean Buddhist miracles and anomalies drawn from regional lore. In its emphasis on local narrative, where Buddhism dominated, over official discourse, Iryon's Samguk yusa contrasts with Kim Pusik's (1075-1151) earlier Samguk sagi ("Historical Annals of the Three Kingdoms"), which included little information on Buddhism. The text is divided into nine sections, in five rolls: a dynastic chronology of early Korean kingdoms; "wonders" from the three kingdoms of Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla and their predecessor states; the rise of Buddhism; STuPAs and images; exegetes; divine spells; miraculous responses of bodhisattvas; the lives of recluses; and expressions of filial piety. The dynastic chronology that appears at the beginning of the definitive 1512 edition of the text contains several discrepancies with information that appears later in the text and may be a later addition from the fourteenth century. The Samguk yusa also makes one of the earliest references to the Tan'gun foundation myth of the Korean state and contains many indigenous Korean songs known as hyangga.
Science ::: When the ancient thinkers of India set themselves to study the soul of man in themselves and others, they, unlike any other nation or school of early thought, proceeded at once to a process which resembles exactly enough the process adopted by modern science in its study of physical phenomena. For their object was to study, arrange and utilise the forms, forces and working movements of consciousness, just as the modern physical Sciences study, arrange and utilize the forms, forces and working movements of objective Matter. The material with which they had to deal was more subtle, flexible and versatile than the most impalpable forces of which the physical Sciences have become aware; its motions were more elusive, its processes harder to fix; but once grasped and ascertained, the movements of consciousness were found by Vedic psychologists to be in their process and activity as regular, manageable and utilisable as the movements of physical forces. The powers of the soul can be as perfectly handled and as safely, methodically and puissantly directed to practical life-purposes of joy, power and light as the modern power of electricity can be used for human comfort, industrial and locomotive power and physical illumination; but the results to which they give room and effect are more wonderful and momentous than the results of motorpower and electric luminosity. For there is no difference of essential law in the physical and the psychical, but only a difference and undoubtedly a great difference of energy, instrumentation and exact process.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 12, Page: 314
scratch monkey "humour" As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. {ESR} notes: There is a version of this story, complete with reported dialogue between one of the project people and DEC field service, that has been circulating on Internet since 1986. It is hilarious and mythic, but gets some facts wrong. For example, it reports the machine as a {PDP-11} and alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when DEC {PM}ed the machine. Earlier versions of this entry were based on that story; this one has been corrected from an interview with the hapless sysop. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's {a very detailed account (http://mv.com/ipusers/arcade/monkey.htm)} that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident. [{Jargon File}] (2004-08-22)
scratch monkey ::: (humour) As in Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey, a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed.This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel.It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, Can you swim?Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local humane society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey.ESR notes: There is a version of this story, complete with reported dialogue between one of the project people and DEC field service, that has been entry were based on that story; this one has been corrected from an interview with the hapless sysop.A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital War Stories notesfile, but the name Mabel with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.[Jargon File](2004-08-22)
Scripture Wonderful
Shaberon (Tibetan) zhabs dpad blon (shab-pe-lon) [from zhabs dpad lotus feet cf Sanskrit padmapada a title of respect + blon, blon po officer, minister] Exalted officer; often the head of a Tibetan monastery. The Shaberons are mentioned as occasionally possessing wonderful powers, but are not necessarily tulkus of the Buddha (as the Dalai Lama and Tashi Lama are generally believed to be). While the ordinary Lamaist and uninstructed Tibetan supposes these Buddha reincarnations to be those of Gautama Buddha, the instructed or initiated higher classes of the Tibetan hierarchy understand that in great men there is always a ray of the celestial buddha; and therefore that when these great men reincarnate, the buddha ray is likewise reimbodied.
sign ::: n. --> That by which anything is made known or represented; that which furnishes evidence; a mark; a token; an indication; a proof.
A remarkable event, considered by the ancients as indicating the will of some deity; a prodigy; an omen.
An event considered by the Jews as indicating the divine will, or as manifesting an interposition of the divine power for some special end; a miracle; a wonder.
Something serving to indicate the existence, or preserve the
signs and wonders as a basis for belief (John 4:48). When Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) declared that “no science
siren Wonder
"Soma is the Gandharva, the Lord of the hosts of delight, and guards the true seat of the Deva, the level or plane of the Ananda; gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati. He is the Supreme, standing out from all other beings and over them, other than they and wonderful, adbhuta, and as the supreme and transcendent, present in the worlds but exceeding them, he protects in those worlds the births of the gods, pâti devânâm janimâni adbhutah. The ‘births of the gods" is a common phrase in the Veda by which is meant the manifestation of the divine principles in the cosmos and especially the formation of the godhead in its manifold forms in the human being.” The Secret of the Veda
“Soma is the Gandharva, the Lord of the hosts of delight, and guards the true seat of the Deva, the level or plane of the Ananda; gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati. He is the Supreme, standing out from all other beings and over them, other than they and wonderful, adbhuta, and as the supreme and transcendent, present in the worlds but exceeding them, he protects in those worlds the births of the gods, pâti devânâm janimâni adbhutah. The ‘births of the gods’ is a common phrase in the Veda by which is meant the manifestation of the divine principles in the cosmos and especially the formation of the godhead in its manifold forms in the human being.” The Secret of the Veda
“Soma is the Gandharva, the Lord of the hosts of delight, and guards the true seat of the Deva, the level or plane of the Ananda; gandharvaitthâpadamasyarakshati. He is the Supreme, standing out from all other beings and over them, other than they and wonderful, adbhuta, and as the supreme and transcendent, present in the worlds but exceeding them, he protects in those worlds the births of the gods, pâtidevânâmjanimâniadbhutah. The ‘births of the gods’ is a common phrase in the Veda by which is meant the manifestation of the divine principles in the cosmos and especially the formation of the godhead in its manifold forms in the human being.” The Secret of the Veda
Sometimes the word is used for the circle or zero, for the egg combines the senses of fertility and sphericity in one symbol. The egg with its central germ is the circle with the point. In company with the stroke for the masculine power in nature — sometimes represented as a vertical line — it makes the number 10, or the figure of relatively perfected or complete emanation. The egg was the symbol of life in immortality and eternity, and also the glyph of the generative matrix. The anatomy of a hen’s egg shows a wonderful analogy with the stages in comic evolution and the human principles. See also BRAHMANDA; WORLD EGG
SPACEWAR "games" A space-combat simulation game for the {PDP-1} written in 1960-61 by Steve Russell, an employee at {MIT}. SPACEWAR was inspired by E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" books, in which two spaceships duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other and jumping through hyperspace. MIT were wondering what to do with a new {vector video display} so Steve wrote the world's first video game. Steve now lives in California and still writes software for {HC12} {emulators}. SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of the early hacker culture at {MIT}. Nine years later, a descendant of the game motivated {Ken Thompson} to build, in his spare time on a scavenged {PDP-7}, the {operating system} that became {Unix}. Less than nine years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialised as one of the first video games; descendants are still {feep}ing in video arcades everywhere. ["SPACEWAR" or "Space Travel"?] [{Jargon File}] (2004-07-19)
spectacular ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a shows; of the nature of a show.
Adapted to excite wonder and admiration by a display of pomp or of scenic effects; as, a spectacular celebration of some event; a spectacular play.
Pertaining to spectacles, or glasses for the eyes.
**Sri Aurobindo: "The Unknowable is Something to us supreme, wonderful and ineffable which continually formulates Itself to our consciousness and continually escapes from the formulation It has made.” *The Life Divine
stare ::: n. --> The starling.
The act of staring; a fixed look with eyes wide open. ::: v. i. --> To look with fixed eyes wide open, as through fear, wonder, surprise, impudence, etc.; to fasten an earnest and prolonged gaze on some object.
Stonehenge The well-known megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain, England, the most wonderful prehistoric relic in that country, now preserved as a national monument. The larger stones are about 18 feet high and weigh about 20 tons apiece. There are two concentric circles; the outer circle, now badly interrupted by breaks and disturbances, being a hundred feet in diameter and consisting of upright stones with horizontal ones across the tops, originally forming a continuous structure. The inner circle has no lintels at present. Within is a horseshoe line of great trilithons and monoliths, and inside that another horseshoe of smaller stones. In the center is a large block called the altar. Outside, facing the altar and the opening of the horseshoes, stand two outer stones, believed by some to mark the place of sunrise at the summer solstice about 1680 BC. Some of the stones, including the altar, were brought from a great distance. Transportation of such heavy stones from such a distance would require great skill and organizing power.
strangely ::: adv. --> As something foreign, or not one&
Sukhāvatīvyuhasutra. (T. Bde ba can gyi bkod pa'i mdo; C. Wuliangshou jing; J. Muryojukyo; K. Muryangsu kyong 無量壽經). Literally, the "Sutra Displaying [the Land of] Bliss," the title of the two most important Mahāyāna sutras of the "PURE LAND" tradition. The two sutras differ in length, and thus are often referred to in English as the "larger" and "smaller" (or "longer" and "shorter") Sukhāvatīvyuhasutras; the shorter one is commonly called the AMITĀBHASuTRA. Both sutras are believed to date from the third century CE. The longer and shorter sutras, together with the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING (*Amitāyurdhyānasutra), constitute the three main texts associated with the pure land tradition of East Asia (see JINGTU SANBUJING). There are multiple Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan versions of both the longer and shorter sutras, with significant differences among them. ¶ The longer Sukhāvatīvyuhasutra begins with ĀNANDA noticing that the Buddha is looking especially serene one day, and so asks him the reason. The Buddha responds that he was thinking back many millions of eons in the past to the time of the buddha LOKEsVARARĀJA. The Buddha then tells a story in the form of a flashback. In the audience of this buddha was a monk named DHARMĀKARA, who approached Lokesvararāja and proclaimed his aspiration to become a buddha. Dharmākara then requested the Buddha to describe all of the qualities of the buddha-fields (BUDDHAKsETRA). Lokesvararāja provided a discourse that lasted one million years, describing each of the qualities of the lands of trillions of buddhas. Dharmākara then retired to meditate for five eons, seeking to concentrate all of the marvelous qualities of the millions of buddha-fields that had been described to him into a single pure buddha-field. When he completed his meditation, he returned to describe this imagined land to Lokesvararāja, promising to create a place of birth for fortunate beings and vowing that he would follow the bodhisattva path and become the buddha of this new buddha-field. He described the land he would create in a series of vows, stating that if this or that marvel was not present in his pure land, may he not become a buddha: e.g., "If in my pure land there are animals, ghosts, or hell denizens, may I not become a buddha." He made forty-eight such vows. These included the vow that all the beings in his pure land will be the color of gold; that beings in his pure land will have no conception of private property; that no bodhisattva will have to wash, dry, or sew his own robes; that bodhisattvas in his pure land will be able to hear the dharma in whatever form they wish to hear it and whenever they wish to hear it; that any woman who hears his name, creates the aspiration to enlightenment (BODHICITTA), and feels disgust at the female form, will not be reborn as a woman again. Two of these vows would become the focus of particular attention. In the eighteenth vow (seventeenth in the East Asian versions), Dharmākara vows that when he has become a buddha, he will appear at the moment of death to anyone who creates the aspiration to enlightenment, hears his name, and remembers him with faith. In the nineteenth vow (eighteenth in the East Asian versions), he promises that anyone who hears his name, wishes to be reborn in his pure land, and dedicates their merit to that end, will be reborn there, even if they make such a resolution as few as ten times during the course of their life. Only those who have committed one of the five inexpiable transgressions bringing immediate retribution (ĀNANTARYAKARMAN, viz., patricide, matricide, killing an ARHAT, wounding a buddha, or causing schism in the SAMGHA) are excluded. The scene then returns to the present. Ānanda asks the Buddha whether Dharmākara was successful, whether he did in fact traverse the long path of the bodhisattva to become a buddha. The Buddha replies that he did indeed succeed and that he became the buddha Amitābha (Infinite Light). The pure land that he created is called sukhāvatī. Because Dharmākara became a buddha, all of the things that he promised to create in his pure land have come true, and the Buddha proceeds to describe sukhāvatī in great detail. It is carpeted with lotuses made of seven precious substances, some of which reach ten leagues (YOJANA) in diameter. Each lotus emits millions of rays of light and from each ray of light there emerge millions of buddhas who travel to world systems in all directions to teach the dharma. The pure land is level, like the palm of one's hand, without mountains or oceans. It has great rivers, the waters of which rise as high or sink as low as one pleases, from the shoulders to the ankles, and vary in temperature as one pleases. The sound of the river takes the form of whatever auspicious words one wishes to hear, such as "buddha," "emptiness," "cessation," and "great compassion." The words "hindrance," "misfortune," and "pain" are never heard, nor are the words "day" and "night" used, except as metaphors. The beings in the pure land do not need to consume food. When they are hungry, they simply visualize whatever food they wish and their hunger is satisfied without needing to eat. They dwell in bejeweled palaces of their own design. Some of the inhabitants sit cross-legged on lotus blossoms while others are enclosed within the calyx of a lotus. The latter do not feel imprisoned, because the calyx of the lotus is quite large, containing within it a palace similar to that inhabited by the gods. Those who dedicate their merit toward rebirth in the pure land yet who harbor doubts are reborn inside lotuses where they must remain for five hundred years, enjoying visions of the pure land but deprived of the opportunity to hear the dharma. Those who are free from doubt are reborn immediately on open lotuses, with unlimited access to the dharma. Such rebirth would become a common goal of Buddhist practice, for monks and laity alike, in India, Tibet, and throughout East Asia. ¶ The "shorter" Sukhāvatīvyuhasutra was translated into Chinese by such famous figures as KUMĀRAJĪVA and XUANZANG. It is devoted largely to describing this buddha's land and its many wonders, including the fact that even the names for the realms of animals and the realms of hell-denizens are not known; all of the beings born there will achieve enlightenment in their next lifetime. In order to be reborn there, one should dedicate one's merit to that goal and bear in mind the name of the buddha here known as AMITĀYUS (Infinite Life). Those who are successful in doing so will see Amitāyus and a host of bodhisattvas before them at the moment of death, ready to escort them to sukhāvatī, the land of bliss. In order to demonstrate the efficacy of this practice, the Buddha goes on to list the names of many other buddhas abiding in the four cardinal directions, the nadir, and the zenith, who also praise the buddha-field of Amitāyus. Furthermore, those who hear the names of the buddhas that he has just recited will be embraced by those buddhas. Perhaps to indicate how his own buddha-field (that is, our world) differs from that of Amitāyus, sākyamuni Buddha concludes by conceding that it has been difficult to teach the dharma in a world as degenerate as ours.
Svāgata. (P. Sāgata; T. Legs 'ongs; C. Shanlai; J. Zenrai; K. Sollae 善來). Sanskrit proper name of an eminent ARHAT elder declared by the Buddha to be foremost among his monk disciples in contemplation of the heat element (tejadhātu); also written in BUDDHIST HYBRID SANSKRIT as Sāgata. According to the Pāli account, Sāgata was the personal attendant of the Buddha when SOnA KOLIVĪSA (S. srona-ViMsatikoti/srona-KotiviMsa) and eighty thousand companions visited RĀJAGṚHA at the request of King BIMBISĀRA. Sāgata appears to have been naturally endowed with supernatural powers (P. iddhi, S. ṚDDHI) and left such an impression on Sona Kolavīsa that he joined the order. At the king's request, Sāgata displayed numerous marvels in the sky and, when asked to show an even greater wonder, he fell at the Buddha's feet and declared him to be his teacher. In the hermitage of the Jatilas in Ambatittha (S. Āmratirtha), Sāgata dwelt in a powerful NĀGA's cave, angering him, yet he was easily able to defeat the creature. When the people of Kosambī (S. KAUsĀMBĪ) heard of this feat, they resolved to honor Svāgata with a feast. The wicked chabbaggīyā (S. sAdVĀRGIKA) monks, jealous of Sāgata's fame, were intent on his undoing, and so recommended to the citizens of Kosambī that they offer him liquor. Sāgata was offered liquor at every house until he fell unconscious and had to be carried back to the Buddha. Although he was laid down properly with his head facing the Buddha, he turned around and lay with his feet towards the Buddha. The Buddha used this occasion to preach about the heedlessness (PRAMĀDA) that arises from intoxication and passed a rule against the use of alcohol and other intoxicants. The next day when Sāgata awoke, he was informed of what had happened and begged the Buddha for forgiveness. After a short while, through diligent practice, he attained insight into the three marks of existence and became an arhat.
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and its Wonders and Hell.
Taftian (Taphi)—in the cabala, a wonder¬
talisman ::: n. --> A magical figure cut or engraved under certain superstitious observances of the configuration of the heavens, to which wonderful effects are ascribed; the seal, figure, character, or image, of a heavenly sign, constellation, or planet, engraved on a sympathetic stone, or on a metal corresponding to the star, in order to receive its influence.
Hence, something that produces extraordinary effects, esp. in averting or repelling evil; an amulet; a charm; as, a talisman
teratical ::: a. --> Wonderful; ominous; prodigious.
thaumatolatry ::: n. --> Worship or undue admiration of wonderful or miraculous things.
thaumaturge ::: n. --> A magician; a wonder worker.
thaumaturgical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to thaumaturgy; magical; wonderful.
thaumaturgist ::: n. --> One who deals in wonders, or believes in them; a wonder worker.
Thaumaturgy [from Greek thaumatourgia wonder-working from thauma wonder + ergon work] Used often for mere conjuring tricks; but in ancient times used in Greece to signify one of the branches of genuine practical magic, the performance of occult phenomena by the adept, with the help of elementals and various other denizens of the invisible spheres.
thaumaturgy ::: n. --> The act or art of performing something wonderful; magic; legerdemain.
Thaumaturgy: The power or art of “working wonders” with divine or other superhuman aid.
The Mayas of Yucatan had a calendar system, deciphered at least in part, that extended far back into the past. In this calendar we find not only the familiar cycles of the lunation and of the solar year, but others such as the synodical revolution of Venus, and exact periods of 250, 280, or 360 days. The Egyptians in their calendar time-measurements used three different years, one of which was a year of 365 days, adapted to the Julian year by a Sothic period of 1460 years. The lunar year of 12 lunations is one of immense antiquity, and formerly of almost universal usage, frequently combined with the solar year; and the lunar year is still used, with various systems of intercalation to adapt it to the tropical year. As to such periods as 280 and 260 days, one may wonder whether these numbers were merely used as convenient for computation, or whether they rest on actual cycles not recognized by modern astronomy. The 280 is evidently connected with the human gestation and prenatal period. The position of the equinoctal point in relation to the stellar zodiac is often referred to as an indication of the dates of ancient events; and cycles of successive conjunctions of all or most of the planets are frequently mentioned in the archaic literatures of different peoples.
“The popular prevailing idea is that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and other thaumaturgic works, by supernatural powers. But this never was the fact. They did it simply by the liberation of their own astral body, which, taking the form of a god or hero, served as a medium or vehicle through which the special current preserving the ideas and knowledge of that hero or god could be reached and manifested” (TG 330).
“These advanced entities are otherwise known as the Solar Lhas, as the Tibetans call them, the solar spirits, who were the men of a former kalpa, and who during the third Root-race thus sacrifice themselves in order to give us intellectual light — incarnating in those senseless psycho-physical shells in order to awaken the divine flame of egoity and self-consciousness in the sleeping egos which we then were. They are ourselves because belonging to the same spirit-ray that we do; yet we, more strictly speaking, were those half-unconscious, half-awakened egos whom they touched with the divine fire of their own being. This, our ‘awakening,’ was called by H. P. Blavatsky, the incarnation of the Manasaputras, or the Sons of Mind or Light. Had that incarnation not taken place, we indeed should have continued our evolution by merely ‘natural’ causes, but it would have been slow almost beyond comprehension, almost interminable; but that act of self-sacrifice, through their immense pity, their immense love, though, indeed, acting under Karmic impulse, awakened the divine fire in our own selves, gave us light and comprehension and understanding; and from that time we ourselves became ‘Sons of the Gods,’ the faculty of self-consciousness in us was awakened, our eyes were opened, responsibility became ours; and our feet were set then definitely upon the path, that inner path, quiet, wonderful, leading us inwards back to our spiritual home. . . .
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer "programming, person" A 1983 article by Ed Nather about {hacker} {Mel Kaye}. The full text follows. A recent article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, "Real Programmers write in FORTRAN". Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of {drums} and {vacuum tubes}, Real Programmers wrote in {machine code} - not {Fortran}, not {RATFOR}, not even {assembly language} - {Machine Code}, raw, unadorned, inscrutable {hexadecimal} numbers, directly. Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name. I first met Mel when I went to work for {Royal McBee Computer Corporation}, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the {LGP-30}, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) {drum}-memory computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a much-improved, bigger, better, faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.) I had been hired to write a {Fortran} compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers. "If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?" Mel had written, in {hexadecimal}, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the {LGP-30} and played blackjack with potential customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed. Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the {RPC-4000}. ({Port}? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the {operation code} and the address of the needed {operand}, had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a {GO TO}! Put *that* in {Pascal}'s pipe and smoke it. Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing assembler", but Mel refused to use it. "You never know where its going to put things", he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants". It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify. I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the "{top-down}" method of program design hadn't been invented yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way. Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky {Flexowriter} required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just *past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most pessimum". After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, ("Even the initialiser is optimised", he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimised) {random number generator} to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win. Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backward, and, when the sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it. After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure. I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius. Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out. The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an {index register}. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it. Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this additional execution time was taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it. The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me. He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way. I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised. When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer." [Posted to {Usenet} by its author, Ed Nather "utastro!nather", on 1983-05-21]. {Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html)}. [{On the trail of a Real Programmer (http://www.jamtronix.com/blog/2011/03/25/on-the-trail-of-a-real-programmer/)}, 2011-03-25 blog post by "jonno" at Jamtronix] [When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?] (2003-09-12)
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer ::: (programming, person) An article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, Real Programmers write in Fortran. language - Machine Code. Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers, directly.Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name.I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corporation, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.)I had been hired to write a Fortran compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers.If a program can't rewrite its own code, he asked, what good is it?Mel had written, in hexadecimal, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the LGP-30 and played blackjack with potential customers at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed.Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the RPC-4000. (Port? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a GO TO! Put *that* in Pascal's pipe and smoke it.Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be was a program to do that job, an optimizing assembler, but Mel refused to use it.You never know where its going to put things, he explained, so you'd have to use separate constants.It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every pick up an earlier add instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify.I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way.Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky Flexowriter required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located practice to make it relative: not quite optimum or less optimum or not very optimum. Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the most pessimum.After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, (Even the initialiser is optimised, he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win.Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it.After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure.I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out.The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it.Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it.The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me.He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way.I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised.When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer.[Posted to USENET by its author, Ed Nather utastro!nather>, on 1983-05-21]. .[When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?](2003-09-12)
The Unknowable is Something to us supreme, wonderful and ineffable which continually formulates Itself to our consciousness and continually escapes from the formulation It has made.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 35
This legend of the enormous height attained by the fig tree under which the Buddha obtained enlightenment, illustrates how soon the spiritual vision of the real meaning of the bodhi tree became involved in mythologic wonder.
TMRC /tmerk'/ The Tech Model Railroad Club at {MIT}, one of the wellsprings of {hacker} culture. The 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC Language" compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see especially {foo}, {mung}, and {frob}). By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity (and has grown in the thirty years since; all the features described here are still present). The control system alone featured about 1200 relays. There were {scram switch}es located at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train going full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDS and seven-segment displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced with the word "FOO"; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore called "foo switches". Steven Levy, in his book "Hackers", gives a stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's Power and Signals group included most of the early {PDP-1} hackers and the people who later bacame the core of the {MIT} {AI Lab} staff. This dictionary accordingly includes a number of entries from the TMRC dictionary (via the Hacker Jargon File). [{Jargon File}] (2008-06-30)
Udgata. (P. Uggata; T. 'Phags pa; C. Yujiatuo; J. Utsukada; K. Ulgat'a 欝伽陀). Lay disciple of the Buddha deemed to be foremost among laymen who served the order (SAMGHA). According to the Pāli account, where he is known as Uggata, he was a wealthy householder living in the town of Hatthigāma. One day, while the Buddha was sojourning at the Nāgavanuyyāna garden in the town, Uggata visited the garden in a drunken state, accompanied by dancers, after a drinking binge that had lasted seven days. Seeing the Buddha, he was filled with shame and immediately sobered up. The Buddha preached to him, and he became a nonreturner (ANĀGĀMIN) on the spot. He dismissed the dancers and, from that time onward, devoted himself to serving the order. He used to receive visitations from the divinities, who told him of the attainments of various members of the order and suggested that he favor these above the rest. Uggata, however, treated all monks equally and showed no preference in his benefactions between those who had attained distinction as ĀRYAPUDGALA and those who were still unenlightened. When queried, Uggata said that there were eight wonderful things that happened to, and were done by, him in this life: he recovered his sobriety the very moment he saw the Buddha; he readily understood the Buddha's teaching of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS; when he took a vow of celibacy, he provided for his four wives even to the point of finding one of them a new husband of her choice; he shared his great wealth with persons of good conduct; he served monks wholeheartedly, listening to their sermons or preaching to them when they did not speak; he was equally generous to all monks without making distinctions; he was not prideful of his conversations with the divinities; and he did not worry about death, for the Buddha had assured him that he would not return to this world.
Ugra. (P. Ugga; T. Drag shul can; C. Yuqie; J. Ikuga/Ikuka; K. Ukka 郁伽). An eminent lay disciple of the Buddha whom he declared to be foremost among laymen who give pleasant gifts. According to the Pāli accounts, where he is known as Ugga, he was a householder who lived in Vesāli (S. VAIsĀLĪ). He became a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA) when he saw the Buddha the first time and later became a nonreturner (ANĀGĀMIN). He vowed to give to the Buddha and his followers whatever they found most agreeable. The Buddha, reading his mind, appeared before him, whereupon he provided them with a sumptuous meal and communicated his intentions to the Buddha. The list of favorite things included rice cakes in the shape of sāla flowers, pork, and Kāsī cloth. He was possessed of six special qualities: steadfast confidence in the Buddha, his teachings, and the order, noble conduct, insight, and liberation. Ugga declared that there were eight wonderful things that happened to him and that he did in this life. The list is similar to what is found in the story of UDGATA and concludes with the freedom he achieved from the five lower fetters (SAMYOJANA) that bind living beings to the cycle of existence: belief in the existence of the body as a real person (P. sakkāyaditthi; S. SATKĀYADṚstI), doubt about the efficacy of the path (P. vicikicchā; S. VICIKITSĀ), clinging to the rules and rituals (P. sīlabbataparāmāsa; S. sĪLAVRATAPARĀMARsA), sensuous craving (KĀMARĀGA), and ill will (VYĀPĀDA). When Ugga died, he was reborn in the realm of subtle materiality (RuPALOKA) among the divinities who project mind-made bodies (MANOMAYAKĀYA). He visited the Buddha and informed him that he had attained arhatship in that existence.
unknowable ::: “The Unknowable is Something to us supreme, wonderful and ineffable which continually formulates Itself to our consciousness and continually escapes from the formulation It has made.” The Life Divine
unwonder ::: v. t. --> To divest of the quality of wonder or mystery; to interpret; to explain.
Upanishad(Sanskrit) ::: A compound, composed of upa "according to," "together with," ni "down," and the verbal rootsad, "to sit," which becomes shad by Sanskrit grammar when preceded by the particle ni: the entirecompound thus signifying "following upon or according to the teachings which were received when wewere sitting down." The figure here is that of pupils sitting in the Oriental style at the feet of the teacher,who taught them the secret wisdom or rahasya, in private and in forms and manners of expression thatlater were written and promulgated according to those teachings and after that style.The Upanishads are examples of literary works in which the rahasya -- a Sanskrit word meaning"esoteric doctrine" or "mystery" -- is imbodied. The Upanishads belong to the Vedic cycle and areregarded by orthodox Brahmans as a portion of the sruti or "revelation." It was from these wonderfulquasi-esoteric and very mystical works that was later developed the highly philosophical and profoundsystem called the Vedanta. The Upanishads are usually reckoned today as one hundred and fifty innumber, though probably only a score are now complete without evident marks of literary change oradulteration in the way of excision or interpolation.The topics treated of in the Upanishads are highly transcendental, recondite, and abstruse, and in orderproperly to understand the Upanishadic teaching one should have constantly in mind the master-keys thattheosophy puts into the hand of the student. The origin of the universe, the nature of the divinities, therelations between soul and ego, the connections of spiritual and material beings, the liberation of theevolving entity from the chains of maya, and kosmological questions, are all dealt with, mostly in asuccinct and cryptic form. The Upanishads, finally, may be called the exoteric theosophical works ofHindustan, but contain a vast amount of genuine esoteric information.
Upanishad (Sanskrit) Upaniṣad [from upa according to + ni down + the verbal root sad to sit] Following or according to the teachings which were received when sitting down; esoteric doctrine. “Literary works in which the rahasya — a Sanskrit word meaning esoteric doctrine or mystery — is imbodied. The Upanishads belong to the Vedic cycle and are regarded by orthodox Brahmans as a portion of the Sruti or ‘Revelation.’ It was from these wonderful quasi-esoteric and very mystical works that was later developed the highly philosophical and profound system called the Vedanta” (OG 179).
Vaidehī. (P. Videhī; T. Lus 'phags ma; C. Weitixi; J. Idaike; K. Wijehŭi 韋提希). Sanskrit proper name of the queen of BIMBISĀRA, king of MAGADHA, and mother of AJĀTAsATRU. According to some traditions, her name derives from the fact that she hailed from VIDEHA. When her son Ajātasatru usurped the throne and imprisoned his father, no one was allowed to visit him except for Vaidehī. Although she was prohibited from bringing Bimbisāra food, she hid food in her clothes. When this was discovered, she hid food in her hair and then in her shoes. When these were discovered, she smeared her body with the four sweet substances, which the king licked for his sustenance. When this was discovered, the king lived on the energy from walking meditation, until his son had his feet lacerated, after which he died. The incident of Vaidehī's visit to the cell of Bimbisāra provides the setting for one of the three major sutras of the East Asian PURE LAND traditions, the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING (sometimes known by the hypothetical reconstructed Sanskrit title *Amitāyurdhyānasutra, or simply as the "Meditation Sutra"). According to this sutra, when Ajātasatru discovers that his mother has been secretly feeding the king, he incarcerates her as well. Despite her sorrow, Vaidehī does not give up her faith in the Buddha and invokes his aid. The Buddha then appears before her, and she asks that he teach her about a place where there is no sorrow. The Buddha then teaches her how to visualize the SUKHĀVATĪ pure land of the buddha named "Infinite Life" (AMITĀYUS/AMITĀBHA). He next explains to her how one may be reborn in this wonderful paradise, which is a land without suffering, a world of endless bliss. At the end of the sutra, Vaidehī is mentioned as one of many who were inspired by the Buddha's preaching.
Vedanta(Sanskrit) ::: From the Upanishads and from other parts of the wonderful cycle of Vedic literature, theancient sages of India produced what is called today the Vedanta -- a compound word meaning "the end(or completion) of the Veda" -- that is to say, instruction in the final and most perfect exposition of themeaning of the Vedic tenets.The Vedanta is the highest form that the Brahmanical teachings have taken, and under the name of theUttara-Mimamsa attributed to Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas, the Vedanta is perhaps the noblest ofthe six Indian schools of philosophy. The Avatara Sankaracharya has been the main popularizer of theVedantic system of philosophical thought, and the type of Vedantic doctrine taught by him is what istechnically called the Advaita-Vedanta or nondualistic.The Vedanta may briefly be described as a system of mystical philosophy derived from the efforts ofsages through many generations to interpret the sacred or esoteric meaning of the Upanishads. In itsAdvaita form the Vedanta is in many, if not all, respects exceedingly close to, if not identical with, someof the mystical forms of Buddhism in central Asia. The Hindus call the Vedanta Brahma-jnana.
visionary ::: 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of getting computers to see things using TV cameras. The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of the camera information? See SMOP, AI-complete.)2. [IBM] One who reads the outside literature. At IBM, apparently, such a penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.[Jargon File]
visionary 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of getting computers to "see" things using TV cameras. (There isn't any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer. The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of the camera information? See {SMOP}, {AI-complete}.) 2. [IBM] One who reads the outside literature. At IBM, apparently, such a penchant is viewed with awe and wonder. [{Jargon File}]
web ::: 1. Something formed by or as if by weaving or interweaving; something of complicated structure or workmanship. 2. Fig. Something intricately contrived, especially something that ensnares or entangles. 3. An intricate set or pattern of circumstances, facts, etc. spider"s-web, wonder-web, word-webs.
weft ::: 1. The horizontal threads interlaced through the warp in a woven fabric; woof. 2. Something woven, like fabric. Also fig. marvel-wefts, wonder-weft.
Will power is a mighty, colorless force or energy which can be set in motion by one who has the power and knowledge to do so. In India, in combination with abstract desire, it is mentioned as one of six primary powers (ichchhasakti) by which the adept accomplishes many of his wonders. “The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one’s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result . . . For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of the primordial divine Light and eternal Life “(SD 2:173). The occult power of will explains many scientific problems of animate and inanimate matter. In human beings, it may consciously and unconsciously act upon other human wills and upon that of beasts; likewise, it may act upon physical and astral substance to produce various phenomena such as levitation, fire-walking, birthmarks, etc. “Paracelsus teaches that ‘determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain’ ” (TG 370).
wonder-book of common things
wondered ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Wonder ::: a. --> Having performed wonders; able to perform wonderful things.
wonderer ::: n. --> One who wonders.
wonderful ::: a. --> Adapted to excite wonder or admiration; surprising; strange; astonishing.
wonderful ::: capable of eliciting wonder; filled with wonder; astonishing. Wonderful, the Wonderful, All-Wonderful, All-Wonderful"s. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as a personification of the Deity.)
wonderfully ::: eliciting wonder; astonishing.
wonderingly ::: adv. --> In a wondering manner.
wondering ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Wonder
wonderland ::: a land of wonders or marvels. Also fig.
wonderland ::: n. --> A land full of wonders, or marvels.
wonderly ::: adv. --> Wonderfully; wondrously.
wonderment ::: n. --> Surprise; astonishment; a wonderful appearance; a wonder.
wonder ::: n. 1. An event inexplicable by the laws of nature; a miracle; something strange and surprising brought about by a supernatural force. 2. A miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon. 3. The emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration. 4. Something strange, unexpected, or extraordinary. Wonder, wonder"s, Wonder"s, wonders, wonder-book, wonder-couch, wonder-dance, wonder-flecks, wonder-flowers, wonder-hues, wonder-plastics, wonder-rounds, wonder-rush, wonder-tree, wonder-web, wonder-weft, Wonder-worker, Wonder-worker"s, wonder-works, wonder-world, wonder-worlds. *adj. 5. Arousing awe or admiration; wonderful. v. 6. To be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; marvel (often followed by at); to think or speculate curiously (at or about); be curious to know. *wonders, wondered, wondering.
wonder ::: n. --> That emotion which is excited by novelty, or the presentation to the sight or mind of something new, unusual, strange, great, extraordinary, or not well understood; surprise; astonishment; admiration; amazement.
A cause of wonder; that which excites surprise; a strange thing; a prodigy; a miracle. ::: v. i.
wonderous ::: a. --> Same as Wondrous.
wonder-plastics
wonders ::: adv. --> See Wondrous.
wonderstruck ::: a. --> Struck with wonder, admiration, or surprise.
wonder-weft
wonder-worker ::: n. --> One who performs wonders, or miracles.
wonder-working ::: a. --> Doing wonders or surprising things.
wonderwork ::: n. --> A wonderful work or act; a prodigy; a miracle.
wondrous ::: n. --> In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. ::: a. --> Wonderful; astonishing; admirable; marvelous; such as excite surprise and astonishment; strange.
wondrous ::: wonderful; remarkable.
world ::: 1. Everything that exists; the universe; the macrocosm. 2. The earth with its inhabitants. 3. Any sphere, realm, or domain, with all pertaining to it. 4. Any period, state, or sphere of existence. world"s, worlds, wonder-world, wonder-worlds, world-adventure, world-adventure"s, world-being"s, World-Bliss, world-cloak, world-conjecture"s, world-creating, world-creators, world-delight, World-Delight, world-destiny, world-destroying, world-disillusion"s, world-dream, world-drowse, world-egos, world-energies, world-energy, World-Energy, world-force, world-experience, world-fact, world-failure"s, world-fate, World-Force, world-forces, World-free, World-Geometer"s, world-heart, world-idea, world-ignorance, World-Ignorance, World-maker"s, world-indifference, world-interpreting, world-kindergarten, world-knowledge, world-law, world-laws, world-libido"s, world-making"s, World-Matter"s, World-naked, world-need, world-ocean"s, world-outline, world-pain, world-passion, World-personality, world-pile, world-plan, world-power, World-Power, World-Power"s, World-Puissance, world-rapture, world-redeemer"s, world-rhyme, world-rhythms, world-scene, world-scheme, world-sea, World-Self, world-shape, world-shapes, world-space, world-stuff, world-symbol, World-symbols, World-task, world-time, World-Time‘s, world-tree, world-ways, world-whim, dream-world, heaven-world, mid-world.
WPOP ::: WonderPop. Robert Rae , Edinburgh 1976. An implementation of POP for the PDP-10 that used cages for different data types. Introduced processes, properties, and some typed identifiers.
WPOP {WonderPop}
write it. In his Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell, he avers that “a little paper was sent to me from
Xu gaoseng zhuan. (J. Zoku kosoden; K. Sok kosŭng chon 續高僧傳). In Chinese, "Supplement to the Biographies of Eminent Monks," compiled by the VINAYA master DAOXUAN; also known as the Tang gaoseng zhuan. As the title suggests, the Xu gaoseng zhuan "supplements" or "continues" the work of HUIJIAO's earlier GAOSENG ZHUAN and records the lives of monks who were active in the period between Huijiao's composition during the Liang dynasty and Daoxuan's own time. The Xu gaoseng zhuan contains 485 major and 219 appended biographies, neatly categorized under translators (yijing), exegetes (yijie), practitioners of meditation (xichan), specialists of VINAYA(minglü), protectors of the DHARMA (hufa), sympathetic resonance (GANTONG), sacrifice of the body (YISHEN), chanters (dusong), benefactors (xingfu), and miscellaneous (zake). Although Daoxuan generally followed Huijiao's earlier categorizations, he made several changes. In lieu of Huijiao's divine wonders (shenyi), viz., thaumaturgists, Daoxuan opted to use the term sympathetic resonance, instead; he also subsumed Huijiao's hymnodists (jingshi) and propagators (changdao) under the "miscellaneous" category. Daoxuan also introduced the new category of protectors of the dharma order to leave a record of disputes that occurred at court with Daoists. These adjustments seem to reflect ongoing developments within Chinese Buddhism in how to conceive of, and write, history. Other related biographical collections include ZANNING's SONG GAOSENG ZHUAN, Shi Baochang's BIQIUNI ZHUAN, the Korean HAEDONG KOSŬNG CHoN, and the Japanese HONCHo KoSoDEN.
“You may perhaps wonder how angels can ever be visible, since it is written, ‘Who makes his angels spirits’ (Psalms
Zama Zama Ozza Pachama Ozai (Greek) [from Hebrew] Usually given as “the robe, the glorious robe of my strength”; more accurately “Veil! Veil! Strength! Loveliness! My Strength!” A Gnostic inscription, the five words supposedly written on or inherent in the akasic or shining garment of Jesus at his glorification. Here the initiate is stating that his strength or power, spiritual and intellectual, lies in the wonderful veil, vital, full of energy and wisdom, which surrounds him, and which is the vehicle of his spiritual and intellectual strength.
ZIRN wonders 219
zounds ::: interj. --> An exclamation formerly used as an oath, and an expression of anger or wonder.
KEYS (10k)
6 Sri Aurobindo
4 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Benjamin Disraeli
2 Ogawa
1 Thomas A Kempis
1 SWAMI RAMA TIRTHA
1 SWAMI RAMA
1 Stephen Hawking
1 Soren Kierkegaard
1 Sora
1 Sophocles
1 Socrates
1 Silouan the Athonite
1 Sangiti Sutta
1 Samuel Johnson
1 Saint Leo the Great
1 Saint Juliana of Norwich
1 Saint John Fisher
1 Saigyo
1 Ramayana
1 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
1 Proclus of Constantinople
1 Nichiren
1 Neil deGrasse Tyson
1 Michelangelo
1 MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI
1 Margaret Meade
1 Lewis Carroll
1 Kahlil Gibran
1 John Scottus Eriugena
1 Jalaluddin Rumi
1 Jacques Yves Cousteau
1 Goldie Hawn
1 Edgar Allan Poe
1 Douglas Adams
1 Denise Letvertov
1 Dalai Lama
1 C S Lewis
1 Chuang Tzu. "The complete works of Chuang Tzu"
1 Carl Sagan
1 Bram Stoker
1 Baha-ullah
1 Anonymous
1 Annette Funicello
1 Angelus Silesius
1 Alfred North Whitehead
1 Alexander Bloch. Source: https://bit.ly/3grLVbh
1 Albert Einstein
1 The Mother
1 Swami Vivekananda
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Saint Thomas Aquinas
1 Nichiren
1 Kobayashi Issa
1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1 Abraham Maslow
1 Abraham Joshua Heschel
1 ?
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
74 Stevie Wonder
25 Anonymous
9 J K Rowling
8 Terry Pratchett
8 Sophocles
8 Marilyn Monroe
7 Rumi
7 Plato
7 Nicholas Sparks
7 Lewis Carroll
7 Ally Condie
6 Socrates
6 Oscar Wilde
6 John Steinbeck
6 Ernest Hemingway
5 William Shakespeare
5 Thich Nhat Hanh
5 Stephen King
5 Markus Zusak
5 Jodi Picoult
1:Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, #KEYS
2:The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." ~ Jacques Yves Cousteau, #KEYS
3:All understanding begins in wonder! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
4:One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night." ~ Margaret Meade, #KEYS
5:I wonder
if the blossoms
are soft and fluffy
~ Sora, @BashoSociety#KEYS
6:Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
~ Alfred North Whitehead,#KEYS
7:to be alive
is a wonder
autumn herbs
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
8:And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than you joy." ~ Kahlil Gibran, #KEYS
9:Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #KEYS
10:Is it not a wonder of wonders? The quest "Who am I?" is the axe with which to cut off the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
11:Sometimes I wonder if people who aggrressively seek political power are precisely those who should not be entrusted to wield it. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #KEYS
12:a willow
in morning light
is a wonder
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
13:Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
~ Albert Einstein, Einstein and the Poet,#KEYS
14:A Great Silence overcomes me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path#KEYS
15:Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious." ~ Stephen Hawking, #KEYS
16:Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason that set you wandering is ever at your heels. ~ Socrates, #KEYS
17:But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
18:Make your choice, adventurous Stranger, Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.
~ C S Lewis, The Magician's Nephew,#KEYS
19:When man is introduced by the action of God into the world of Uncreated Light, there are no words to express his wonder, no words, no sighs to tell of his gratitude." ~ Silouan the Athonite, #KEYS
20:Let me be rapt in love. Let me rise above self in great fervor and wonder. Let me sing the hymn of love, and let me follow You, my Love, to the heights. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
21:How should I act to ensure that the purpose
may not be frustrated? How should I guard against
thoughtlessness? And how, I wonder,
should I ensure that my leaping across the sea
does not go in vain? ~ Ramayana,#KEYS
22:World-rhythms
Through glimmering veils of wonder and delight
World after world bursts on the awakened sight. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Other Earths,#KEYS
23:Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
24:I learn to affirm Truth's light at strange turns of the mind's road, wrong turns that lead over the border into wonder." ~ Denise Letvertov, (1923 - 1997) American poet, recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, Wikipedia, #KEYS
25:I wonder if we confuse strength and other words - like aggression and even violence. Real strength is neither male nor female; but is, quite simply, one of the finest characteristics that any human being can possess." ~ Fred Rogers, #KEYS
26:Since philosophy arises out of wonder, it is clear that the philosopher is some kind of philo-myth, a lover of fables, which is proper to poets ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Metaphysics 1, lect. 3)., #KEYS
27:Most people know the sheer wonder that goes with falling in love, how not only does everything in heaven and earth become new, but the lover himself becomes new." ~ Caryll Houselander, (1901-1954)) lay Roman Catholic artist, mystic, Wikipedia., #KEYS
28:Who help men's drab and heavy ignorant lives
To wake to beauty and the wonder of things
Touching them with glory and divinity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Entry into the Inner Countries,#KEYS
29:The powers developed are liable to become obstacles to a perfect concentration by reason of the possibility of wonder and admiration which results from their exercise. ~ Patanjali : Aphroisms III. 38, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
30:What wonder if feel no burden when borne up by the Almighty and led on by the Supreme Guide! For we are always glad to have something to comfort us, and only with difficulty does a man divest himself of self. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
31:Live each present moment completely and the future will take care of itself. Fully enjoy the wonder and beauty of each instant. Practice the presence of peace. The more you do that, the more you will feel the presence of that power in your life. ~ Paramahamsa Yogananda, #KEYS
32:Within her presence, I had once been used to feeling-trembling-wonder, dissolution; but that was long ago. Still, though my soul, now she was veiled, could not see her directly, by way of hidden force that she could move, I felt the mighty power of old love. ~ Dante Alighieri, #KEYS
33:A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
~ Joseph Campbell,#KEYS
34:A friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends." ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
35:Form in its heart of silence recondite
Hides the significance of His mystery,
Form is the wonder-house of eternity,
A cavern of the deathless Eremite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Form,#KEYS
36:Yearning that claimed all time for its date and all life for its fuel,
All that we wonder at gazing back when the passion has fallen,
Labour blind and vain expense and sacrifice wasted ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
37:andai on Oct 28, 2017 | parent | favorite | on: Alan Kay on Lisp\nI wonder if LISP and LSD encourage similar ways of thinking.\n\ntempodox on Oct 28, 2017 [-]\nBased on my own experiences with both, I'd say: Yes. Although I'm sure you couldn't prove it mathematically (yet). ~ website, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15573502, #KEYS
38:My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
39:And if we can thus be free in the spirit, we shall find out all the wonder of God's workings; we shall find that in inwardly renouncing everything we have lost nothing. 'By all this abandoned thou shalt come to enjoy the All.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Renunciation,#KEYS
40:And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears flowed, and he, Rieux, thought it too: that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ~ Albert Camus, The Plague, #KEYS
41:Hopes that were confident, fates that sprang dire from the seed of a moment,
Yearning that claimed all time for its date and all life for its fuel,
All that we wonder at gazing back when the passion has fallen,
Labour blind and vain expense and sacr ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
42:Let us not believe that it is enough to read without unction, to speculate without devotion, to investigate without wonder, to observe without joy, to act without godly zeal, to know without love, to understand without humility, to strive without divine grace, or to reflect as a mirror without divinely inspired wisdom. ~ Saint Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind into God / Feast Day July 15th, #KEYS
43:The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
44:As humans, we waste the shit out of our words. It's sad. We use words like "awesome" and "wonderful" like they're candy. It was awesome? Really? It inspired awe? It was wonderful? Are you serious? It was full of wonder? You use the word "amazing" to describe a goddamn sandwich at Wendy's. What's going to happen on your wedding day, or when your first child is born? How will you describe it? You already wasted "amazing" on a fucking sandwich. ~ Louis C K, #KEYS
45:Humans are great experimenters, constantly exploring, searching, and struggling to gain power over themselves, over nature, even over the gods. Through this entire struggle and self-torture, we have also made ourselves "sick," and it is no wonder that we find the ascetic ideal springing up everywhere. Though it may seem to deny life, the ascetic ideal is supremely life affirming, as it says "yes" to life in the face of hardship and sickness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, #KEYS
46:
Pregnant with magic will and change divine.
The first writhings of the cosmic serpent Force
Uncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter's trance;
It raised its head in the warm air of life.
It could not cast off yet Night's stiffening sleep
Or wear as yet mind's wonder-flecks and streaks,
Put on its jewelled hood the crown of soul
Or stand erect in the blaze of spirit's sun.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Growth of the Flame,#KEYS
47: The age-old advice, "Know thyself," is more imperative than ever. The tempo of science has accelerated to such a degree that today's discoveries frequently make yesterday's equations obsolescent almost before they can be chalked up on a blackboard. Small wonder, then that every other hospital bed is occupied by a mental patient. Man was not constructed to spend his life at a crossroads, one of which leads he knows not where, and the other to threatened annihilation of his species. ~ Israel Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates, Intro, #KEYS
48:But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses. ~ Robert Ardrey, #KEYS
49:Your love renders you impatient and disturbed.
With such sincerity you have placed your head at her feet that you are oblivious to the world.
When in the eyes of your beloved riches don't count, gold and dust are as one to you.
You say that she dwells in your eyes - if they be closed, she is in your mind.
If she demands your life, you place it in her hand; if she places a sword upon your head, you hold it forward.
When earthly love produces such confusion and demands such obedience, don't you wonder if travelers of the road of God remain engulfed in the Ocean of Reality? ~ Saadi,#KEYS
50:ASTROLOGER. Greet reverentially this star-blest hour!
Let magic loose the tyranny of Reason
And Fantasy, fetched from afar, display her power, 6620 For it belongs to her, this great occasion.
What all here boldly asked to see, now see it!
A thing impossible-therefore believe it.
[Faust mounts the proscenium from the other side.]
In priestly robes, head wreathed, the wonder-working man
Now confidently consummates what he began.
A tripod from the depths accompanied his ascent,
Incense is burning in the bowl, I smell the scent,
Next comes the invocation, all's prepared; ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust,#KEYS
51:The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
52:If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for . . . To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. ~ Thomas Merton,#KEYS
53:Above her little finite steps she feels,
Careless of knot or pause, worlds which weave out
A strange perfection beyond law and rule,
A universe of self-found felicity,
An inexpressible rhythm of timeless beats,
The many-movemented heart-beats of the One,
Magic of the boundless harmonies of self,
Order of the freedom of the infinite,
The wonder-plastics of the Absolute.
There is the All-Truth and there the timeless bliss.
But hers are fragments of a star-lost gleam,
Hers are but careless visits of the gods.
They are a Light that fails, a Word soon hushed
And nothing they mean can stay for long on earth.
There are high glimpses, not the lasting sight.
A few can climb to an unperishing sun,
Or live on the edges of the mystic moon
And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day,#KEYS
54:The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery ~ even if mixed with fear ~ that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence ~ as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature., #KEYS
55:This last figure, the White Magician, symbolizes the self-transcending element in the scientist's motivational drive and emotional make-up; his humble immersion into the mysteries of nature, his quest for the harmony of the spheres, the origin of life, the equations of a unified field theory. The conquistadorial urge is derived from a sense of power, the participatory urge from a sense of oceanic wonder. 'Men were first led to the study of natural philosophy', wrote Aristotle, 'as indeed they are today, by wonder.' Maxwell's earliest memory was 'lying on the grass, looking at the sun, and wondering'. Einstein struck the same chord when he wrote that whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, 'whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life'.
This oceanic feeling of wonder is the common source of religious mysticism, of pure science and art for art's sake; it is their common denominator and emotional bond. ~ Arthur Koestler,#KEYS
56:So the devotion must be accompanied by another movement, that is, gratitude. This feeling of gratitude that the Divine exists, this gratefulness, full of wonder, that truly fills your heart with a sublime delight, because the Divine exists, because there is something in the universe that is the Divine, and there is not merely the monstrosity that we see—because there is the Divine, because the Divine is there.
And each time any least thing puts you in contact with this sublime reality of the Divine existence, your heart is filled with so intense and wonderful a delight, such gratefulness as is of all things the most delectable in taste.
Nothing can give you a delight equal to that of gratitude. You hear a bird singing, you see a flower, you look at a child, you witness an act of generosity, you read a beautiful sentence, you stand before a sunset, it does not matter what the thing is— all on a sudden it comes upon you, a kind of emotion, but so deep, so intense, because the world manifests the Divine, because there is something behind the world which is the Divine. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
57:About the only law that I think relates to the genre is that you should not try to explain, to find neat explanations for what happens, and that the object of the thing is to produce a sense of the uncanny. Freud in his essay on the uncanny wrote that the sense of the uncanny is the only emotion which is more powerfully expressed in art than in life, which I found very illuminating; it didn't help writing the screen-play, but I think it's an interesting insight into the genre. And I read an essay by the great master H.P. Lovecraft where he said that you should never attempt to explain what happens, as long as what happens stimulates people's imagination, their sense of the uncanny, their sense of anxiety and fear. And as long as it doesn't, within itself, have any obvious inner contradictions, it is just a matter of, as it were, building on the imagination (imaginary ideas, surprises, etc.), working in this area of feeling. I think also that the ingeniousness of a story like this is something which the audience ultimately enjoys; they obviously wonder as the story goes on what's going to happen, and there's a great satisfaction when it's all over not having been able to have anticipated the major development of the story, and yet at the end not to feel that you have been fooled or swindled. ~ Stanley Kubrick, #KEYS
58:The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we ... kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok ... But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
59:Why Ubuntu: If I were you I'd just install Ubuntu into a dual-boot partition (the Ubuntu website has instructions for this) and learn as you go. Ubuntu is similar enough to Windows that you should be able to start using it right away without much difficulty.
For running your Python scripts you'll want to drop into the shell (Ctrl + Alt + T If memory serves me right). As you become more comfortable with Ubuntu, you can start using the shell more and more. The shell is what gives you access to the power of Unix; every time you need to do something tedious and repetitive, try to find out how to do it through the shell.
Eventually you will find yourself using the shell constantly. You'll wonder how you ever managed without it, and deride other operating systems for their lack of sensible programming tools. One day you'll realise that desktop window managers are a needless distraction. You start using xmonad or awesomewm. Eventually you realise that this, too, is a bastardisaton of the Unix vision and start using tmux exclusively. Then suddenly it hits you - every computer, every operating system, no matter how insignificant or user-friendly, has the Unix nature. All of them are merely streams from where you can ssh back into the ocean of Unix. Having achieved enlightenment you are equally content using an iPad as your main work computer, using powershell in Windows or SSH into a Digital Ocean droplet from your parent's computer. This is the Zen of Unix.
~ JohnyTex, https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/38zytg/is_it_worth_my_time_to_learn_linux_while_learning,#KEYS
60:Received him in their deathless harmonies.
All things were perfect there that flower in Time;
Beauty was there creation's native mould,
Peace was a thrilled voluptuous purity.
There Love fulfilled her gold and roseate dreams
And Strength her crowned and mighty reveries;
Desire climbed up, a swift omnipotent flame,
And Pleasure had the stature of the gods;
Dream walked along the highways of the stars;
Sweet common things turned into miracles:
Overtaken by the spirit's sudden spell,
Smitten by a divine passion's alchemy,
Pain's self compelled transformed to potent joy
Curing the antithesis twixt heaven and hell.
All life's high visions are embodied there,
Her wandering hopes achieved, her aureate combs
Caught by the honey-eater's darting tongue,
Her burning guesses changed to ecstasied truths,
Her mighty pantings stilled in deathless calm
And liberated her immense desires.
In that paradise of perfect heart and sense
No lower note could break the endless charm
Of her sweetness ardent and immaculate;
Her steps are sure of their intuitive fall.
After the anguish of the soul's long strife
At length were found calm and celestial rest
And, lapped in a magic flood of sorrowless hours,
Healed were his warrior nature's wounded limbs
In the encircling arms of Energies
That brooked no stain and feared not their own bliss.
In scenes forbidden to our pallid sense
Amid miraculous scents and wonder-hues
He met the forms that divinise the sight,
To music that can immortalise the mind
And make the heart wide as infinity
Listened, and captured the inaudible
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Paradise of the Life-Gods,#KEYS
61:I have already told you this several times. When you are in a particular set of circumstances and certain events take place, these events often oppose your desire or what seems best to you, and often you happen to regret this and say to yourself, "Ah! how good it would have been if it were otherwise, if it had been like this or like that", for little things and big things.... Then years pass by, events are unfolded; you progress, become more conscious, understand better, and when you look back, you notice―first with astonishment, then later with a smile―that those very circumstances which seemed to you quite disastrous or unfavourable, were exactly the best thing that could have happened to you to make you progress as you should have. And if you are the least bit wise you tell yourself, "Truly, the divine Grace is infinite."
So, when this sort of thing has happened to you a number of times, you begin to understand that in spite of the blindness of man and deceptive appearances, the Grace is at work everywhere, so that at every moment it is the best possible thing that happens in the state the world is in at that moment. It is because our vision is limited or even because we are blinded by our own preferences that we cannot discern that things are like this.
But when one begins to see it, one enters upon a state of wonder which nothing can describe. For behind the appearances one perceives this Grace―infinite, wonderful, all-powerful―which knows all, organises all, arranges all, and leads us, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, towards the supreme goal, that is, union with the Divine, the awareness of the Godhead and union with Him.
Then one lives in the Action and Presence of the Grace a life full of joy, of wonder, with the feeling of a marvellous strength, and at the same time with a trust so calm, so complete, that nothing can shake it any longer. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 8 August 1956,#KEYS
62:The majority of Buddhists and Buddhist teachers in the West are green postmodern pluralists, and thus Buddhism is largely interpreted in terms of the green altitude and the pluralistic value set, whereas the greatest Buddhist texts are all 2nd tier, teal (Holistic) or higher (for example, Lankavatara Sutra, Kalachakra Tantra, Longchenpa's Kindly Bent to Ease Us, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka treatises, and so forth).
This makes teal (Holistic), or Integral 2nd tier in general, the lowest deeply adequate level with which to interpret Buddhism, ultimate Reality, and Suchness itself. Thus, interpreting Suchness in pluralistic terms (or lower) would have to be viewed ultimately as a dysfunction, certainly a case of arrested development, and one requiring urgent attention in any Fourth Turning.
These are some of the problems with interpreting states (in this case, Suchness states) with a too-low structure (in short, a severe misinterpretation and thus misunderstanding of the Ultimate). As for interpreting them with dysfunctional structures (of any altitude), the problem more or less speaks for itself. Whether the structure in itself is high enough or not, any malformation of the structure will be included in the interpretation of any state (or any other experience), and hence will deform the interpretation itself, usually in the same basic ways as the structure itself is deformed. Thus, for example, if there is a major Fulcrum-3 (red altitude) repression of various bodily states (sex, aggression, power, feelings), those repressions will be interpreted as part of the higher state itself, and so the state will thus be viewed as devoid of (whereas this is actually a repression of) any sex, aggression, power, feelings, or whatever it is that is dis-owned and pushed into the repressed submergent unconscious. If there is an orange altitude problem with self-esteem (Fulcrum-5), that problem will be magnified by the state experience, and the more intense the state experience, the greater the magnification. Too little self-esteem, and even profound spiritual experiences can be interpreted as "I'm not worthy, so this state-which seems to love me unconditionally-must be confused." If too much self-esteem, higher experiences are misinterpreted, not as a transcendence of the self, but as a reward for being the amazing self I am-"the wonder of being me." ~ Ken Wilber, The Religion Of Tomorrow,#KEYS
63:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness, #KEYS
64:What is the difference between meditation and concentration?
Meditation is a purely mental activity, it interests only the mental being. One can concentrate while meditating but this is a mental concentration; one can get a silence but it is a purely mental silence, and the other parts of the being are kept immobile and inactive so as not to disturb the meditation. You may pass twenty hours of the day in meditation and for the remaining four hours you will be an altogether ordinary man because only the mind has been occupied-the rest of the being, the vital and the physical, is kept under pressure so that it may not disturb. In meditation nothing is directly done for the other parts of the being.
Certainly this indirect action can have an effect, but... I have known in my life people whose capacity for meditation was remarkable but who, when not in meditation, were quite ordinary men, even at times ill-natured people, who would become furious if their meditation was disturbed. For they had learnt to master only their mind, not the rest of their being.
Concentration is a more active state. You may concentrate mentally, you may concentrate vitally, psychically, physically, and you may concentrate integrally. Concentration or the capacity to gather oneself at one point is more difficult than meditation. You may gather together one portion of your being or consciousness or you may gather together the whole of your consciousness or even fragments of it, that is, the concentration may be partial, total or integral, and in each case the result will be different.
If you have the capacity to concentrate, your meditation will be more interesting and easieR But one can meditate without concentrating. Many follow a chain of ideas in their meditation - it is meditation, not concentration.
Is it possible to distinguish the moment when one attains perfect concentration from the moment when, starting from this concentration, one opens oneself to the universal Energy?
Yes. You concentrate on something or simply you gather yourself together as much as is possible for you and when you attain a kind of perfection in concentration, if you can sustain this perfection for a sufficiently long time, then a door opens and you pass beyond the limit of your ordinary consciousness-you enter into a deeper and higher knowledge. Or you go within. Then you may experience a kind of dazzling light, an inner wonder, a beatitude, a complete knowledge, a total silence. There are, of course, many possibilities but the phenomenon is always the same.
To have this experience all depends upon your capacity to maintain your concentration sufficiently long at its highest point of perfection. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
65:A God's Labour
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
My jewelled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,
Too frail their ethereal stuff;
Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;
The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come down
Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long
Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
Are my meed since the world began.
For man's mind is the dupe of his animal self;
Hoping its lusts to win,
He harbours within him a grisly Elf
Enamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven's flame
And from all things glad and pure;
Only by pleasure and passion and pain
His drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;
For the lamps that men call suns
Are but halfway gleams on this stumbling life
Cast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hope
That lead to a failing edge;
A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,
An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,
The Light of lights they refuse;
To ignorant gods they lift their cry
Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,
Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
And the Titan kings assail,
But I dare not rest till my task is done
And wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!
"Thy hope is Chimera's head
Painting the sky with its fiery stain;
Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease
And joy and golden room
To us who are waifs on inconscient seas
And bound to life's iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of Night
For our petty flickering fires.
How shall it brook the sacred Light
Or suffer a god's desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!
Then shall our hearts have release
From the burden and call of his glory and force
And the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breast
Who wrestles with error and fate
And tramples a road through mire and waste
For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
And knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God's riddle sleep
On the Dragon's outspread wings.
I left the surface gauds of mind
And life's unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body's alleys blind
To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth's dreadful heart
And heard her black mass' bell.
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan
And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trod
Armoured with boundless peace,
Bringing the fires of the splendour of God
Into the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;
All veils are breaking now.
I have heard His voice and borne His will
On my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged
And glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
And the undying suns here burn;
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
The incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
Down a gold-red stairway wend
The radiant children of Paradise
Clarioning darkness' end.
A little more and the new life's doors
Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
In a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,
For in a raiment of gold and blue
There shall move on the earth embodied and fair
The living truth of you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, A God's Labour, 534,#KEYS
66:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
,#KEYS
67:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
68:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Go on and wonder. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 2:Wisdom begins in wonder. ~ socrates, @wisdomtrove 3:Philosophy begins in wonder. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 4:Think and wonder, wonder and think. ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 5:Wonder is the basis of worship. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 6:Worship is transcendent wonder. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 7:Is Life itself a dream, I wonder? ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 8:The more I wonder, the more I love. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 9:Wonder is not precisely knowing. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 10:Wonder is the desire of knowledge. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 11:Do not spoil the wonder with haste! ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 12:Wonder is the desire of knowledge. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 13:I wonder what ants do on rainy days? ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 14:A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 15:Man's wonder grows with his knowledge. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 16:Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 17:My wonder button is being pushed all the time. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 18:A one-hit wonder is a legend who stopped early. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 19:I want the wonder back again, or I shall die. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 20:Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 21:The sense of wonder, that is our sixth sense. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 22:Since luck's a nine days' wonder, wait their end. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 23:Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 24:If you don't know how to live, why wonder about death? ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 25:The universe is still a place of mystery and wonder. ~ martin-rees, @wisdomtrove 26:Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end? ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 27:Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take to find dignity. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 28:I wonder do the gods know what it feels like to be a man. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 29:Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 30:Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 31:I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 32:I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 33:I don't want to go through life as a Wonder Wheel murderer! ~ richard-pryor, @wisdomtrove 34:Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 35:Child of the pure, unclouded brow and dreaming eyes of wonder. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 36:Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 37:The significance which is in unity is an eternal wonder. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 38:Do you ever wonder why things have to turn out the way they do? ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 39:I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 40:It is a happiness to wonder; - it is a happiness to dream. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 41:Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 42:Dogs are one of those things that make you happy and make you wonder. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 43:Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 44:I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 45:I wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 46:Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag? ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 47:The spring has sprung, the grass is rizz. I wonder where them birdies is? ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 48:Even now I wonder what I might have accomplished if I'd studied harder ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 49:I wonder is illiterate people know the full meaning of alphabet soup? ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 50:This is *our* Universe, our museum of wonder and beauty, our cathedral. ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove 51:If this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few! ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 52:Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 53:If you could understand a single grain of wheat you would die of wonder. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 54:There is a sixth sense, the natural religious sense, the sense of wonder. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 55:I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 56:I wonder what the vintners buy one half so precious as the stuff they sell. ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove 57:We’ve died so many times now that we can only wonder why we still care. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 58:I wonder what chairs think about all day: "Oh, here comes another asshole." ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 59:Think! Think and wonder. Wonder and think. How much water can 55 elephants drink? ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 60:And indeed there will be time to wonder, & 61:May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 62:Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 63:I wonder if it isn't just cowardice instead of generosity that makes us give tips. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 64:The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 65:I am concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 66:The wonder is in being; not in knowing, or doing, not in understanding or observing. ~ barry-long, @wisdomtrove 67:Economists are people who wonder if what works in reality can also work in theory. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 68:None but God would ever have thought of justifying me. I am a wonder to myself. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 69:Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder. ~ abraham-lincoln, @wisdomtrove 70:It was God's word that made us; is it any wonder that His word should sustain us? ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 71:It was through the feeling of wonder that people now and at first began to philosophize. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 72:I wonder what Piglet is doing," thought Pooh. "I wish I were there to be doing it, too.” ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 73:The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 74:Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 75:Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 76:I wonder if real art comes when you build the thing that they don't have a prize for yet. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 77:It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 78:It alone is without flaw, It alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 79:I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - an endless prospect of magic and wonder. ~ amsel-adams, @wisdomtrove 80:You wonder if God has a place for a person like you. Find your answer in the Bethlehem stable. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 81:There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 82:The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 83:Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 84:And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 85:Love is like a booger, you pick and pick at it. Then when you get it you wonder how to get rid of it. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 86:All knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself. ~ francis-bacon, @wisdomtrove 87:When it's over I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real... . ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 88:And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart [ i carry it in my heart ] ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 89:Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 90:Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Behold the wonder! There He hang upon the cross! ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 91:The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. ~ anais-nin, @wisdomtrove 92:Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 93:Everyones childhood plays itself out. No wonder no one knows the other or can completely understand. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 94:He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead his eyes are closed. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 95:My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove 96:Our worlds needs more time to wonder and reflect but there is too much fast paced constant distraction. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 97:Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 98:You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train? ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 99:My religion is nature. That‚Äôs what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove 100:But I think it is a serious issue to wonder about the other platonic absolutes of say beauty and morality. ~ roger-penrose, @wisdomtrove 101:Given my heritage and the ordeal of my childhood, I sometimes wonder why I myself am not insane. Maybe I am. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 102:I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 103:I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 104:The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 105:Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 106:I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 107:When I can't see myself in the mirror, I can't even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 108:When you consider what a chance women have to poison their husbands, it's a wonder there isn't more of it done ~ kin-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 109:I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough - when they are on the very brink of success. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 110:My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 111:Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns to soon to hatred. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 112:I hold that popularization of science is successful if, at first, it does no more than spark the sense of wonder. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 113:There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 114:Twinkle, twinkle little bat How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 115:Don't you feel the same way? When I cannot see myself, even though I touch myself, I wonder if I really exist. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 116:I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 117:I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 118:Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 119:The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 120:He who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 121:I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 122:Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant ... must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 123:Fancy sleeping on air. I wonder if anyone's done it before. I don't suppose they have. Oh, bother‚Äî-Scrubb probably has! ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 124:An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 125:Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward. ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 126:Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth. You're an idiot babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 127:Ah, poor Pole. It's been to much for her, this last bit. Turned her head, I shouldn't wonder. She's beginning to see things. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 128:When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder that such trivial people should muse and thunder in such lovely language. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 129:An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 130:On Monday, when the sun is hot, I wonder to myself a lot. Now is it true, or is it not, that what is which and which is what? ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 131:When you stop existing and you start truly living, each moment of the day comes alive with the wonder and synchronicity. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 132:You know economists; they're the sort of people who see something works in practice and wonder if it would work in theory. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 133:You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there. ~ george-burns, @wisdomtrove 134:I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 135:Embrace the present moment with gratefulness and wonder, and you will turn it into whatever you have been waiting for. ~ neale-donald-walsch, @wisdomtrove 136:Is it possible, I wonder, for a man to truly change? Or do character and habit form the immovable boundaries of our lives? ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 137:Since change is constant, you wonder if people crave death because it's the only way they can get anything really finished. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 138:God is raising up His heroes and the time will come when they will appear and the world will wonder where they came from. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 139:When fathers are tongue tied religiously with their offspring, need they wonder if their children's hearts remain sin tied? ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 140:For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. ~ alfred-lord-tennyson, @wisdomtrove 141:They too wonder about the nature of existence, where they've come from and where they're going to and how much time they have. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 142:You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 143:In 30 years time, as technology moves forward even further, people are going to look back and wonder why offices ever existed. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 144:In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 145:I wonder," he said, "whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 146:Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 147:All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 148: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? ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 149:When we finally recognize that we truly know nothing, there is an exhilarating feeling of freedom and an overwhelming sense of wonder. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 150:No wonder poets sometimes have to seem/ So much more business-like than business men./ Their wares are so much harder to get rid of. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 151:To know the Creator and the God of all the universe is to revere Him. It is to bow down before Him in wonder and awesome fear. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 152:We often hear that the digital age has resulted in a devaluing of time, space, and place. But I wonder if theseclaims are exaggerated. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 153:Functionalism is lethal when it is not balanced by a sense of reverence. Without reverence, there is no sense of presence or wonder. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 154:Here you find us sitting on a field of victory, amid the plunder of armies, and you wonder how we came by a few well-earned comforts! ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 155:Fifty years," I hackneyed, "is a long time." "Not when you're looking back at them," she said. "You wonder how they vanished so quickly. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 156:In unphilosophical minds any rare or unexpected thing excites wonder, while in philosophical minds the familiar excites wonder also. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 157:The most important thing is insight, that is to be - curious - to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 158:. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . . ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 159:Step out of your story and into the wonder of life. Enter a state of profound not-knowing and immerse yourself in the mystery of the moment. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 160:We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves. ~ albert-camus, @wisdomtrove 161:I'm no more a wonder than anyone. And that's what makes the world magical. Every baby's a seed of wonder - that gets watered or it doesn't. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 162:Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 163:Step out of your story and into the wonder of life. Enter a state of profound not-knowing and immerse yourself in the mystery of the moment. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 164:The sphere that is deepest, most unexplored, and most unfathomable, the wonder and glory of God's thought and hand, is our own soul! ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 165:The wonder of the Beautiful is its ability to surprise us. With swift, sheer grace, it is like a divine breath that blows the heart open. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 166:Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 167:Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 168:How you all will change the work after I am gone. If I came back a hundred years from now, I just wonder if I would even recognize it. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 169:Most of us, I believe, admire strength... Sometimes, though, I wonder if we confuse strength with other words like aggression or even violence. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 170:Essentially, mythologies are enormous poems that are renditions of insights, giving some sense of the marvel, the miracle and wonder of life. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 171:If the average person realized the power he wields over his life and destiny, he would live in a perpetual state of wonder and thanksgiving. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 172: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, @wisdomtrove 173:Why is life so tragic; so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss. I look down; I feel giddy; I wonder how I am ever to walk to the end. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 174:Make your choice, adventurous Stranger, Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 175:On Wednesday, when the sky is blue, and I have nothing else to do, I sometimes wonder if it's true That who is what and what is who. Winnie-the-Pooh ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 176:If the parks be "the lungs of London" we wonder what Greenwich Fair is& 177:Dickens writes that an event, "began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 178:I can't blame her. but wonder why she's here with me? where are the other guys? how can you be lucky? having someone the others have abandoned? ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 179:If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 180:I wonder now what Ernest Hemingways dictionary looked like, since he got along so well with dinky words that anybody can spell and truly understand. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 181:If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 182:He took a few steps before responding. "You are special," he finally said, and the way e said it made her wonder if he wanted to add something else. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 183:When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 184:And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 185:I wonder if people who asked for God to intervene in our world, really know what they are asking. Will they want to be there when God really does intervene? ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 186:When the enemy enthusiastically embraces you, and the fellow countrymen bitterly reject you, it is hard not to wonder if you are, in fact, a traitor. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 187:Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one's own person. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 188:Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 189:When all comes to all, the most precious element in life is wonder. Love is a great emotion, and power is power. But both love and power are based on wonder. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 190:When you acknowledge the integrity of your solitude, and settle into its mystery, your relationships with others take on a new warmth, adventure and wonder. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 191:Do you ever sit back and wonder what it all means? Whether this is it or if there's something greater out there? Or if you were meant for something better? ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 192:I never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of white society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with the Negro for his freedom. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 193:A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 194:At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 195:O money, money, money. I'm not necessarily one of those who think thee holy, but I often stop to wonder how thou canst go out so fast when thou comest in so slowly. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 196:Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 197:Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder & 198:If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge Driven by invisible blows, The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 199:Intention orchestrates infinite possibilities. You might wonder what kind of intent is ideal. What would you ask if your intention could be fulfilled right now? ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 200:Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, & 201:I guess we often get the deep blues, both of us, and wonder what it all means- the people, the buildings, the day by day things, the waste of time, of ourselves. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 202:I'm beginning to wonder if the symbol of the United States pretty soon isn't going to be an ambassador with a flag under his arm climbing into an escape helicopter. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 203:There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter. Which luckily I am. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 204:Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 205:We wonder why we don't have faith; the answer is, faith is confidence in the character of God and if we don't know what kind of God God is, we can't have faith. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 206:If no love is, O God, what fele I so? And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo? If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 207:There are times to let things happen, and times to make things happen. Now is that time. You will either make things happen, watch what happens, or wonder what happened. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 208:We're all so busy. We race and race. Life is a sprint. We want to get & 209:You realize that there's no point in doing anything if nobody's watching. You wonder, if there had been a low turnout at the crucifixion, would they have rescheduled? ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 210:I want to invite you to wonder so deeply about life that you find yourself in a profound state of not-knowing… and to experience what happens to your state of consciousness. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 211:Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 212:I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 213:Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 214:Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence... And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 215:At last she shut the book sharply, lay back, and drew a deep breath, expressive of the wonder which always marks the transition from the imaginary world to the real world. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 216:So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and hold on to that childlike wonder about what makes the universe exist. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 217:Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 218:A life of love is one of continual growth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to the wonder and magic that life offers. To love is to risk living fully. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 219:The emotional reaction in the peak experience has a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 220:Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 221:The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 222:Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's untidy. You've had about seven hours of sleep since Friday. No wonder you feel that lost sensation. You're sunk from a riot of relaxation. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 223:Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 224:I wonder if I have woven through dreams the sexual strife. I don't think so. But after all, my business is to weave dreams. I suppose I may be allowed to choose the material. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 225:Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder (pace the novelists) as first love, or even greater. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 226:But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 227:It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one's sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 228:This is pity, he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 229:Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 230:Godhead here in hiding, whom I adore Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 231:Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 232:All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up& 233:Godhead here in hiding, whom I adore Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 234:I wonder which was more frightened among old tribes - those bursting out of their darkness of woods upon all the space of light, or those from the open tiptoeing into the forests. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 235:Sometimes I wonder why I'm a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I'm a successful writer. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 236:The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next? ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 237:It's our insides that make us who we are, that allow us to dream and wonder and feel for others. That's what's essential. That's what will always make the biggest difference in our world. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 238:I sometimes wonder how we spent leisure time before satellite television and Internet came along‚Ķand then I realise that I have spent more than half of my life in the ‚Äòdark ages‚Äô! ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 239:Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 240:I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully, it goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 241:Why is it, I wonder, that anyone who displays superior athletic ability is an object of admiration to his classmates, while one who displays superior mental ability is an object of hatred? ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 242:wonder what day god created the egg' & 243:Elections are a good deal like marriages. There's no accounting for anyone's taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it's the same with public officials. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 244:All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 245:There's no way we can possibly understand anything. But we can see things, we can perceive things, and we can wonder. We can just be in a world of awe and wonder. That's the best we can do. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 246:And indeed there will be time/ To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"/ Time to turn back and descend the stair,/ With a bald spot in the middle of my hair. . ./ Do I dare/ Disturb the universe? ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 247:Did he say:"Hullo,Pippin!This is a pleasant surprise!"?No,indeed!He said:"Get up,you tom-fool of a Took!Where,in the name of wonder,in all this ruin is Treebeard?I want him.Quick" -Pippin Took ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 248:In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. ... My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 249:Say "yes" to life! "Yes" to wonder, to joy, to despair. "Yes" to pain, "yes" to what you don't understand. Try "yes." Try "always." Try "possible." Try "hopeful." Try "I will." And try "I can." ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 250:My advice to those who think they have to take off their clothes to be a star is, once you're boned, what's left to create the illusion? Let em wonder. I never believed in giving them too much of me. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 251:We want to see the universe in its absolute, pure, naked, perfection. We want to know its wonder. We want to know the totality of ourselves. That's done in steps and degrees and not in one day. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 252:Genre fiction was looked at as a ghetto, but I wonder now if realist fiction, sealing itself off in the glum suburbs of a dysfunctional society, denying the use of imagination, was the ghetto. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 253:If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away? ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 254:Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 255:And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 256:Nothing can compare in beauty, and wonder, and admirableness, and divinity itself, to the silent work in obscure dwellings of faithful women bringing their children to honor and virtue and piety. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 257:He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see? ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 258:she is no longer the beautiful woman she was. she sends photos of herself sitting upon a rock by the ocean alone and damned. I could have had her once. I wonder if she thinks I could have saved her? ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 259:When you wonder what is coming, tell yourself the best is coming, the very best life and love have to offer, the best God and His universe have to send. Then open your hands to receive it. It's yours. ~ melody-beattie, @wisdomtrove 260:Early in the journey you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see that where you are going is HERE and you will arrive NOW... so you stop asking. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 261:Most people are not in the world of awe and wonder. They're in the world of deadness. Their perceptual fields and bodies are completely self-reflective, and all they see is themselves wherever they go. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 262:Every desire bears its death in its very gratification. Curiosity languishes under repeated stimulants, and novelties cease to excite and surprise, until at length we cannot wonder even at a miracle. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 263:My constant prayer, these days, as I start my backswing is, & 264:In a book, even the real bastards can't hurt you. And you can never loose a friend you make in a book. When you get to a sad part, no one's there to see you cry. Or wonder why you don't cry when you should. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 265:I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist - I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don't have to solve that problem. It's up to God, if any. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 266:I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. It's scary to think about. Point of reference again. When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 267:Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 268:Ever since time began (when was that, I wonder?), it's been moving ever forward without a moment's rest. And one of the privileges given to those who've avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 269:[Rousseau] has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and as he scorns to dissemble his contempt of established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 270:Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't born dead. I never met a man who was less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that's the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone-cold dead. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 271:I wish that I could say I was optimistic about the human race. I love us all, but we are so stupid and shortsighted that I wonder if we can lift our eyes to the world about us long enough not to commit suicide. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 272:When people tell me they can't afford to join a gym, I tell them to go outside; planet Earth is a gym and we're already members. Run, climb, sweat, and enjoy all of the natural wonder that is available to you. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 273:People expect old men to die, They do not really mourn old men. Old men are different. People look At them with eyes that wonder when ... People watch with unshocked eyes; But the old men know when an old man dies. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 274:The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine... . If we dramatize its life and conceive its spirit, we are filled with wonder, terror and amusement, so magnificent is the spirit. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 275:You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he's up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the signs. - The Silver Chair ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 276:I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 277:Successful people engage that creative part of their minds and ask, "Well, I wonder how else I can look at this problem? I wonder how else I could deal with this decision? I wonder what other possibilities I have there?" ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 278:Do you know, Considering the market, there are more Poems produced than any other thing? No wonder poets sometimes have to seem So much more businesslike than businessmen. Their wares are so much harder to get rid of. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 279:In the 18th century we knew how everything was done, but here I rise through the air, I listen to voices in America, I see men flying- but how is it done? I can't even begin to wonder. So my belief in magic returns. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 280:We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 281:Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 282:One of the principles we teach in our programs is "If you shoot for the stars, you'll at least hit the moon." Poor people don't even shoot for the ceiling in their house, and then they wonder why they're not successful. ~ t-harv-eker, @wisdomtrove 283:I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 284:It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 285:When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 286:The Highest to which people can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes them wonder, let them be content; nothing higher can it give them, and nothing further should they seek for behind it; there is the limit. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 287:Art is very mysterious. I wonder if you can really do any damage to art. I think that when we're writing, something comes through or should come through, in spite of our theories. So theories are not really important. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 288:To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain. ~ jean-vanier, @wisdomtrove 289:When it comes to judging individuals, I do not like remarks such as & 290:I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities? Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them, and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser, and learned how to use them rightly. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 291:The common people are but ill judges of a man's merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 292:In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields-mathematics, physics, some others-the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 293:It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 294: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. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 295:Language, she said, was just our way to explain away the wonder and glory of the world. To deconstruct. To dismiss. She said people can't deal with how beautiful the world really is. How it can't be explained and understood. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 296:All you need to find and accomplish God's purpose in your life is God's permission and approval& 297:There's always a & 298: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, @wisdomtrove 299:Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore? What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower? ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 300:Jehovah is the great Miracle Maker, the unrivaled Wonder worker. None can be likened unto Him, He is alone in wonderland, the Creator and Worker of true marvels, compared with which all other remarkable things are as child's play. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 301:[Alternate translation:] The Divine Spirit found a sublime outlet in that wonder of analysis, that portent of the ideal world, that amphibian between being and not-being, which we call the imaginary root of negative unity. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 302:If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove 303:In the quiet hours when we are alone and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes upon a moment in which we wonder, not how much money we are earning, nor how famous we have become, but what good we are doing. ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 304:An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they chose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 305:My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 306:I recently learned that in an average lifetime a person walks about sixty-five thousand miles. That's two and a half times around the world. I wonder where your steps will take you. I wonder how you'll use the rest of the miles you're given. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 307:Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect-not realizing that they have signaled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove 308:We can't have it both ways. We can't expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn't waiting for us to wake up, He isn't maybe running out of patience. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 309:Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the alter,and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She, however shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 310:Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 311:Suffering is awful, but it can awaken us just as much as joy and wonder. The heroic lover is ready to be shaken up so that they can be shaken free. They understand the lover’s heart must break open at some time … maybe many times … for love to flow. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 312:She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.‚Äù Waddington, smiling, translated the question. ‚ÄúShe says I’m good.‚Äù ‚ÄúAs if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,‚Äù Kitty mocked. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 313:Great innovations, powerful interactions and real art are often produced by someone in a state of wonder. Looking around with stars in your eyes and amazement at the tools that are available to you can inspire generosity and creativity and connection ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 314:In your life you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happened to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some that you wish you never have to think about again. But you do. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 315:I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history& 316:With my childhood, it's a wonder I'm not psychotic. I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighbourhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends. ~ abraham-maslow, @wisdomtrove 317:Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 318:We can invest so heavily in our beliefs about life that we forget that we really don’t know what life is. We can become so caught up in our opinions that we miss the breathtaking mystery. And when this happens, life becomes mundane and empty of wonder. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 319:When you look at yourself and feel dissatisfaction about any part of you, you will continue to attract feelings of dissatisfaction, because the law mirrors back to you exactly what you are holding inside. Be in awe and wonder at the magnificence of you! ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 320:The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out can. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 321:The bourgeoisie's weapon is starvation. If as a writer or artist you run counter to their narrow notions they simplyand silently withdraw your means of subsistence. I sometimes wonder how many people of talent are executed in this way every year. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 322:Creation is not and has never been about action. It has always been about alignment of Energy. So when you focus upon alignment of Energy time becomes irrelevant. And when time is irrelevant, it will be so expansive that you will wonder where it always was. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 323:There is a rawness and a wonder to life. Pursue it. Hunt for it. Sell out to get it. Don't listen to the whines of those who have settled for a second-rate life and want you to do the same so they won't feel guilty. Your goal is not to live long; it's to live. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 324:I had many friends to help me to fall; but as to rising again, I was so much left to myself, that I wonder now I was not always on the ground. I praise God for His mercy; for it was He only Who stretched out His hand to me. May He be blessed for ever! Amen. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 325:They must take me for a fool, or even worse, a lunatic. And no wonder ,for I am so intensely conscious of my misfortune and my misery is so overwhelming that I am powerless to resist it and am being turned into stone, devoid of all knowledge or feeling. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 326:And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me? ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 327:People often say to me, & 328:Every single problem that you have in your life is the seed of an opportunity for some greater benefit. Once you have that perception, you open up to a whole range of possibilities — and this keeps the mystery, the wonder, the excitement, the adventure alive. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 329:When one is struck by wonder or astonishment there is perfect non-duality between the knower and the thing known. It is a living reality. Let yourself be totally absorbed by it, then thought and action will derive directly from this background which is wonderment." ~ jean-klein, @wisdomtrove 330:I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is & 331:I wonder if people will ever say, & 332:Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 333:When we’re lost in separateness it’s lonely and frightening. We feel we’re constantly missing something … and that’s because we are. Yet this underlying discontent pushes us to explore the depths of life. We feel there must be more to existence, so we start to wonder. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 334:Plant consciousness, insect consciousness, fish consciousness, all are related by one permanent element, which we may call the religious element inherent in all life, even in a flea: the sense of wonder. That is our sixth sense, and it is the natural religious sense. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 335:Rich people believe "You can have your cake and eat it too." Middle-class people believe "Cake is too rich, so I'll only have a little piece." Poor people don't believe they deserve cake, so they order a doughnut, focus on the hole, and wonder why they have "nothing." ~ t-harv-eker, @wisdomtrove 336:After a few months’ acquaintance with European ‘coffee’ one’s mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with it’s clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 337:Arts and sciences in one and the same century have arrived at great perfection; and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies; the work then, being pushed on by many hands, must go forward. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 338:It would seem that not only is religion lacking in the schools - so is common sense. I wonder what a teacher is supposed to say if a kid asks about those four words on a dime - & 339:The secret to happiness is happiness itself. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, the wonder of our breathing. We don't have to travel anywhere else to do so. We can be in touch with these things right now. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 340:But I give you my word, in the entire book there is nothing that cannot be said aloud in mixed company. And there is, also, nothing that makes you a bit the wiser. I wonder& 341:It would be very difficult to draw a line between holy wonder and real worship; for when the soul is overwhelmed with the majesty of God's glory, though it may not express itself in song, or even utter its voice with bowed head and humble prayer, yet it silently adores. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 342:Metaphysics is the study of how to shift the self. How to get outside the self-reflection and to just gaze with awe and wonder at the countless universes, the countless celestial radiances of mind, of life, of enlightenment, nirvana, or God, whatever you want to call it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 343:I wonder if we might pledge ourselves to remember what life is really all about‚Äînot to be afraid that we're less flashy than the next, not to worry that our influence is not that of a tornado, but rather that of a grain of sand in an oyster! Do we have that kind of patience? ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 344:The experiences are so innumerable and varied, that the journey appears to be interminable and the Destination is ever out of sight. But the wonder of it is, when at last you reach your Destination you find that you had never travelled at all! It was a journey from here to Here. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 345:Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and wonder surrounding him. ~ amsel-adams, @wisdomtrove 346:For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 347:If you demand that everything that happens be something you are adequately prepared for, I wonder if you've chosen never to leap in ways that we need you to leap. Once we embrace this chasm, then for the things for which we can never be prepared, we are of course, always prepared. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 348:It's no wonder, that God's anxiety therapy includes a large, delightful dollop of gratitude. The anxious heart says, "Lord, if only I had this, that, or the other, I'd be okay." The grateful heart says, "Oh, look! You've already given me this, that, and the other. Thank you, God." ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 349:Maybe this is why so many serial killers work in pairs. It's nice not to feel alone in a world full of victims or enemies. It's no wonder Waltraud Wagner, the Austrian Angel of Death, convinced her friends to kill with her. It just seems natural. You and me against the world. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 350:We need not wait for the world to become more mystical; the world is mystical. Our problem is not that the world lacks magic; our problem is that we don't believe in its magic. We do not show up fully for life, and then wonder why life is not showing up more fully for us. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 351:In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill, For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around; And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 352:And the reason is that until Wonder came along and figured out how to spread the idea of sliced bread, no one wanted it. That the success of sliced bread... is not always about what the patent is like, or what the factory is like - it's about can you get your idea to spread, or not. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 353:Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 354:I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him. [- Nick Carroway] ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 355:God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy. Because of this extraordinary consciousness and this great ability for wonder and marvel, and without denying any of the terrors and horrors of the world, we also have an obligation toward joy and toward miracle and excitement. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 356:I have often thought with wonder of the great goodness of God; and my soul has rejoiced in the contemplation of His great magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed for ever! For I see clearly that He has not omitted to reward me, even in this life, for every one of my good desires. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 357:This may be the primary purpose of dogs: to restore our sense of wonder and to help us maintain it, to make us consider that we should trust our intuition as they trust theirs and to help us realize that a thing known intuitively can be as real as anything known by material experience. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 358:When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 359:I suddenly saw how sad and artificial my life had been during this period, for the loves, friends, habits and pleasures of these years were discarded like badly fitting clothes. I parted from them without pain and all that remained was to wonder that I could have endured them so long. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 360:We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 361:No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 362:First, he realized that the sea was blue and that there was an enormous quantity of it, and that it roared and roared-really all the banalities about the ocean that one could realize, but if any one had told him then that these things were banalities, he would have gaped in wonder. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 363:The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 364:I know men and women can banish worry, fear and various kinds of illnesses, and can transform their lives by changing their thoughts. I know! I know! I know! I have seen such incredible transformations performed hundreds of times. I have seen them so often that I no longer wonder at them. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 365:That's wrong," she declared. "Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it? But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 366:The whole LSD, STP, marijuana, heroin, hashish, prescription cough medicine crowd suffers from the "Watchtower" itch: you gotta be with us, man, or you're out, you're dead. This pitch is a continual and seeming MUST with those who use the stuff. It's no wonder they keep getting busted. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 367:Where the imagination is alive, wonder is completely alive. When the imagination is alive, possibility is awake because imagination is the great friend of possibility. Possibilities are always more interesting than facts. We should not frown on facts, but our world is congested with them. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 368:In an epoch of criticism ideals are lowered; other feelings take the place of veneration, respect, adoration, and wonder. Our own age thrusts these feelings further and further into the background, so that they can only be conveyed to man through his every-day life in a very small degree. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 369:The simplest way to start becoming deep awake is to wonder… to look at the world with amazement… to be conscious of the breathtaking mystery of existence… to recognize that you really don’t know what life is. If you wonder deeply you’ll come out of your story and into the mystery of the moment. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 370:When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 371:I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 372:[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 373:here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 374:Firefly: Where is your husband? Mrs. Teasdale: Why, he's dead. Firefly: I'll bet he's just using that as an excuse. Mrs. Teasdale: I was with him to the very end. Firefly: Hmmph. No wonder he passed away. Mrs. Teasdale: I held him in my arms and kissed him. Firefly: Oh I see. Then, it was murder. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 375:Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we're really engaged in mindfulness when walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 376:We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 377:Do you know what Sputnik’ means in Russian? Travelling companion’. I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the Earth. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 378:The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 379:My own first love was biology. I spent a great part of my adolescence in the Natural History museum in London (and I still go to the Botanic Garden almost every day, and to the Zoo every Monday). The sense of diversity of the wonder of innumerable forms of life has always thrilled me beyond anything else. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove 380:Let me say that I don't see any conflict between science and religion. I go to church as many other scientists do. I share with most religious people a sense of mystery and wonder at the universe and I want to participate in religious ritual and practices because they're something that all humans can share. ~ martin-rees, @wisdomtrove 381:How frightful a thing it is for the preacher when he becomes accustomed to his work, when his sense of wonder departs, when he gets used to the unusual, when he loses his solemn fear in the presence of the High and Holy One; when, to put it bluntly, he gets a little bored with God and heavenly things. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 382:The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. . . Live each moment completely and the future will take care of itself. Fully enjoy the wonder and beauty of each moment. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 383:But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there could be other worlds-all over the place, just round the corner-like that?" "Nothing is more probable," said the Profesor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I wonder what they do teach them at these schools. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 384:Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,- Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner. Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 385:I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. I should think the wonderful rhythmical flow of lines and curves could be more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 386:Loving yourself involves the discovery of the true wonder of you; not only the present you, but the many possibilities of you. It involves the continual realization that you are unique, like no other person in the world, that life is, or should be, the discovery, the development and the sharing of this uniqueness. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 387:Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 388:God, the source of our knowledge, has been expelled from the classroom. He gives us His greatest blessing, life, and yet many would condone the taking of innocent life. We expect Him to protect us in a crisis, but turn away from Him too often in our day-to-day living. I wonder if He isn't waiting for us to wake up. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 389:Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most Ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the first cause, but which we call our Father which art in heaven. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 390: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. Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove 391:It is impossible to live pure lives until we have pure hearts. Many people today are trying to put the cart before the horse. They are teaching purity of motives, desires, and actions to old, deceitful hearts! No wonder we have ended up such moral failures, in spite of our vaunted knowledge and psychological approaches. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 392:Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 393:He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 394:To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 395:So, Mr. Chadband-of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave off, having once the audacity to begin-retires into private life until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 396:If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 397:It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 398:As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, then up to the ceiling and around the room, doing my best to keep my composure, then back to Jamie again. She smiled at me and I smiled at her and all I could do was wonder how I'd ever fallen in love with a girl like Jamie Sullivan. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 399:The wonder of an artist's performance grows with the range of his penetration, with the instinctive sympathy that makes him, in his mortal isolation, considerate of other men's fate and a great diviner of their secret, so that his work speaks to them kindly, with a deeper assurance than they could have spoken with to themselves. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 400:She felt a little nervous about this; & 401:I wonder what your idea of heaven would be ‚Äî A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 402:We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 403:Now, before sliced bread was invented in the 1910s I wonder what they said? Like the greatest invention since the telegraph or something. But... the thing about the invention of sliced bread is this - that for the first 15 years after sliced bread was available no one bought it; no one knew about it; it was a complete and total failure. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 404:Nobody likes to let go of the ego- it is so precious to everyone. However, once you have attained a state of egolessness, the world won't disappear, as you may think it will. The world will continue, but a change takes place within you. Something is uncovered. You start seeing everything with the wonder and innocence of a child. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 405:Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not & 406:Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree... Of course I have to give up, but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder of it& 407:Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 408:I am looking for the word which is there and shouldn't be there. I wonder, why is it there? Or I look for problems: the Akedah [the Binding of Isaac - Genesis 22]. It still baffles me. Each time I read it - and I read it at least twice a year - each time I discover new layers in it. Always. So this is of more concern to me than the minimalists. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 409:I want to look my best for God. So many people have the attitude that if you're a Christian you've got to dress bad, wear an old color, not do anything to your hair, have nothing. It's no wonder that Christianity is not very attractive. I mean, how many people do you know in a Western culture that's going to go, & 410:I won't telephone him. I'll never telephone him again as long as I live. He'll rot in hell, before I'll call him up. You don't have to give me strength, God; I have it myself. If he wanted me, he could get me. He knows where I am. He knows I'm waiting here. He's so sure of me, so sure. I wonder why they hate you, as soon as they are sure of you. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 411:She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 412:Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 413:It's probably simply a matter of temperament that I never stopped to wonder if I could "match" what I had done, never choked off my writing by competing with myself, or with anybody else for that matter. My ambition was absolutely centered on the work itself, never on what it would bring me, or "who" it would make me. I never cared about that at all. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 414:It's probably simply a matter of temperament that I never stopped to wonder if I could match" what I had done, never choked off my writing by competing with myself, or with anybody else for that matter. My ambition was absolutely centered on the work itself, never on what it would bring me, or "who" it would make me. I never cared about that at all." ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 415:The only cross in all of history that was turned into an altar was the cross on which Jesus Christ died. It was a Roman cross. They nailed Him on it, and God, in His majesty and mystery, turned it into an altar. The Lamb who was dying in the mystery and wonder of God was turned into the Priest who offered Himself. No one else was a worthy offering. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 416:The origins and travels of our purchases remain matters of indifference, although to the more imaginative at least a slight dampness at the bottom of a carton, or an obscure code printed along a computer cable, may hint at processes of manufacture and transport nobler and more mysterious, more worthy of wonder and study, than the very goods themselves. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 417:Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection - if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 418:When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 419:What greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality and deviate into these footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thick tree trunks into the heart of the forest where live those wild beasts, our fellow men? That is true: to escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 420:Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next question. After all these years I have begun to wonder if the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 421:My biggest faults is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. It's like I was raising chickens inside me. The chickens lay eggs and the eggs hatch into other chickens, which then lay eggs. Is this any way to live a life? What with all these faults I've got going, I have to wonder. Sure, I get by. But in the end, that's not the question, is it? ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 422:Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 423:Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out loud of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: & 424:Pain itself can be pleasurable accidentally in so far as it is accompanied by wonder, as in stage-plays; or in so far as it recalls a beloved object to one's memory, and makes one feel one's love for the thing, whose absence gives us pain. Consequently, since love is pleasant, both pain and whatever else results from love, in so far as they remind us of our love, are pleasant. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 425:Pain itself can be pleasurable accidentally in so far as it is accompanied by wonder, as in stage-plays; or in so far as it recalls a beloved object to one's memory, and makes one feel one's love for the thing, whose absence gives us pain. Consequently, since love is pleasant, both pain and whatever else results from love, in so far as they remind us of our love, are pleasant. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 426:Somewhere, sometime, somehow you got tangled up in garbage, and you've been avoiding God. You've allowed a veil of guilt to come between you and your Father. You wonder if you could ever feel close to God again. The message of the torn flesh is you can. God welcomes you. God is not avoiding you. God is not resisting you. The curtain is down, the door is open, and God invites you in ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 427:I wonder what memories of yours will persist as you go on in life. My hunch is that the most important will have to do with feelings of loving and being loved - friends, family, teachers, shopkeepers - whoever's been close to you. As you continue to grow, you'll find many ways of expressing your love and you'll discover more and more ways in which others express their love for you. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 428:Today is a new day. It's a day you have never seen before and will never see again. Stop telling yourself the & 429:For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old? ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 430:Most of us, I believe, admire strength. It's something we tend to respect in others, desire for ourselves, and wish for our children. Sometimes, though, I wonder if we confuse strength with other words‚Äîlike & 431:In certain favorable moods, memories - what one has forgotten - come to the top. Now if this is so, is it not possible - I often wonder - that things we have felt with great intensity have an existence independent of our minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 432:It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man? ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 433:What profession is more trying than that of author? After you finish a piece of work it only seems good to you for a few weeks; or if it seems good at all you are convinced that it is the last you will be able to write; and if it seems bad you wonder whether everything you have done isn’t poor stuff really; and it is one kind of agony while you are writing, and another kind when you aren’t. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 434:The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 435:The most fully actualized people that I studied over ten years consistently pushed the envelope. These people consistently demanded far more of themselves every day than anyone else ever expected from them. These people raised their standards and committed themselves from their hearts to be the best they could be and to live a life of uncommon wonder. This is what self-mastery is all about. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 436:When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. If we receive news, that a hundred thousand dollars had been left them by some one dying, we should be thrown into an ecstasy of rejoicing; but when they have gone home to God, we stand, and mourn, and pine, and wonder at the mystery of Providence. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 437:Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 438:When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 439:The dog approached again, cautiously. I found the bologna sandwich, ripped off a chunk, wiped the cheap watery mustard off, then placed it on the sidewalk. The dog walked up to the bit of sandwich, put his nose to it, sniffed, then turned and walked off. This time he didn't look back. He accelerated down the street. No wonder I had been depressed all my life. I wasn't getting proper nourishment. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 440:I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind& 441: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, @wisdomtrove 442:Do not be dismayed, daughters, at the number of things that you have to consider before setting out on this divine journey, which is the royal road to heaven. By taking this road we gain such precious treasures that it is no wonder if the cost seems to us a high one. The time will come when we shall realize that all we have paid has been nothing at all by comparison with the greatness of our prizes. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 443:The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single head, is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 444:The perception of Beauty and the awe and the stirring of passion towards it are for those already in some degree knowing and awakened: but the Good, as possessed long since and setting up a natural tendency, is inherently present to even those asleep and brings them no wonder when some day they see it, since it is no occasional reminiscence but is always with them though in their drowse they are not aware of it. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 445:The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 446:We have to get children to understand that not only do they have this incredible uniqueness, but they also have something that sometimes we forget about. They are also potentiality. They are much more undiscovered than they are discovered. And there's the wonder of it. It doesn't matter where they are, they're only just beginning and the big magical trip of life is digging it all out and discovering the wonderful you. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 447:I wonder how it turns out that we all lead such different lives. Take you and your sister, for example. You're born to the same parents, you grow up in the same household, you're both girls. How do you end up with such wildly different personalities?... One puts on a bikini like little semaphore flags and lies by the pool looking sexy, and the other puts on her school bathing suit and swims her heart out like a dolphin. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 448:There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 449:I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 450:That moment - to this ... may be years in the way they measure, but it's only one sentence back in my mind - there are so many days when living stops and pulls up and sits and waits like a train on the rails. I pass the hotel at 8 and at 5; there are cats in the alleys and bottles and bums, and I look up at the window and think, I no longer know where you are, and I walk on and wonder where the living goes when it stops. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 451:We've begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps throughout the cosmos. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 452:My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was & 453:How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think than in all other time. I'd like to be an old man to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 454:But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 455:Now I understand that in order to feel a true sense of belonging, I need to bring the real me to the table and that I can only do that if I’m practicing self-love. For years I thought it was the other way around: I’ll do whatever it takes to fit in, I’ll feel accepted, and that will make me like myself better. Just typing those words and thinking about how many years I spent living that way makes me weary. No wonder I was tired for so long! ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 456:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 457:Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 458:And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 459:On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 460:Everybody should do in their lifetime, sometime, two things. One is to consider death... to observe skulls and skeletons and to wonder what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up-never. That is a most gloomy thing for contemplation; it's like manure. Just as manure fertilizes the plants and so on, so the contemplation of death and the acceptance of death is very highly generative of creating life. You'll get wonderful things out of that. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 461:How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far & 462:My Friend: Art thou abroad on this stormy night on thy journey of love, my friend? The sky groans like one in despair. I have no sleep tonight. Ever and again I open my door and look out on the darkness, my friend! I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path! By what dim shore of the ink-black river, by what far edge of the frowning forest, through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading thy course to come to me, my friend? ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 463:W hen there enters into it a glow from the Divine, the soul gathers strength, spreads true wings, and, however distracted by its proximate environment, speeds its buoyant way to something greater; ... its very nature bears it upwards, lifted by the Giver of that love. ... Surely we need not wonder that It possesses the power to draw the soul to Itself, calling it back from every wandering to rest before It. From It came everything; nothing is mightier. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 464:Our Lord reserved to Himself certain things which He would do in due time in a manner outside the course and order of nature, so that they would wonder and be astonished at seeing not great but unusual things, who are unmoved by things daily seen. For the government of the world is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand men from five loaves; yet at the former no one wonders, the latter astonishes all men: not as a greater wonder, but as a rarer. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 465:So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me & 466:I always have a feeling of awe and wonder at what God can do - using me as an instrument. I believe that anyone who is fully surrendered to God's will can be used gloriously - and will really know some things - and will probably be called self-righteous. You're called self-righteous if you are self-centered enough to think you know everything - but you may also be called self-righteous by the immature if you are God-centered enough to really know some things. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 467:Landscapes of great wonder and beauty lie under our feet and all around us. They are discovered in tunnels in the ground, the heart of flowers, the hollows of trees, fresh-water ponds, seaweed jungles between tides, and even drops of water. Life in these hidden worlds is more startling in reality than anything we can imagine. How could this earth of ours, which is only a speck in the heavens, have so much variety of life, so many curious and exciting creatures? ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 468:It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 469:The novel is a formidable mass, and it is so amorphous - no mountain in it to climb, no Parnassus or Helicon, not even a Pisgah. It is most distinctly one of the moister areas of literature - irrigated by a hundred rills and occasionally degenerating into a swamp. I do not wonder that the poets despise it, though they sometimes find themselves in it by accident. And I am not surprised at the annoyance of the historians when by accident it finds itself among them. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 470:When the Labor Department is forced to relent and let these visitors do this work it is of course all legal. But it makes one wonder about the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world; no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the field for lack of harvesters. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 471:As I wonder deeply about life, I find myself immersed in the deep mystery. Then something astonishing happens. The inarticulate question of the heart dissolves into the ocean of mystery. And I feel I’ve found the answer I’m looking for. But this answer, like the question, is more of a feeling than a thought. I can’t really express the inarticulate question, because it’s too deep for words. I can’t really express the inarticulate answer, because it’s too deep for words. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 472:Freedom from self-identification with a set of memories and habits, the state of wonder at the infinite reaches of the being, its inexhaustible creativity and total transcendence, the absolute fearlessness born from the realisation of the illusoriness and transiency of every mode of consciousness - flow from a deep and inexhaustible source. To know the source as source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the source only is self-realisation. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 473:It is no wonder if, under the pressure of these possibilities of suffering, men are accustomed to moderate their claims to happiness - just as the pleasure principle itself, indeed, under the influence of the external world, changed into the more modest reality principle -, if a man thinks himself happy merely to have escaped unhappiness or to have survived his suffering, and if in general the task of avoiding suffering pushes that of obtaining pleasure into the background. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 474:All social inequalities which have ceased to be considered expedient, assume the character not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice, and appear so tyrannical, that people are apt to wonder how they ever could have. been tolerated; forgetful that they themselves perhaps tolerate other inequalities under an equally mistaken notion of expediency, the correction of which would make that which they approve seem quite as monstrous as what they have at last learnt to condemn. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 475:Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters. At first the colossal aspect may dominate; then we perceive and respond to the delicate and persuasive complex of nature. ~ amsel-adams, @wisdomtrove 476:She followed the pleasure where it led. She had no weight, no name, no thoughts, no history. Then came a burst of phosphorescence, as though a firework had discharged behind her eyes, and it was over. She felt quiet and warm. For the first conscious moment of her life, her mind was free from wonder, free from worry, free from work or puzzlement. Then, from the middle of that marvelous furred stillness, a thought took shape, took hold, took over. I shall have to do this again. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 477:The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's mind. And no wonder, for genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it; blood, said Jefferson, is its natural manure. Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means the capacity for doing without . . . the average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 478:I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as ‚Äúnigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.‚Äù But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 479:Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, & 480:In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 481:thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 482:We no longer think of chairs as technology, we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn't worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often "crash" when we tried to use them. Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs and we will cease to be aware of the things. In fact I'm sure we will look back on this last decade and wonder how we could ever have mistaken what we were doing with them for "productivity" ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 483:I've got evil in me as much as anyone, some desires that scare me. Even if I don't give in to them, just having them scares the living bejesus out of me sometimes. I'm no saint, the way you kid about. But I've always walked the line, walked that goddamned line. It's a mean mother of a line, straight and narrow, sharp as a razor, cuts right into you when you walk it long enough. You're always bleeding on that line, and sometimes you wonder why you don't just step off and walk in the cool grass. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 484:“Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.” ~ william-james, @wisdomtrove 485:Why do we protect children from life? It's no wonder that we become afraid to live. We're not told what life really is. We're not told that life is joy and wonder and magic and even rapture, if you can get involved enough. We're not told that life is also pain, misery, despair, unhappiness, and tears. I don't know about you, but I don't want to miss any of it. I want to embrace life, and I want to find out what it's all about. I wouldn't want to go through life without knowing what it is to cry. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 486:I talk to groups studying the most advanced spiritual teachings and sometimes these people wonder why nothing is happening in their lives. Their motive is the attainment of inner peace for themselves - which of course is a selfish motive. You will not find it with this motive. The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course, service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 487:Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 488:Many flagship state universities have wonderful digital libraries that are accessed by people around the world. In future, if not current, budget crises, trustees, board members, and administrators may wonder why these state institutions - with an articulated primary clientele of students, faculty, and staff members and a secondary clientele of all citizens of the state - should be spending resources on a digital library that is used by many people beyond the primary and secondary service populations. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 489:The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: There is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate- each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 490:A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 491:If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then , my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 492:To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 493:You wake up, excited about being alive. You wonder, What do I feel like doing today?' There’s no set plan, and the destination doesn’t matter as much as the process, the journey. You start, but you might shift as you go. You let go of your idea of what today was going to be, because these ideas of what should be are lightly held. The important thing is the flow. You learn to be flexible instead of set. You learn to be good at change and uncertainty, instead of fearing it. As things arise, you adapt. ~ leo-babauta, @wisdomtrove 494:Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know-and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know-even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction-than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 495:One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it." ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 496:Everyone’s childhood plays itself out. No wonder no one knows the other or can completely understand. By this I don’t know if I’m just giving up with this conclusion or resigning myself — or maybe for the first time connecting with reality. How do we know the pain or another’s earlier years, let alone all that he drags with him since along the way at best a lot of leeway is needed for the other — yet how much is unhealthy for one to bear. I think to love bravely is the best and accept — as much as one can bear. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 497:Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 498:From one individual was multiplied the many people who inhabit the earth's surface. And even if that intellectual spirit, sown in earth and swallowed up in shadow, does not see the light and the source of his beginning, nevertheless, you created along with him everything through which he, kindled by wonder at those things which he contacts by the senses, can sometimes lift the eyes of his mind to you, the Creator of all, and can be reunited to you in highest love and so can finally return to his source with joy ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 499:For, as has been indicated from the innate experience as well as from the longings within, a home - home - with all its deeper, inner meanings, is a portion of the entity's desire; to know, to experience, to have the "feel" of, to have the surroundings of that implied by the word home! Is it any wonder then that in all of thy meditation, Ohm-O-h-m-mmmmm has ever been, is ever a portion of that which raises self to the highest influence and the highest vibrations throughout its whole being that may be experienced by the entity? ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove 500:I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths of and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism... .Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without; and just as I reach this world through the medium of the body, so I reach that world through the medium of the psyche. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Its okay to wonder. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
2:Oh, thank you love ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
3:wisdom begins in wonder ~ Socrates, #NFDB
4:Wisdom begins in wonder. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
5:Philosophy begins in wonder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
6:Wisdom belongs in wonder. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
7:I am not a normal man. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
8:It’s all right to wonder ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
9:No wonder you guys lost. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
10:Auggie. You are a wonder. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
11:It's all right to wonder. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
12:I wonder about turtles. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
13:I'm still experimenting. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
14:I wonder about the trees. ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
15:I wonder if treecats pray? ~ David Weber, #NFDB
16:Problems have solutions. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
17:Disrespect is real stuff. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
18:I think. I sense. I wonder. ~ Ilsa J Bick, #NFDB
19:I walk the world in wonder. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
20:Philosophy begins with wonder. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
21:Shoob-be-doo-be-doo-da-day. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
22:Stuff your eyes with wonder. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
23:Philosophy begins in wonder." -Plato ~ Plato, #NFDB
24:Wonder. Go on and wonder. ~ William Faulkner, #NFDB
25:To wonder is to begin to know ~ Margaret Coel, #NFDB
26:Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
27:Wonder is the salt of the earth. ~ M C Escher, #NFDB
28:Books can be a love-struck wonder! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
29:Do you wonder that they will ~ Rafael Sabatini, #NFDB
30:I see the light in your smile. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
31:Memory is the enemy of wonder ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
32:Think and wonder, wonder and think. ~ Dr Seuss, #NFDB
33:I wonder if heaven got a ghetto? ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
34:My love lives outside my window ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
35:Never stop wandering into wonder. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
36:no wonder i let queers suck my cock ~ Dan Fante, #NFDB
37:Time is long but life is short. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
38:Wonder implies the desire to learn. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
39:Wonder is the seed of knowledge ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
40:An act of evil is the death of wonder ~ Joe Meno, #NFDB
41:From wonder into wonder existence opens. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
42:I am all for stem cell research. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
43:If you don't ask, you don't get. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
44:Isn't she lovely made from love? ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
45:I wonder what it's like out there? ~ Van Johnson, #NFDB
46:Live, love, wonder, and be nice! ~ Jose Gonzalez, #NFDB
47:Make curiosity a wonder-ful habit. ~ Chip Conley, #NFDB
48:The best stories infuse wonder. ~ Andrew Stanton, #NFDB
49:The Law of Wonder rules my life at last, ~ Rumi, #NFDB
50:Wonder is the basis of worship. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
51:Worship is transcendent wonder. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
52:You can't hear me? Read my lips! ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
53:Don't lose the wonder in your eyes ~ Van Morrison, #NFDB
54:Every day I searched for the star ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
55:Fear's what puts dreams to sleep. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
56:From wonder into wonder existence opens ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
57:God is just a name for our wonder. ~ Nadeem Aslam, #NFDB
58:Hate knows that love is the cure. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
59:I always wonder about raindrops. I ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
60:I am more lost in wonder than ever. ~ John Huston, #NFDB
61:Is Life itself a dream, I wonder? ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
62:She handled wonder every day. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
63:We can't live in a place of fear. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
64:Wonder is the beginning of all wisdom. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
65:A map, it is said, organizes wonder. ~ Ellen Meloy, #NFDB
66:From wonder into wonder existence opens. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
67:I just called to say, 'I love you. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
68:I wonder can I carry on with the speed ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
69:I wonder love can have already set ~ Philip Larkin, #NFDB
70:Stevie Wonder is a musical genius ! ~ Eddie Murphy, #NFDB
71:The more I wonder, the more I love. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
72:We have a deficit of wonder right now. ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
73:Wonder is not precisely knowing. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
74:Do not spoil the wonder with haste! ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
75:I do believe in women. I really do. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
76:I wonder what my speech would be. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
77:Minds ripen at very different ages. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
78:to wonder if they’d been holding back to ~ J D Horn, #NFDB
79:When I grow up I wanna be like Omar ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
80:Don't call it uncertainty-call it wonder. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
81:I'm glad I'm blind and can't see it. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
82:I wonder what the animal’s name was. ~ Pittacus Lore, #NFDB
83:Knowledge is finite. Wonder is infinite. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
84:The humility of wonder opens everything. ~ Mark Nepo, #NFDB
85:The sky didn't wonder where it was. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
86:Yesterday a child came out to wonder ~ Joni Mitchell, #NFDB
87:You are entitled to wonder. I'm not. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
88:from wonder into wonder
existence opens ~ Lao Tzu,#NFDB
89:It feels better to love than to hate. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
90:I wonder at the weight of a Sparrow. ~ Mary E Pearson, #NFDB
91:Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder? ~ Don Rickles, #NFDB
92:Who's driving this car, Stevie Wonder? ~ Bruce Willis, #NFDB
93:But I wonder if there is a place I fit in? ~ Ai Yazawa, #NFDB
94:I wonder what ants do on rainy days? ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
95:Sometimes I wonder what I'm a-gonna do ~ Eddie Cochran, #NFDB
96:Wonder is retained by wise pondering. ~ Ravi Zacharias, #NFDB
97:Wonder opens and unravels reality. ~ Barbara Marciniak, #NFDB
98:And this is a time to act, not wonder. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
99:A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
100:I wonder… because that’s all I can do. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
101:I wonder if there have been other errors. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
102:Sometimes, I wonder what I'm doing here. ~ Cesar Romero, #NFDB
103:We could look at the side of wonder. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
104:Wonder is our need today, not information. ~ Elia Kazan, #NFDB
105:Wonder is the beginning of wisdom... ~ Mortimer J Adler, #NFDB
106:French women don't eat Wonder Bread. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
107:I always wonder what drives us as Artists. ~ Diana Krall, #NFDB
108:I'm living a life. I have nine children. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
109:It's a wonder our country doesn't implode. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
110:I wonder if there is anything to discover. ~ Hal Hartley, #NFDB
111:I wonder why we hate the past so. ~ William Dean Howells, #NFDB
112:Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
113:Quick, Boy Wonder! To the pottery studio! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
114:We have to be respectful to one another. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
115:If I Knew Everything There Would Be No Wonder ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
116:It harrows me with fear and wonder. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
117:It is no wonder lesbians love women. ~ Gilbert Sorrentino, #NFDB
118:Where did fear end and wonder begin? ~ Adam Nevill, #NFDB
119:I wonder if I know the girl he’s looking at. ~ Kasie West, #NFDB
120:I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, ~ Christina Rossetti, #NFDB
121:I wonder if these wack niggas realize they wack, ~ Common, #NFDB
122:Let me arrest thy thoughts, wonder with me, ~ John Donne, #NFDB
123:Man's wonder grows with his knowledge. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
124:our world has lost its sense of wonder. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
125:There is no other start to philosophy but wonder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
126:To survive, a story must arouse wonder. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
127:Wonder if Stephen King's like us or them..? ~ David Moody, #NFDB
128:Wonder is the desire of knowledge. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
129:Wonder is the first of all the passions. ~ Rene Descartes, #NFDB
130:Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
131:Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
132:Imagine no possessions; I wonder if you can. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
133:I'm too high, but I ain't left the ground. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
134:It is through wonder that we come to know. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
135:I wonder if Dave Bearden still dislikes me. ~ Ted Berrigan, #NFDB
136:Read deeply. Stay open. Continue to wonder. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
137:That’s me, man – I’m a lover not a fighter. ~ Wayne Wonder, #NFDB
138:Children add to the wonder of being alive. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
139:Fine words! I wonder where you stole them. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
140:He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? ~ A E Housman, #NFDB
141:I asked for wonder, and He gave it to me. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
142:I'd much rather be a one-hit wonder than a phony. ~ CM Punk, #NFDB
143:I know there are thousands of images of me. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
144:I've always been strong-minded, but I wonder. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
145:I wonder how I could have lived without him ~ Sierra Abrams, #NFDB
146:I wonder if Chupacabras are... baby Mothmen? ~ George Noory, #NFDB
147:I wonder if death will always taste this good ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
148:My wonder button is being pushed all the time. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
149:To wonder is to begin to understand. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset, #NFDB
150:What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM! ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
151:What thieves of wonder are these poor senses. ~ Scott Lynch, #NFDB
152:A one-hit wonder is a legend who stopped early. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
153:Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
154:Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder? ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
155:her? I wonder. “Tom?” I say, taking advantage of ~ Greg Iles, #NFDB
156:I always wonder when it was that I was embraced. ~ Joe Biden, #NFDB
157:I'm concerned about how accessible guns are. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
158:I want the wonder back again, or I shall die. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
159:I wonder at the idleness of tears. ~ Lizette Woodworth Reese, #NFDB
160:I wonder if death will always taste this good. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
161:I wonder if he had a Cathy and who see was. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
162:I wonder if he had a Cathy and who she was. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
163:Love others so radically they wonder why. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
164:Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder. ~ Ransom Riggs, #NFDB
165:Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
166:The sense of wonder, that is our sixth sense. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
167:Wonder is the precondition for all wisdom. ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
168:Wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful life, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
169:Blind don't mean you can't, you know, listen. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
170:Compounding is the 8th wonder of the world. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
171:despair cannot share the same space as wonder, ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
172:Did you know that true love asks for nothing? ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
173:Gun violence is real. People don't come back. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
174:I wonder if Harley-Davidson makes a unicycle ~ Michael Hedges, #NFDB
175:I wonder which friends she was talking about…. ~ Chris Colfer, #NFDB
176:I wonder why why why why why why, she ran away? ~ Del Shannon, #NFDB
177:Makes you wonder if the gods are always right. ~ Janet Morris, #NFDB
178:Philosophy is the product of wonder. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
179:Since luck's a nine days' wonder, wait their end. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
180:To me it is enough to wonder at the secrets ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
181:We all have a Wonder Woman inside us. ~ Diane von Furstenberg, #NFDB
182:Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
183:Did you ever wonder what a human life is worth? ~ Ruta Sepetys, #NFDB
184:It adds a little wonder and beauty to the world. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
185:I wonder if it's harder to be good in this age? ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
186:I wonder what lives on the inside of a toe. ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe, #NFDB
187:Let us come together before we're annihilated. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
188:The weight of sadness was in wonder lost. ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
189:Want me to Stevie Wonder my way to the bathroom? ~ Amy Schumer, #NFDB
190:Wonder if Stephen King's like us or like them..? ~ David Moody, #NFDB
191:wonder Nettie hadn’t told her to get out there ~ Carolyn Brown, #NFDB
192:Wow. No wonder the Jacks were a miserable bunch. ~ M K Harkins, #NFDB
193:Is it any wonder that I loved my regiment? ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
194:I wonder how you say goodbye to someone forever? ~ Ann M Martin, #NFDB
195:I wonder if it's a special sin to lie to a nun ~ Robert Cormier, #NFDB
196:Many of us feel we walk alone without a friend ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
197:Music at its essence is what gives us memories. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
198:My God, no wonder people like being tied up. ~ Cherise Sinclair, #NFDB
199:Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing. ~ Lucille Clifton, #NFDB
200:The worse the mess, the more I get to wonder. ~ Sheila O Connor, #NFDB
201:This destroyer of worlds and creature of wonder. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
202:This wonder (as wonders last) lasted nine daies. ~ John Heywood, #NFDB
203:wonder if he’d blundered badly. August saw a net ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
204:All understanding begins in wonder! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
205:Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder. ~ E B White, #NFDB
206:Did anyone wonder if someone hit his head for him? ~ K J Charles, #NFDB
207:Dimly, I wonder if I'll die without eyebrows. ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
208:Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer, #NFDB
209:Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
210:Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
211:I wonder how many times each day she dies a little. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
212:I wonder if she knows I think she's beautiful. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
213:I wonder if vampire's eyebrows can grow back. ~ Robert Pattinson, #NFDB
214:Life is full of wonder, love is never wrong. ~ Melissa Etheridge, #NFDB
215:Man's wonder grows with his knowledge. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
216:Smile...it makes people wonder what you're up to. ~ Jill Shalvis, #NFDB
217:Until we Dream of Life and Life becomes a Dream. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
218:Wonder what customers really want? Ask. Don't Tell. ~ Lisa Stone, #NFDB
219:Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
220:You really are a wonder, Auggie. You are a wonder. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
221:All understanding begins in wonder! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
222:First of all, I'm no better than the next person. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
223:He was consumed with wonder by her presence. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
224:I can’t help but wonder if I am who I think I am. ~ Bryony Gordon, #NFDB
225:I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
226:I wonder if eventually they will just stop visiting ~ Johan Twiss, #NFDB
227:I wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world. ~ Bill Watterson, #NFDB
228:I wonder who I left behind on the other side of fame. ~ Phil Ochs, #NFDB
229:I wonder why that is. I wonder why anything is. ~ Sebastian Barry, #NFDB
230:...libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
231:Look with kindness and you will always find wonder. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
232:No wonder the teacher knows so much; she has the book. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB
233:Savor the flashes of wonder that light your life, ~ Eric Greitens, #NFDB
234:Wonder Woman: strength of character, compassion, Steve ~ Lisa Yee, #NFDB
235:All my children are my babies. They're our babies. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
236:All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
237:Faith was a choice. So, it followed, was wonder. ~ Glen David Gold, #NFDB
238:If you don't know how to live, why wonder about death? ~ Confucius, #NFDB
239:It’s you,” he whispered in wonder. “You’re the one. ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
240:I wonder how on earth I was lucky enough to find her. ~ Kyra Davis, #NFDB
241:I wonder how they deal with mice at Disney World. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
242:I wonder men dare trust themselves with men. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
243:Life is the wonder with which we are all infused. … ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
244:Loving you, until the day that 8 x 8 x 8 x 8 is 4. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
245:So I wonder if anything should ever be off limits. ~ Kathy Griffin, #NFDB
246:Sometimes I wonder if all my friends are insane. ~ Tom Angleberger, #NFDB
247:staggering gait. I wonder if he’s with the wedding ~ Steve Martini, #NFDB
248:The universe is still a place of mystery and wonder. ~ Martin Rees, #NFDB
249:The way the world is right now, we need more love. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
250:Time travel isn’t a wonder; it’s an abomination. ~ Cristin Terrill, #NFDB
251:To wonder meant to want, if only in some small way. ~ Ania Ahlborn, #NFDB
252:Wander into the center of the circle of wonder. ~ Hongzhi Zhengjue, #NFDB
253:Are you happy when you stick a needle in your vein? ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
254:Baby, everything is alright, uptight, out of sight. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
255:Deaf? If you're near there, no wonder you are deaf. ~ Prince Philip, #NFDB
256:Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
257:For the wonder of a first love can never be matched. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
258:I AM NOT. AND THEN I AM. I WONDER IF THAT WAS DEATH. ~ Amie Kaufman, #NFDB
259:Is this normal, I wonder? But then, what is normal? ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
260:Is this where tonight’s tale of wonder shall unfold? ~ Robert Bevan, #NFDB
261:It was better to know the worst than to wonder. ~ Margaret Mitchell, #NFDB
262:I wonder if we will become okay again. I hope for it. ~ Nina LaCour, #NFDB
263:I wonder where you wander
when you look into the moon ~ R H Sin,#NFDB
264:I wonder who would lead us if none of us would vote. ~ Larry Norman, #NFDB
265:No one can tell if I’m laughing or weeping. I wonder myself. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
266:No wonder this circuit failed. It says 'Made in Japan'. ~ Doc Brown, #NFDB
267:Strange!—I wonder when it got there? It is from the ~ Emmuska Orczy, #NFDB
268:The end of wondering, he thought, but not of wonder. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
269:Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end? ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
270:Awareness of the divine begins with wonder. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
271:He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. ~ M C Escher, #NFDB
272:I did not have to believe. I only had to wonder. ~ Patricia Monaghan, #NFDB
273:If Kayla is alive, I wonder if she really wants to be. ~ April Henry, #NFDB
274:I shouldn't wonder if you didn't wonder much too much! ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
275:I wonder if Hell can be worse than the City of Omaha. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
276:No wonder nothing had worked. No one else was him. ~ Kristan Higgins, #NFDB
277:Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take to find dignity. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
278:The business of living can steal away the wonder of life. ~ M J Rose, #NFDB
279:The kingdom of heaven. Its citizens are drunk on wonder. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
280:The transfiguration of matter occurs through wonder. ~ James Hillman, #NFDB
281:You are entitled to wonder and to doubt - you're free. ~ Tayeb Salih, #NFDB
282:Don't need cars cause we've learned to fly on Saturn. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
283:I'd rather wonder than get answers I couldn't live with. ~ John Green, #NFDB
284:I have enough money to satisfy myself for a lifetime. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
285:I wonder do the gods know what it feels like to be a man. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
286:I wonder what Adam and Eve think of it by this time. ~ Marianne Moore, #NFDB
287:I wonder whether she was sorry for leaving us behind. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
288:I wonder which one of us God finds more uninteresting. ~ John Gardner, #NFDB
289:Life without any wonder left in it is flat and stale. ~ David Eddings, #NFDB
290:Obama is so crooked it is a wonder he can walk straight. ~ David Icke, #NFDB
291:Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
292:The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kisst. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
293:Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, #NFDB
294:Tomorrow is Sunday. I wonder if I shall hear a sermon? ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
295:We all have ability. The difference is how we use it. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
296:Why were wonder and danger always so tightly interwoven? ~ Jenn Reese, #NFDB
297:You are outrageously wonder-full and deserve to be celebrated! ~ Sark, #NFDB
298:Before there can be wonders, there must be wonder. ~ David Copperfield, #NFDB
299:But I often wonder: Where would I be without them? I think ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
300:Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything. ~ Gregory of Nyssa, #NFDB
301:cream. I wonder who has sent it, and where from. I wonder ~ Tracy Rees, #NFDB
302:He began to wonder if there was something wrong with him. ~ Greg Rucka, #NFDB
303:I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder. ~ Jean Hegland, #NFDB
304:I look with wonder at that which is before me. ~ Florence Scovel Shinn, #NFDB
305:I'm believing that miracles and blessings still exist. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
306:In whose wonder do you get to participate today? ~ Mary Anne Radmacher, #NFDB
307:I wonder if I cry whether my tears would be gray. ~ Susan Beth Pfeffer, #NFDB
308:I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
309:I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
310:My personal motto is: WWWWD?: What Would Wonder Woman Do? ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
311:Open mind, empty mind. I wonder if they're the same thing. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
312:We wonder at vistas outside .. Yet we pass by ourselves. ~ Neena Verma, #NFDB
313:Where, I wonder, can such stylishly fitted jeans be found? ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
314:couldn’t help but wonder. If all things served the will of ~ Sean Platt, #NFDB
315:Everyday I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about. ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
316:For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
317:Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
318:I am caught in a kind of wonder, I am still with joy. ~ Shirley Jackson, #NFDB
319:I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
320:It could have been worse. I could have been born black. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
321:I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we lov'd? ~ John Donne, #NFDB
322:I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
323:I would love to play Wonder Woman on the big screen. ~ Adrianne Palicki, #NFDB
324:Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die. ~ Alfred Tennyson, #NFDB
325:... that aspect of being that once was attuned to wonder. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
326:The ways of the Lord are filled with wonder and mystery. ~ Bette Greene, #NFDB
327:Toy Empressario
Wonder Afficianado
Avid Shoewearer ~ Suzanne Weyn,#NFDB
328:Travel with the wit of an adult, and the wonder of a child. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
329:when you’re a little kid. Everything is a sparkling wonder. ~ Tim Tharp, #NFDB
330:Wonder not at the failure, rather learn to marvel at success ~ Samarpan, #NFDB
331:Wow, I wonder what it'd be like to have a difficult life? ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
332:A frowning face can't bring out the beauty that you are. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
333:Curious people are intersting people, I wonder why that is. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
334:Everyone of us is a wonder. Everyone of us has a story. ~ Kristin Hunter, #NFDB
335:Evil, why do you infest the purest thoughts with hatred? ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
336:First kisses were about discovery, transformation, wonder. ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
337:I look into mother's stomach, wonder if you are a boy or a girl ~ Common, #NFDB
338:I used to wonder why they kept princesses in towers ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
339:I wonder if pain comes from surrendering or resisting? ~ Donna Lynn Hope, #NFDB
340:I wonder what else I could do that I never thought I could. ~ Wendy Mass, #NFDB
341:I wonder what it will be like when I leave this place. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
342:Law and order comes from having respect for one another. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
343:No wonder I won the Games. NO decent person ever does. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
344:No wonder you’re so excited about wearing masks at a ball. ~ Chanda Hahn, #NFDB
345:There is a sixth sense . . . that is the sense of wonder. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
346:Well, we have seen a wonder. We ought to count our blessings. ~ C P Snow, #NFDB
347:Wonder 'do we - by the same words - mean the same things? ~ Ahdaf Soueif, #NFDB
348:You can't base your life on other people's expectations. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
349:After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is. ~ Yo Yo Ma, #NFDB
350:I'm not the one-take wonder that a lot people think I am. ~ Doug Stanhope, #NFDB
351:I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
352:It is a happiness to wonder;—it is a happiness to dream ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
353:I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
354:I wonder if that’s the pattern. First love. Then disgust. ~ Hannah Howard, #NFDB
355:Life is too short to wonder where you hid your waffle maker. ~ Paula Deen, #NFDB
356:Love, wonder, joy & awareness are the gifts of innocence. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
357:People always want me to talk about Wonder Woman, so I do. ~ Lynda Carter, #NFDB
358:Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
359:this family? No wonder Leah tried to stay away from her aunt. ~ Yael Levy, #NFDB
360:Wonderful; such an active word——to be full of wonder. ~ Suzanne Finnamore, #NFDB
361:Wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful life,” Ron sighed, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
362:You're so unhip, it's a wonder your bum doesn't fall off. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
363:—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to? ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
364:Falling in love was so tragic. No wonder it made people so sad. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
365:I know cigarettes can kill & wonder why she wants to die. ~ Nick Flynn, #NFDB
366:Meditation is wondering. It is both wondering and wonder. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
367:Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
368:No one can tell if I’m laughing or weeping.
I wonder myself. ~ Rumi,#NFDB
369:Sometimes I wonder why words can't actually make us bleed. ~ Swati Avasthi, #NFDB
370:The Lord that I serve says the impossible is unacceptable. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
371:The power has to be in your desire to see everyone thrive. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
372:There is a kind of happiness and wonder the makes you serious. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
373:Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at! ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
374:We wonder of the nature and the nature wonders of us! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
375:Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
376:All true education begins in wonder and ends in wisdom—as ~ Sarah Mackenzie, #NFDB
377:And some days I wonder why I insist on keeping myself alive. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
378:As I go under, I wonder if there’s a reason for art? ~ Kelli Russell Agodon, #NFDB
379:Concepts create idols; only wonder understands anything. ~ Gregory of Nyssa, #NFDB
380:Deeper understanding confers that most precious thing - wonder. ~ Brian Cox, #NFDB
381:Does a bee ever wonder if a flower gets hurt by it's sting? ~ Narayan Wagle, #NFDB
382:How has Paul kept his wonder? He never forgot who he had been. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
383:I don't want to go through life as a Wonder Wheel murderer! ~ Richard Pryor, #NFDB
384:I have begun to wonder if perfection might be its own flaw. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
385:It’s a wonder that we can see these trees and not wonder more. ~ Rolf Potts, #NFDB
386:I wonder, by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we lov'd. ~ John Donne,#NFDB
387:Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
388:My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
389:No wonder Sherlock Holmes did all that coke. Math is hard. ~ Richard Kadrey, #NFDB
390:On my bad days, I sometimes wonder what philosophers are for. ~ Jerry Fodor, #NFDB
391:Sometimes, on sleepless nights, we wonder if they’re right. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
392:...the great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open... ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
393:The universe shivers with wonder in the depths of the human. ~ Brian Swimme, #NFDB
394:This is where I live.
—I wonder if you still love me? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva,#NFDB
395:And so fleas look up at the sky and wonder why stars. ~ Marisha Pessl, #NFDB
396:Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
397:But philosophy is an anestetic, a shot to keep the wonder away. ~ N D Wilson, #NFDB
398:Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
399:If these walls could talk, I wonder what secrets they'd tell. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
400:I sometimes wonder if all pleasures are not substitutes for joy. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
401:It was wrong not to be curious, it was wrong not to wonder. ~ Kelly Barnhill, #NFDB
402:I've had some incredibly triumphal things happen in my life. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
403:I wonder by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we lov’d? —DONNE ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
404:I wonder what he sees, a chapter from a book I have never read. ~ Pam Jenoff, #NFDB
405:Let me think... I wonder if an anvil will drop like an apple? ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
406:No wonder all her mother taught her was how to run and hide. ~ Thea Harrison, #NFDB
407:No wonder the creationists don't believe the darwinian account. ~ Mark Pagel, #NFDB
408:Olivia married sexy Ghandi. No wonder she loves her husband. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
409:Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
410:There's a Place in the Sun, where there's hope for everyone. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
411:To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. ~ Jos Ortega y Gasset, #NFDB
412:We have to have pride in not just one people but all people. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
413:We make Idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of wonder ~ Pope Gregory I, #NFDB
414:You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
415:And, selfish and scared, I wonder how much more he has to give. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
416:fearing nothing but the unknown in a world of mysterious wonder. ~ John Fante, #NFDB
417:God, he’s sexy. No wonder he was a little shit all the time. ~ Laura Thalassa, #NFDB
418:gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. G. K. CHESTERTON ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
419:I lay around and wonder why you were always there for me. ~ Sugar Ray Leonard, #NFDB
420:I like your silence, it the more shows off your wonder. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
421:It is a happiness to wonder; -- it is a happiness to dream. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
422:It seemed poison had been poured into wonder’s own decanter. ~ R Scott Bakker, #NFDB
423:I wonder if that's a small price to pay for being a legend. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
424:I wonder if there is an operation that removes memories. ~ Charles Pellegrino, #NFDB
425:I wonder whether what we call politeness isn’t just weakness ~ Anthony Powell, #NFDB
426:Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
427:Never again should you wonder what you have to be thankful for. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
428:No wonder I’d never had any friends. I was shockingly bad at it. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
429:No wonder sorrow doesn’t smile much. No wonder sadness is so sad. ~ Nick Cave, #NFDB
430:Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage! ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
431:Women are really much nicer than men: No wonder we like them. ~ Kingsley Amis, #NFDB
432:Wonder, as a quality of intellect, has fallen from favor. ~ Lyanda Lynn Haupt, #NFDB
433:Being paid to wonder seems like a heavy responsibility at times. ~ Hope Jahren, #NFDB
434:Boys were careless. It was a wonder any ever grew up to be men. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
435:Child of the pure, unclouded brow and dreaming eyes of wonder. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
436:Dreadlocks make people wonder if you’re trying to be rebellious. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
437:Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see. ~ Rachel Carson, #NFDB
438:In truth, our aliveness depends on our ability to sustain wonder: ~ Mark Nepo, #NFDB
439:I think we’ve lost our awareness of what “wonder” really means: ~ James Runcie, #NFDB
440:I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat? ~ Clara Barton, #NFDB
441:I wonder if monsters waste as much time on Facebook as humans do? ~ Jason Rose, #NFDB
442:I wonder sometimes how much we really understand our own gifts ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
443:I wonder where they’re going.
....and I feel so replaceable. ~ Nina LaCour,#NFDB
444:On se penetre non par les sensations mais par la pensée, I wonder. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
445:Scientific method, hell! No wonder the Galaxy was going to pot. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
446:there are moments when I’m struck by a deep sense of wonder. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
447:The significance which is in unity is an eternal wonder. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
448:We are perishing for lack of wonder, not for lack of wonders. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
449:We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
450:wonder how it is that we are never truly prepared for death. How ~ Carrie Ryan, #NFDB
451:You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
452:Ever wonder how many angels you have? All of them. They insisted. ~ Mike Dooley, #NFDB
453:Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. ~ Pericles, #NFDB
454:Het wonder is geschied, mijn pruim is nat en 't regent niet. ~ Dimitri Verhulst, #NFDB
455:I might do something in Arabic. I might do something in Hebrew. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
456:I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams. ~ Muriel Spark, #NFDB
457:I wonder now how tough you have to be to get big things done. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
458:I wonder, said the Lord I wonder if I know the answer any more. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
459:I wonder sometimes how much we really understand our own gifts. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
460:I wonder who else in the world was having such an exquisite dawn. ~ Hope Jahren, #NFDB
461:I wonder why it is the man who pleads for mercy never gives it. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
462:Just because a record has a groove don't make it in the groove. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
463:No wonder tobacco shops have a predilection for corners, for ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
464:Sometimes you wonder, do referees understand the game of football? ~ Roy Keane, #NFDB
465:When Bush says democracy, I often wonder what he's referring to. ~ Angela Davis, #NFDB
466:Whoever can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
467:Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
468:Wonder Woman left Paradise Island to fight fascism with feminism. ~ Jill Lepore, #NFDB
469:Here stands a guy who is broken and I wonder what caused his ruin. ~ Jen Minkman, #NFDB
470:His expression is a mixture of shining wonder and endless sorrow. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
471:In the last couple of weeks I have seen the ads for the Wonder Bra. ~ Hugh Grant, #NFDB
472:I wonder," Marcia said. "If you would consider being my apprentice? ~ Angie Sage, #NFDB
473:I wonder that you will still be talking. Nobody marks you. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
474:Life is only what you wonder. Day is light as your brightest dream. ~ Ray Davies, #NFDB
475:The capacity for total wonder is the very substance of awakening. ~ Daniel Odier, #NFDB
476:The journey, not the destination, becomes a source of wonder ~ Loreena McKennitt, #NFDB
477:We live in wonder, blaze in a cycle of passion and apprehension. ~ Carolyn Kizer, #NFDB
478:We love the Lord, of course, but we often wonder what He finds in us. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB
479:What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop? ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
480:A man who listened? Had she found the eighth wonder of the world? ~ Carolyn Brown, #NFDB
481:And I wonder how the Society ever caught her that day on the ocean. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
482:Being paid to wonder seems like a heavy responsibility at times. At ~ Hope Jahren, #NFDB
483:Do you ever wonder why things have to turn out the way they do? ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
484:...drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see. ~ Rachel Carson, #NFDB
485:Everybody wonders why he disappeared. I wonder why he came back. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
486:Give me wonder, baby.
Flash.
Give me amazement.
Flash. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
487:I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
488:I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever. ~ Andy Warhol, #NFDB
489:I wonder if leaves feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling? ~ John Muir, #NFDB
490:I WONDER IF WHEN YOU DREAM ABOUT SOMEBODY THEY DREAM ABOUT YOU. ~ Louise Fitzhugh, #NFDB
491:I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk. ~ Kent Haruf, #NFDB
492:i wonder what goes on night and day beneath the surface of a cemetery. ~ B Traven, #NFDB
493:Love was not a comfortable feeling. No wonder I tried to avoid it. ~ Fabian Black, #NFDB
494:Others wonder, if the Bogey isn’t wearing his pants, who is? ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson, #NFDB
495:Strange an astrologer should die, without one wonder in the sky. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
496:Tell me, do you think I'm going mad? I sometimes wonder, you know. ~ Paul Cezanne, #NFDB
497:The key to a wonderful life is to never stop wandering into wonder. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
498:The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
499:What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder? ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
500:When will you stop trying to educate me, I wonder? Never I hope. ~ David Nicholls, #NFDB
501:Wonder feeds our best intelligence and is perhaps its source. ~ Lyanda Lynn Haupt, #NFDB
502:Wonder is the beginning of the desire to know the beautiful and the good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
503:again: I live in lonely desolation, And wonder when my end will come. ~ P W Singer, #NFDB
504:And indeed there will be time to wonder, 'Do I dare?', and 'Do I dare? ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
505:A wonder lasts but nine days, and then the puppy's eyes are open. ~ Henry Fielding, #NFDB
506:Brother says he's telling about you playing Doctor with that girl. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
507:Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead? ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
508:God! What wonder that across the earth a great architect went mad, ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
509:I could have killed her, but I didn’t, because she’s a wonder. ~ Alexandra Christo, #NFDB
510:I don't dictate, you don't dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully. ~ Spike Lee, #NFDB
511:I don’t wonder why they talk,” I said. “I wonder what they say. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
512:I have to wonder if he has masks he wears, too. Maybe we all do. ~ Victoria Schwab, #NFDB
513:I'm a huge Wonder Woman fan - I have about 12 coffee mugs at home! ~ Kari Wahlgren, #NFDB
514:I wonder can I carry on with the speed of the world without you in it. ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
515:I wonder if anyone can ever succeed in making their children content. ~ Anne Frank, #NFDB
516:I wonder if I’m just a punctured shadow of the person I was before. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
517:I wonder why people use only walls for hanging pictures. ~ Frederick Salomon Perls, #NFDB
518:I wonder why religion is so strict on homosexuality than massacre. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
519:life could be wonder full
if people would leave you alone... ~ Charlie Chaplin,#NFDB
520:Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
521:No one knows what I am and really, I wonder if I do, at the end of the day. ~ Mika, #NFDB
522:People and events of wonder and magic are the lifeblood of the world. ~ Jason Mott, #NFDB
523:She was one if the few souls that made me wonder what's it to live. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
524:This world is so thick with ghosts it’s a wonder anyone can breathe. ~ Leah Raeder, #NFDB
525:To be a muse is to be a wonder in someone else's eyes, flaws and all. ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
526:To be a muse is to be a wonder in someone else’s eyes, flaws and all. ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
527:Upon the demon-ridden pilgrimage of human life, what next I wonder. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
528:With a voice like Ella ringing out there's no way a band can lose. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
529:Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
530:Change your words into truths and then change that truth into LOVE. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
531:Dogs are one of those things that make you happy and make you wonder. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
532:Don’t you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you tried? ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, #NFDB
533:Go where you're needed and you'll never wonder why you're alive. ~ Randolph Lalonde, #NFDB
534:His father fell off a window-ledge. No wonder his mum had cheered up. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
535:If you read a book which does not make you wonder, ponder! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
536:I guess people expect or figure me to be a lot of different things. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
537:Indifference is isolation. In difference is texture and wonder. ~ Edwin Schlossberg, #NFDB
538:I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
539:I used to wonder why people made New Jersey jokes. I don't anymore. ~ E J Copperman, #NFDB
540:I wonder if anyone thinks of me when they can’t fall asleep at night. ~ Niall Horan, #NFDB
541:I wonder if people always choose what will make them unhappy. ~ Megan Whalen Turner, #NFDB
542:Life…is a wonder. It is a sky laden with clouds of contradictions. ~ Naguib Mahfouz, #NFDB
543:Magicians lose the opportunity to experience a sense of wonder. ~ David Copperfield, #NFDB
544:Nothing shows the wit so poor, as wonder, nor birth so mean, as pride. ~ Aphra Behn, #NFDB
545:Oh, it was, and, remains, a source of great and terrible wonder. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
546:Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
547:She kind of resembles Gal Gadot, the actress who plays Wonder Woman. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
548:Sometimes I wonder if I met everyone in my life in the wrong order. ~ Belle de Jour, #NFDB
549:The resurrection confronts our world with wonder, mystery, and miracles. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
550:The speed of change makes you wonder what will become of architecture. ~ Tadao Ando, #NFDB
551:to appreciate the wonder of the universe, one must first remain alive. ~ Neal Asher, #NFDB
552:Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and all philosophy begins in wonder ~ Plato, #NFDB
553:You know, babe, I wonder if it was better when you didn’t talk. ~ Christina Dalcher, #NFDB
554:Everyone hates a martyr; it's no wonder martyrs were burned at the stake. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB
555:Eyes lie if you ever look into them for the character of the person. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
556:I began to wonder why we cuddle some animals and put a fork in others. ~ Henry Spira, #NFDB
557:If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
558:I've made an ass of myself so many times I often wonder if I am one. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
559:I was so bad. Out of control. So glad I turned out to be a nice guy. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
560:I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he’d taken a poll in Egypt? ~ Harry Truman, #NFDB
561:I wonder how many more penises I’ll have inside me in my lifetime. ~ Daria Snadowsky, #NFDB
562:I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
563:I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
564:I wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? ~ Jerry Seinfeld, #NFDB
565:I wonder through the days like a whore in a world with no sidewalks. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
566:Only wonder can comprehend His incomprehensible power. ~ Saint Maximus the Confessor, #NFDB
567:People are either enamored with me or wonder if they can take me. ~ Michael Ironside, #NFDB
568:She was one of the few souls that made me wonder what it was to live. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
569:Smile well and often, it makes people wonder what you've been up to. ~ Satchel Paige, #NFDB
570:Start building walls, and people begin to wonder what you’re hiding. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
571:The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
572:To be left behind... or to leave behind. I wonder which hurts more. ~ Natsuki Takaya, #NFDB
573:we have given up our sense of wonder at secrets left to be discovered. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
574:Wishes were things of wonder that took a certain amount of faith. ~ Stephanie Garber, #NFDB
575:A lack of communication between citizens and policemen is real stuff. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
576:Don't you ever wonder if everything we've been told really makes sense? ~ Eileen Cook, #NFDB
577:England's always expecting. No wonder they call her the Mother Country ~ Fred Trueman, #NFDB
578:Gratitude for such favor stands dressed in robes of wonder. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
579:He wonder dismally when his heart had been so thoroughly lost to an enemy. ~ P L Nunn, #NFDB
580:I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti, #NFDB
581:I like this skirt. Makes a guy wonder just how to get a girl out of it. ~ Amy Andrews, #NFDB
582:Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
583:I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world. ~ James A Baldwin, #NFDB
584:It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch, #NFDB
585:It's so beautiful where I am today that it makes me wonder where I am. ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
586:I've read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free. ~ John Barrymore, #NFDB
587:I wonder if evolution wasn't from ape to man, but from insane to sane. ~ Cameron Jace, #NFDB
588:I wonder if God created man because He was disappointed with the monkey. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
589:I wonder if I might be lonelier
if I didn't have loneliness ~ Kelli Russell Agodon,#NFDB
590:I wonder if Socrates and Plato took a house on Crete during the summer. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
591:I wonder what that must feel like, to know that for sure. This is home. ~ Emily Henry, #NFDB
592:Love's in need of love today...don't delay...send yours in right away ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
593:People are often so busy living that they never stop to wonder why. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
594:People often wonder what makes monsters. The answer is other people, ~ Kristy Cunning, #NFDB
595:She supposed she could Google, but she preferred to wonder. ~ Cynthia D Aprix Sweeney, #NFDB
596:Stevie Wonder's records introduced me to '70s soul when I was 12 or 13. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
597:There may be wonder in money, but, dear God, there is money in wonder. ~ Enid Bagnold, #NFDB
598:There's only one true king of rock 'n' roll. His name is Chuck Berry. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
599:The seed of our love will always cube within the wonder of infinite. ~ Robert M Drake, #NFDB
600:The spring has sprung, the grass is rizz. I wonder where them birdies is? ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
601:wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, 'That little urchin ~ Jacob Grimm, #NFDB
602:....Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer, #NFDB
603:Even now I wonder what I might have accomplished if I'd studied harder ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
604:Every day I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about. -- True North ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
605:Handsome brother with a smooth goatee, makes me wonder why he act so ugly. ~ LL Cool J, #NFDB
606:I like him and I wonder what I would be like if I had a different father. ~ M J Hyland, #NFDB
607:I looked into [Prozac]. I must say that it is certainly a wonder drug. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
608:I sometimes wonder what this person or that person might be like in bed. ~ Katie Price, #NFDB
609:I think honestly, some people who think they're gay, they're confused. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
610:It's no wonder truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
611:I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
612:I wonder if a person can ever really shake where they come from ~ Bonnie Sue Hitchcock, #NFDB
613:I wonder if he has any plans or if he is just as desperate as I am? ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
614:I wonder if, in the dark night of the sea, the octopus dreams of me. ~ N Scott Momaday, #NFDB
615:I wonder if she’ll ever know that no one will love her as hard as I do. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
616:I wonder if the artist ever lives his life--he is so busy recreating it. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
617:I wonder if the ocean smells different on the other side of the world. ~ J A Redmerski, #NFDB
618:I wonder if these two men are the only ones who followed us inside. The ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
619:I wonder is illiterate people know the full meaning of alphabet soup? ~ Jerry Seinfeld, #NFDB
620:Our posterity will wonder about our ignorance of things so plain. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
621:Sometimes I wonder if you remember things the way they really were. ~ Jennifer McMahon, #NFDB
622:The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. ~ Huston Smith, #NFDB
623:The world shall perish not for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder ~ J B S Haldane, #NFDB
624:This damn ring had derailed her life. No wonder Gollum had gone insane. ~ Karina Bliss, #NFDB
625:When left with ashes, you wonder how you could have prevented the fire. ~ Sejal Badani, #NFDB
626:When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
627:Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
628:Would it be too hackneyed to wonder where it all went so wrong? Kitty’s ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
629:You clean and organize; you demand perfection—did you ever wonder why? ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
630:You ever wonder if who you are is the person you're supposed to be? ~ Kristen Callihan, #NFDB
631:You ever wonder when God's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce? ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
632:You ever wonder when god's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce? ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
633:Your hair doesn’t look half bad today,” Star Sapphire said to Wonder Woman. ~ Lisa Yee, #NFDB
634:God gave me life to continue to do things that I would never have done. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
635:How long, I wonder, will ignorance spell purity and knowledge shame? ~ Rosamond Lehmann, #NFDB
636:I always wonder why some people see things as weird and some people don't. ~ Tim Burton, #NFDB
637:If I'd been easily discouraged, I could have been a one-hit wonder ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
638:It took a lot to get attention in my family. No wonder I'm an actress. ~ Elisabeth Shue, #NFDB
639:I wonder how Jon Stewart is doing right now. I just ... I hope he's happy. ~ Haley Webb, #NFDB
640:I wonder if you can taste the bullsh*t that's coming out of your mouth. ~ Habeeb Akande, #NFDB
641:I wonder which will get you killed faster—your loyalty or your stubbornness? ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
642:Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
643:She waved, and he smiled like she was the eighth wonder of the world. ~ Debra Anastasia, #NFDB
644:The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder. ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
645:Well, for someone who looks like me you wonder where Alfred Hitchcock is. ~ Kelly Lynch, #NFDB
646:wonder if I am in hell. I am being punished for the sins I have committed. ~ Tara Brown, #NFDB
647:You wonder sometimes how our government puts on its pants in the morning. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
648:And you wonder, what's wrong with me? Will anyone beautiful want me? ~ David Henry Hwang, #NFDB
649:Do you ever wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges? ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
650:Every song that I start to write, I wonder if I'll be able to write it. ~ Emmylou Harris, #NFDB
651:Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
652:he was beginning to wonder if he was trying to rescue the dragon. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
653:If God hadn't meant us to hunt men, he wouldn't have given us Wonder Bras. ~ Kathy Lette, #NFDB
654:If not for reverence, if not for wonder, if not for love, why have we come here? ~ Raffi, #NFDB
655:If you could understand a single grain of wheat you would die of wonder. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
656:in principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
657:I often wonder, if there were no deadlines, would anything ever get ended? ~ Judith Weir, #NFDB
658:I sometimes wonder if two thirds of the globe is covered in red carpet. ~ Prince Charles, #NFDB
659:I wonder if she realizes how passionate she is about not being passionate. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
660:I wonder if the prayers of angel-bloods count more than regular people's. ~ Cynthia Hand, #NFDB
661:I wonder if this is how people get close: They heal each other's wounds. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
662:I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love! ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
663:Little wonder he felt so often that he'd prolapsed all moral certainty. ~ Simon Spurrier, #NFDB
664:No wonder Dragos’s lawyers were so rich. He was a litigator’s wet dream. ~ Thea Harrison, #NFDB
665:Stand tall, smile bright, and let 'em wonder what secret's making you laugh. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
666:Taking care of myself is a big job. No wonder I avoided it for so long. ~ Melody Beattie, #NFDB
667:There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. C. S. LEWIS ~ John Piper, #NFDB
668:There is a sixth sense, the natural religious sense, the sense of wonder. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
669:When we see Him, we will wonder that we ever could have disobeyed Him. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
670:Without expectations, what can topple the surprising wonder of the moment? ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
671:Your magnificence has made me a wonder. Your charm has taught me the way of love. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
672:Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
673:Cake is one of life's great wonders, and who would deny wonder to a child? ~ Lauren Child, #NFDB
674:Do you wonder, then, at the disciples' joy? Once they understood where Jesus ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
675:For the universe holds no greater wonder than the developing child, ~ Sally Fallon Morell, #NFDB
676:If philosophy begins in wonder, pedagogy typically begins in frustration. ~ Lee S Shulman, #NFDB
677:if you cannot ponder to wonder, you will always wonder to ponder ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
678:I look at her—at the girl I gave my heart to—and I wonder how I got so lucky. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
679:I see in the papers where Roy Guthrie committed suicide. Why, I wonder? ~ Robert E Howard, #NFDB
680:I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
681:I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult. ~ Rita Rudner, #NFDB
682:I wonder what right we have to believe our childhood dreams will come true. ~ Carrie Ryan, #NFDB
683:I wonder what would happen if the South had a ‘Be Kind to the Niggers Week’? ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
684:I wonder what would happen if you gave up your need to be right? ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
685:I wonder where a guy, an everyday Joe like myself can find a little action. ~ Beetlejuice, #NFDB
686:Next time, just give your enemy a smile, and he will wonder why? ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
687:People wonder why they have so little of God when God has so little of them. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
688:She [my mother] gave me permission to wonder, to dawdle, to daydream. ~ Toni Cade Bambara, #NFDB
689:Some speak of a return to nature, I wonder where they could have been? ~ Frederick Sommer, #NFDB
690:Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature—with ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
691:Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who's dreaming who? ~ Grant Morrison, #NFDB
692:The world shall perish not for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder ~ John B S Haldane, #NFDB
693:You’ll also wonder how you can feel so brave and so afraid at the same time. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
694:Concepts create idols of God, of whom only wonder can tell us anything. ~ Gregory of Nyssa, #NFDB
695:Every living thing, never forget, is a wonder of atomic engineering. Indeed, ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
696:For all of nature's wonder and beauty, it is also hostile and unpredictable. ~ Liam Neeson, #NFDB
697:I envy her her tears. I wonder what they feel like. I wonder if they hurt. ~ Harry Bingham, #NFDB
698:I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
699:Is it well or ill for us I wonder, that the future is hidden from our knowledge? ~ Various, #NFDB
700:Its better to shoot and miss, then to let time run out and wonder what if ~ Michael Jordan, #NFDB
701:I've always wanted to be Wonder Woman, of course. She had the greatest costume. ~ Kelly Hu, #NFDB
702:I wonder if it's rude for a deaf person to talk with food in their hands. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
703:I wonder- if nobody is listening to my voice, am I making any sound at all? ~ Alice Oseman, #NFDB
704:I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult. ~ Rita Rudner, #NFDB
705:I wonder if your mother was frightened by Peter Pan before you were born? ~ Charlotte Lamb, #NFDB
706:I wonder what it means when your grandson is more crotchety than you are. ~ Aaron McGruder, #NFDB
707:I wonder what people do when they have no place to go and no place to be. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
708:I wonder what the vintners buy one half so precious as the stuff they sell. ~ Omar Khayyam, #NFDB
709:I wonder where our legs have been while we've been gone?" mused Cap'n Bill, ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
710:Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn't mean he lacks vision. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
711:Poets cut corners so often it's a wonder poetry isn't written on round paper. ~ Sam Hooker, #NFDB
712:Sneaking out the back door to hand out with those hoodlum friends of mine. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
713:That which is the wonder of one age is the commonplace of the next. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder, #NFDB
714:The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural. ~ M T Anderson, #NFDB
715:We’ve died so many times now that we can only wonder why we still care. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
716:Wonder Woman was my first love, and now she’s [Charlotte Kemp Muhl) my last. ~ Sean Lennon, #NFDB
717:You are...beyond my imagination. It's a wonder you can be touched at all. ~ Meredith Duran, #NFDB
718:You know, I have seven children, so I guess I know some things about life. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
719:You’re a drunk, and it’s no wonder your husband stays in West Virginia. ~ Adriana Trigiani, #NFDB
720:As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
721:Handicaps are really to be used another way to benefit yourself and others. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
722:He experiences a connection where knowledge does not interfere with wonder. ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
723:How the parts of me disagree, it's a wonder this body doesn't shatter. ~ Josh James Riebock, #NFDB
724:I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti,#NFDB
725:If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so many enemies. ~ Teresa of vila, #NFDB
726:I like Stevie Wonder. I usually wind up playing the same old tapes in the car. ~ Elton John, #NFDB
727:It never gets easier, missing you. And sometimes I wonder if it ever will. ~ Heather Brewer, #NFDB
728:It's good to let your mind wonder, as long as you know where it's going ~ Benny Bellamacina, #NFDB
729:It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
730:I wish I had Wonder Woman's magic lasso like her to make people tell the truth. ~ Kylie Bax, #NFDB
731:I wonder how it takes you, that moment when everything turns to shadows. ~ Juliet Marillier, #NFDB
732:I wonder if it's medically possible to be addicted to another human being. ~ Simone Elkeles, #NFDB
733:I wonder – if nobody is listening to my voice, am I making any sound at all? ~ Alice Oseman, #NFDB
734:I wonder which you are. A human...or a demon? One day you will have to decide. ~ Kazue Kato, #NFDB
735:Mama is the greatest teacher, teacher of love, fearlessness and compassion. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
736:maybe that’s why I’m drawn to wonder: it pays no attention to priorities. ~ Durga Chew Bose, #NFDB
737:No wonder he has such nice teeth. They probably pay him in dental floss. ~ Janette Rallison, #NFDB
738:Obviously, after every film you do, you wonder what youre going to do next. ~ Madhur Mittal, #NFDB
739:Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
740:Sometimes I wonder if people don't want freedom as much as they want meaning. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
741:Sometimes I wonder if people don’t want freedom as much as they want meaning, ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
742:Sometimes, I wonder which is better: a blatant bigot or an oblivious racist. ~ Luvvie Ajayi, #NFDB
743:The following day, he would find a bruise and wonder how it got there. When ~ John Flanagan, #NFDB
744:This book is so interesting. I always wonder what's going to happen next. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
745:Troubled heart you'll know, problems have solutions, trust and I will show. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
746:Waarom zou een wonder geen wonder zijn alleen omdat een ander het niet ziet? ~ Arthur Japin, #NFDB
747:When the blind lead the blind, no wonder they both fall into - matrimony. ~ George Farquhar, #NFDB
748:When you're moving in the positive, your destination is the brightest star. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
749:When you touch me I die, just a little inside, I wonder if THIS COULD BE LOV€‡ ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
750:An empty canvas is a living wonder - far lovelier than certain pictures. ~ Wassily Kandinsky, #NFDB
751:As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
752:Develop a capacity for things like purpose, love, wonder, courage, and grace. ~ John Jantsch, #NFDB
753:Do you ever wonder sometimes why you were even born? Like what’s the point? ~ Felice Stevens, #NFDB
754:Exploitation, mutilation, mutations, confirmation to the evils of the world. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
755:How could I have looked at her with anything but wonder and respect and desire? ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
756:I just always wonder if I'm too obsessive about subjects. I try to avoid that. ~ Gary Gulman, #NFDB
757:I see their ugly and their beauty, and wonder how the same thing can be both. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
758:It was a seductive thing, full of promise. Full of warmth and wonder and lies. ~ J C Daniels, #NFDB
759:I wonder how you're supposed to know the exact moment when there's no more hope. ~ Sara Zarr, #NFDB
760:I wonder if she is the kind to dream of happy endings and never risk tragedy. ~ Amie Kaufman, #NFDB
761:I wonder what chairs think about all day: "Oh, here comes another asshole." ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
762:I wonder what it would feel like to laugh like that, with complete abandon. ~ Victoria Scott, #NFDB
763:I wonder what right we have to believe our childhood dreams will come true. My ~ Carrie Ryan, #NFDB
764:Ray Charles, who said to Stevie Wonder, Maybe we're white. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons, #NFDB
765:So, I'm the Eighth Wonder of the World. It's flattering and very, very funny. ~ Eva Longoria, #NFDB
766:The magic of compounding interest is truly the eighth wonder of the world! ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
767:Curiosity is the beginning of the mind, Wonder is the end of the mind. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
768:I always wonder whether I'll get treated differently with a different accent. ~ Jeremy Irvine, #NFDB
769:If this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few! ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #NFDB
770:If you judge the world by Facebook, you wonder why so many people take Prozac. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
771:Isabel sat up, and looked deep into his eyes. ‘What goes on in there, I wonder? ~ M L Stedman, #NFDB
772:Is it any wonder that to this day this Galilean is too much for our small hearts? ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
773:It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children. ~ Kingsley Amis, #NFDB
774:I wonder how it is that we are all connected despite our tremendous differences. ~ Sarah Ruhl, #NFDB
775:I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never really seen. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
776:I wonder if anyone works any harder at anything than kids do at being popular. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
777:I wonder if we are all condemned forever to live outside the grace of God. ~ Elizabeth Strout, #NFDB
778:I wonder, James, whether it is not too easy for a rich man to despise money ~ Patrick O Brian, #NFDB
779:I wonder what her fate will be?’’ ‘‘What we’ve all contrived to make it,’’ he ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
780:I wonder whether I will ever breathe air that is clear of his ghost. ~ Danielle Younge Ullman, #NFDB
781:Just the sounds of an old building settling, I tell myself . . . but I wonder. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
782:single women who wonder if they have missed something by not getting married. ~ Joan Anderson, #NFDB
783:The air is full of things we aren't saying, and I wonder if he feels it too. ~ Jennifer Niven, #NFDB
784:The duty of the artist lies in keeping alive a sense of wonder in the world. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
785:The wonder of the world and the pride of all mankind was Sarnath the magnificent. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
786:Thinking of the dead,” says my mother, “makes you wonder about the living … ~ Sholom Aleichem, #NFDB
787:This old world keeps spinnin’ round; It’s a wonder tall trees ain’t layin’ down. ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
788:When I look at Karin now, I wonder if I am suffering from post-traumatic joy. ~ Anne Youngson, #NFDB
789:A beat of time passed and then another until, wonder of wonders, the man smiled. ~ Mary Calmes, #NFDB
790:A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. ~ Rachel Carson, #NFDB
791:"Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder." ~ E.B. White #Blessings #SundayThoughts, #NFDB
792:Always keep your eyes open. Don't block your own sunshine. Be filled with wonder. ~ Wendy Mass, #NFDB
793:He's right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using. ~ William Goldman, #NFDB
794:I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
795:It makes me wonder which tendencies are decided by birth, and which by desire. ~ Karen Hawkins, #NFDB
796:It’s so quiet in my room that I wonder if this is what being dead sounds like. ~ Matthew Quick, #NFDB
797:I've never thought too hard about my convictions and wonder if it's too late now. ~ Stacey Lee, #NFDB
798:I wonder if politicians know less about the land, now that they campaign by air. ~ Andre Dubus, #NFDB
799:I wonder what either of us knows about love. Our love has never been tested. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
800:modern man tries to replace vital awe and wonder with a “How to do it” manual. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
801:Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand. ~ Neil Armstrong, #NFDB
802:Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden," Jacques said. And then: "I wonder why. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
803:Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden,’ Jacques said. And then: ‘I wonder why. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
804:Often, when I pray, I wonder if I'm not posting letters to a non-existent address. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
805:O lyric Love, half angel and half bird. And all a wonder and a wild desire. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
806:People fall in and out of love all the time. I wonder how they manage it. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
807:People often wonder whether we could harvest electrical power from lightning. ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
808:She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong to anyone ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, #NFDB
809:She is such a conduit of rage, it is a wonder she does not catch alight. ~ Imogen Hermes Gowar, #NFDB
810:Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between being cautious and being dead. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
811:Sometimes love hit the heart so fiercely that it was a wonder it kept beating. ~ Debora Geary, #NFDB
812:…the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder… ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
813:The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
814:We are supposed to call poison medicine and we wonder why we're always sick. ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
815:We had no ending,
no said good-bye.
For all my life,
I'll wonder why. ~ Lang Leav,#NFDB
816:We had no ending,
no said goodbye.
For all my life,
I'll wonder why. ~ Lang Leav,#NFDB
817:...and the night is so deep and dark that I wonder if the sun will ever come up. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
818:Don’t let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
819:Do you ever look at the people around you and wonder how you ended up with them? ~ Carolee Dean, #NFDB
820:I'm not interested in being Wonder Woman in the delivery room. Give me drugs. ~ Madonna Ciccone, #NFDB
821:Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization. Libraries ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
822:I show more blind rage than Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles wrestling in a steel cage. ~ Chino XL, #NFDB
823:It is more erotic to wonder if you're about to be kissed than it is to be kissed. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
824:I want them worried. I want them to wonder if I am what I actually am. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett, #NFDB
825:I wonder how someone can leave in the blink of an eye without you even noticing. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
826:I wonder if I could take back every 'I love you' ever said to you, would I do it? ~ Faraaz Kazi, #NFDB
827:I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die. ~ Yasunari Kawabata, #NFDB
828:Men were first led to the study of philosophy, as indeed they are today, by wonder. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
829:Mrs. Wix gave a sidelong look. She still had room for wonder at what Maisie knew. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
830:Music can measure how broad our horizons are. My mind wants to see to infinity. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
831:sometimes i wonder does god just not care are is he to busy ignoring your prayers ~ Lewis Black, #NFDB
832:Sometimes I wonder if I'm a character being written, or if I'm writing myself. ~ Marilyn Manson, #NFDB
833:Sometimes you forget you're famous. You wonder, Why is that person staring at me? ~ Bob Newhart, #NFDB
834:Sometimes you wonder when your handsome prince is going to show up and rescue you. ~ Alex Flinn, #NFDB
835:The place that haunts us and fuels us even as we wonder whether it truly exists. ~ Ben Monopoli, #NFDB
836:Therefore, even the lover of myth is a philosopher; for myth is composed of wonder. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
837:Through the ages all great men have taught truth and happiness can't be bought. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
838:Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation. ~ Bette Davis, #NFDB
839:Wonder does not make one industrious, for to feel astonished is to be disturbed. ~ Josef Pieper, #NFDB
840:And when you wonder where I am, just look up at the sun and that’s where I’ll be. ~ Fannie Flagg, #NFDB
841:And your skin is like honey. I wonder how you taste."
Bitter and tired. "Mhm. ~ Ilona Andrews,#NFDB
842:Curiosity is the mother of science, wonder is the mother of spirituality. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
843:Don't let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
844:I can't tell you his age, but when he was born the wonder drug was Mercurochrome. ~ Milton Berle, #NFDB
845:If you go to Bed Bath & Beyond without a coupon, people will wonder if you're OK. ~ John Pinette, #NFDB
846:I love you too," I say. No wonder the whole world writes songs about those words. ~ Cath Crowley, #NFDB
847:I'm not sure my belly button is exactly in the middle. I wonder what that means.. ~ Graham Parke, #NFDB
848:I’m starting to wonder if my inner vixen is just my pretty way of saying inner slut. ~ Aria Cole, #NFDB
849:I no longer wonder whether something like me should be allowed to exist. I do exist. ~ Laure Eve, #NFDB
850:It made me wonder just how many girls she’d abducted in the middle of the night. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
851:I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
852:I wonder if it's possible to be a Republican and a Christian at the same time. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
853:I wonder if you fall forever and ever and never touch down, is it still falling? ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
854:Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
855:No wonder my family left me. They were right. Look at me. I truly am a monster. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
856:people around me and I wonder if we aren’t all destined to leave a trail of damage. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
857:The capacity to still feel wonder is essential to the creative process. ~ Donald Woods Winnicott, #NFDB
858:The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder. ~ Richard Bach, #NFDB
859:… the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder … ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
860:There may be a brighter star. But through my eyes the light of you is all I see. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
861:This is *our* Universe, our museum of wonder and beauty, our cathedral. ~ John Archibald Wheeler, #NFDB
862:Too many people die in hospitals, and if you can’t be helped, you have to wonder why. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
863:We forget the little things, so it's no wonder some of us screw up the big things. ~ Neil Cavuto, #NFDB
864:When life gives you lemons make grape juice and let the world wonder how you did it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
865:Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. ~ Plato Theaetetus, 155, #NFDB
866:You may wonder, 'How can I leave it all behind if I am just coming back to it? ~ Stephen Foster, #NFDB
867:A mind so dark it made one wonder if the Renaissance had ever really taken place. ~ John Berryman, #NFDB
868:Ay, marriage is the life-long miracle, The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh. ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
869:CUSTOMER: Oh, look, these books are all signed. (Pause) I wonder who signed them ? ~ Jen Campbell, #NFDB
870:He would wonder how much a man could take before he reduced himself to nothing. He ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
871:I’d rather know how you feel than hope and wonder and delude myself for weeks on end… ~ Dan Wells, #NFDB
872:Immortality is only for the gods," he whispered. "I wonder how they can stand it. ~ Barry Hughart, #NFDB
873:Immortality is only for the gods,” he whispered. “I wonder how they can stand it. ~ Barry Hughart, #NFDB
874:In belief, there is hope and wonder. In seeing, there is often question and doubt. ~ Hazel Gaynor, #NFDB
875:It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
876:I wonder if, as a society, we will ever be able to call someone a jive tofurkey. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
877:I wonder why a girl who is so obviously passionate is so adamantly against passion. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
878:Knowledge and wonder are the dyad of our worthy lives as intellectual beings. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
879:Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
880:Sometimes I wonder if we live life by reliving life, rather than by living life. ~ Michael Landon, #NFDB
881:The front pattern DOES move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman, #NFDB
882:The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. —RALPH SOCKMAN ~ Sam Keen, #NFDB
883:The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. ~ Jacques Yves Cousteau, #NFDB
884:The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. ~ Jacques Yves Cousteau, #NFDB
885:We wake out of our dreams and wonder where the blood in our hands came from. ~ Charles D Ambrosio, #NFDB
886:What on earth was Henry talking about?'
'His soul. I wonder where he keeps it. ~ John Mortimer,#NFDB
887:What's the point of being young if you're not going to make new things, I wonder? ~ Fran Lebowitz, #NFDB
888:Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature. ~ Mortimer Adler, #NFDB
889:You," she told him, "are so full of shit, it's a wonder your eyes don't turn brown. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
890:After the moon went down, the heaven was a thing to wonder at for stars. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
891:And I wonder if anyone is really happy. I hope they are. I really hope they are. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
892:As I pen these words to leave a lasting record, I wonder myself where it all began. ~ Richard Peck, #NFDB
893:Before you wonder "Am I doing things right?" wonder "Am I doing the right things?" ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
894:Economists are people who wonder if what works in reality can also work in theory. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
895:I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in a new rebirth of wonder. ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti, #NFDB
896:I guess I wonder what it would be like, to be living their live instead of mine. ~ Corey Ann Haydu, #NFDB
897:In a moment of terrible heartbreak, he (The Sweep) had taught her to see wonder. ~ Jonathan Auxier, #NFDB
898:Instead of thinking, “I wonder if she’ll like me,” think, “I wonder what she’s like? ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
899:It’s no wonder I can’t get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they’re tight. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
900:I wonder... am I really a bastard or am I just really good at thinking like one? ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
901:I wonder what children whose parents have money think about in their spare time. ~ Gary Shteyngart, #NFDB
902:I wonder what it's like to live in Tinaville. I get the feeling it's very shiny there. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
903:I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, #NFDB
904:Language is such an imprecise vehicle I sometimes wonder why we bother with it. ~ Karen Joy Fowler, #NFDB
905:None but God would ever have thought of justifying me. I am a wonder to myself. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
906:Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life. ~ Vaclav Havel, #NFDB
907:Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life. ~ V clav Havel, #NFDB
908:The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive. ~ Carlos Castaneda, #NFDB
909:the Mandrill with his multicolored wonder ass that he used to bedazzle opponents. ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
910:The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
911:They say religion is about love, but you wonder how much of it really is about fear. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
912:This place is alive," Sunni said in wonder. "Things are moving. Inside a painting. ~ Teresa Flavin, #NFDB
913:To know how to wonder and question is the first step of the mind toward discovery. ~ Louis Pasteur, #NFDB
914:Did you ever wonder what life would be like if you'd had enough oxygen at birth? ~ Cherise Sinclair, #NFDB
915:Has it ever occurred to you to wonder if the history we teach our children is a lie? ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
916:He was a broken man, and it made me wonder – can two broken souls make one whole person? ~ K I Lynn, #NFDB
917:How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? ~ Socrates, #NFDB
918:I'm really very visually attracted to Wonder Woman. She just looks great on the page. ~ David Finch, #NFDB
919:Is it any wonder that no truly respectable society has ever trusted its artists? ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
920:It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children. ~ Kingsley Amis, #NFDB
921:I wonder, he wondered, if any human has ever felt this way before about an android. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
922:I wonder what Piglet is doing," thought Pooh. "I wish I were there to be doing it, too. ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
923:Maybe the whole point of the dancers is just to bring a little wonder into our lives. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
924:My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder. ~ Emma Watson, #NFDB
925:No one needs a cat . . . until you get one and wonder why you never had one before. ~ Kendra Elliot, #NFDB
926:Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
927:Now I wonder why a man lives so long he doesn’t even know the world he’s in anymore. ~ Tim Johnston, #NFDB
928:Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
929:Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it. ~ Patti Davis, #NFDB
930:Sometimes when I play that old six-string, I think about you, wonder what went wrong. ~ Bryan Adams, #NFDB
931:Taking care of myself is a big job. No wonder I avoided it for so long. —ANONYMOUS ~ Melody Beattie, #NFDB
932:... the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder... ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
933:The world's full of wonder, he said. Or at least horror that looks wondrous from afar. ~ Luke Scull, #NFDB
934:Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature. ~ Mortimer J Adler, #NFDB
935:Wunderkammer or “wonder room”—what the English would call a cabinet of curiosities. ~ Donnie Eichar, #NFDB
936:A lot of people wonder, what is the blues? Well, I'm gonna tell you what the blues is. ~ Howlin Wolf, #NFDB
937:Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! 'I wonder how many miles I've ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
938:First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
939:Hollywood is a community that's so inbred, it's a wonder the children have any teeth. ~ Barry Diller, #NFDB
940:I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
941:I know there is infinity beyond ourselves. I wonder if there is infinity within. ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
942:In love, it is better to know and be disappointed, than to not know and always wonder. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
943:It is a common experience among jailbirds to wake up and wonder why they are in jail ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
944:It’s only when a man like me stops laughing that people wonder if something is wrong. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
945:It’s such a wonder how people can diminish the worth of your relationship. ~ Joanne Crisner Alcayaga, #NFDB
946:It was God's word that made us; is it any wonder that His word should sustain us? ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
947:I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places? ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
948:I wonder how long it will take for me to feel as adult inside as I look outside. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
949:I wonder if it's possible to start a new relationship without hurting someone else. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
950:I wonder if they were aware of the power of complimentary alcohol during World War I. ~ Pawan Mishra, #NFDB
951:I wonder why I still want to slap her. I must be a very mean and unforgiving person. ~ Cathy Cassidy, #NFDB
952:Makes you wonder what else people might tell you if you just keep asking questions. ~ Kelly Corrigan, #NFDB
953:Mother’s lips are squeezed so tight, it’s a wonder they don’t turn to diamonds. ~ Alaya Dawn Johnson, #NFDB
954:My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy. ~ Michael Palin, #NFDB
955:Of all the needs that we have right now, more than anything we need a time for love. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
956:One begins to wonder if all the most interesting problems in physics are now in biology. ~ Nick Lane, #NFDB
957:She said the music made her wonder, Does it alter us more to be heard, or to hear? ~ Madeleine Thien, #NFDB
958:taken. No wonder Tack insisted I bring The Book of Shhh; he left clues for me in it. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
959:The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural. ~ Matthew Tobin Anderson, #NFDB
960:THE ONLY THING WE REQUIRE TO BE GOOD PHILOSOPHERS IS THE FACULTY OF WONDER. Babies ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
961:The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
962:There went the brainless wonder again, stiffening up like a reprimanded corporal. ~ Julie Ann Walker, #NFDB
963:The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
964:Uh . . .” said Tyson, staring in wonder at the god. “Yes, well said,” Hephaestus agreed. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
965:When I do a Western, I often wonder what I would have really done in that situation. ~ Kevin Costner, #NFDB
966:When someone tells me to 'just relax,' I wonder why they don’t hand me a book? ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
967:Wonder at what you don’t know is the source of the wisdom you might one day achieve. ~ Eric Greitens, #NFDB
968:You wonder why I only talk about my personal life. But that's all I've ever done. ~ Gabriel Iglesias, #NFDB
969:All night, this soft rain from The distant past. No wonder I sometimes Waken as a child. ~ Ted Kooser, #NFDB
970:As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I'd still be alive by now. ~ Ben Kingsley, #NFDB
971:Every time a child, any child, is born, it is new - and different; that is the wonder. ~ Rumer Godden, #NFDB
972:gravity, n. I imagine you saved my life. And then I wonder if I'm just imagining it. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
973:He looked at her in silent wonder for a moment, happy beyond words to be with her ~ F Marion Crawford, #NFDB
974:Hope had gone so white, it was a wonder someone didn't accuse her of being a Strigoi. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
975:I wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
976:I wonder if any of us ever really knows another person?” she replied, sounding wistful. ~ Ruth Reichl, #NFDB
977:I wonder if anyone gets through childhood without being broken. I certainly did not. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
978:I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
979:I wonder who drove all the way up here to leave this piece of hate mail for the dead. ~ Nova Ren Suma, #NFDB
980:I wonder why it is that the countries with the most nobles also have the most misery? ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
981:I wonder why things always seem most real to us when we lose them, he said softly. ~ Michael Prescott, #NFDB
982:Julie Andrews has a wonderful British strength that makes you wonder why they lost India. ~ Moss Hart, #NFDB
983:No wonder is greater than any other wonder, and if once explained ceases to be a wonder. ~ Leigh Hunt, #NFDB
984:No wonder you and Jace like each other so much. You're both crazy walking arsenals. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
985:Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out... ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
986:Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it. ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
987:She also could not help but wonder whether he knew that his hat was on backwards. ~ Michael C Grumley, #NFDB
988:Sometimes I wonder if the bars make the monsters and not the other way around. ~ Carmen Maria Machado, #NFDB
989:Sometimes I wonder whether I actually miss him, or I miss the idea of him, you know? ~ Serenity Woods, #NFDB
990:The art of being a warrior is to balance the wonder and the terror of being alive. ~ Carlos Castaneda, #NFDB
991:The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
992:The word God asks a question and then answers it before there is any chance to wonder. ~ Miranda July, #NFDB
993:the world is a wonder, but the portions are small” —Rebecca Hazelton, “Slash Fiction ~ Rebecca Makkai, #NFDB
994:The world’s full of wonder,” he said. “Or at least horror that looks wondrous from afar. ~ Luke Scull, #NFDB
995:When we see a man with bad shoes, we say it is no wonder, if he is a shoemaker. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
996:Who would you be, I wonder, by those marks If I had moths to friend as I have flowers? ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
997:Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
998:You can master tantric yogic poly-orgasmic Wonder Sex but you're still gonna die alone. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
999:You go through stages where you wonder whether you are Christ, or just looking for him. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
1000:You must stop worrying about why things happen and wonder what they mean when they do. ~ Joy Williams, #NFDB
1001:Becoming a junior usher at a black church was my entry into the wonder of worship. ~ Isaiah Washington, #NFDB
1002:First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first. I ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
1003:For nothing is as healing to the soul and the world's soul as poetry and wonder." The ~ Karpov Kinrade, #NFDB
1004:Fully enjoy the wonder and beauty of each instant. ~ Paramahansa YoganandaBlessed weekend to everyone☀, #NFDB
1005:Her smile doesn't look any more real than mine. I wonder if she has to practice too. ~ Brenna Yovanoff, #NFDB
1006:I can't help but wonder what will happen when fantasy and reality finally collide. ~ Elizabeth Eulberg, #NFDB
1007:Ignore her. She hasn't been laid in, like, in a week. It's a wonder she's still alive. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
1008:I'm not one of those that can see the cat in the dairy and wonder what she's there for. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
1009:I urge a willingness to reserve a place in rational science for non-rational wonder. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1010:I wonder how people decided that women were supposed to shave their legs and armpits ~ Natalie Portman, #NFDB
1011:I wonder how they convince their conscience believing in myths and fallacious stories. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
1012:I wonder how we got to the point where he's still crying over us, and I'm still just mad. ~ Nyrae Dawn, #NFDB
1013:I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
1014:I wonder if real art comes when you build the thing that they don't have a prize for yet. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1015:I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
1016:I wonder what it would be like to be with a boy who blushes when he looks at my skin. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
1017:I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business.
The day you die. ~ Yasunari Kawabata,#NFDB
1018:Kenny Burrell is a great musician and his music has helped to make me what I am today. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1019:Saying yes all the time won't make me Wonder Woman. It will make me a worn out woman. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1020:Saying yes all the time won’t make me Wonder Woman. It will make me a worn-out woman. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1021:Sometimes it was what you left unsaid or undone that drew you into a state of wonder. ~ Garrard Conley, #NFDB
1022:Sometimes I wonder, if somebody taught her sign language, maybe she’d still be alive. ~ Rebecca Skloot, #NFDB
1023:Taking care of myself is a big job.
No wonder I avoided it for so long. —ANONYMOUS ~ Melody Beattie,#NFDB
1024:The man called Kilimanjaro West watched with wonder and delight and everything was new. ~ Ian McDonald, #NFDB
1025:This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
1026:...this two-way hatred. I don’t understand it. I wonder how much of it is caused by fear? ~ Judy Blume, #NFDB
1027:Why has there never been a holiday where peace is celebrated all throughout the world? ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1028:With intellectual curiosity the world will always be full of magic and wonder. ~ Marjorie Pay Hinckley, #NFDB
1029:Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
1030:Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature. If ~ Mortimer J Adler, #NFDB
1031:Eaters of Wonder Bread
Must be underbred.
So little to eat.
Where's the wheat? ~ Roy Blount Jr,#NFDB
1032:For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1033:HAS YOUR FAITH LOST ITS WONDER? HAVE YOU TAKEN YOUR EYES OFF OF HIM WHO IS TRULY WONDERFUL? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1034:If this is what it's like to be human, he thought, no wonder the world is so fucked up. ~ Daryl Gregory, #NFDB
1035:Ignore idiots with narrow definitions od beauty. They are blind to life's imperfect wonder. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
1036:Infinite knowledge can never wonder. All wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance. ~ Harold Bloom, #NFDB
1037:information, they wonder whether it may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1038:I think I get the picture.” She shakes her head in dull wonder. “It’s as if the guy knew ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1039:It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1040:I wonder how it takes you, that moment when everything turns to shadows. - Somerled. ~ Juliet Marillier, #NFDB
1041:I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson, #NFDB
1042:I wonder how much it would take to buy a soap bubble, if there were only one in the world. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1043:I WONDER IF PEOPLE REALIZED THE PAIN THEY CAUSE WITH THEIR MEAN SPEAKING AND JUDGMENTS ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
1044:I wonder if whoever invented World of Warcraft realizes it’s practice for sociopaths. ~ Lisa Scottoline, #NFDB
1045:I wonder what Piglet is doing," thought Pooh.
"I wish I were there to be doing it, too. ~ A A Milne,#NFDB
1046:I wonder what's killed more men over the years. Wild animals? Or masculine taunts? ~ Edward W Robertson, #NFDB
1047:No wonder fairies run away from pain. They like to be entertained, and it’s awfully boring. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
1048:Red-haired, black-lipped, club-footed, and blink-eyed; if you're a good man, you're a wonder! ~ Martial, #NFDB
1049:Sometimes I wonder if it was right for us to keep things from him when you were younger. ~ Shari Lapena, #NFDB
1050:Sometimes I wonder if the human race isn't collectively as mad as a sack of door knobs. ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
1051:Then again, maybe that’s why I’m drawn to wonder: it pays no attention to priorities. ~ Durga Chew Bose, #NFDB
1052:To exist is literally amazing—but that same wonder is also burdened with a finite end. ~ Matthew Mather, #NFDB
1053:To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB
1054:We free our own minds
each time we pause to wonder
whether we are free. ~ Eric Micha el Leventhal,#NFDB
1055:What puts me in a vulnerable state? Beauty, wonder, surprise, mystery. Stuff like that. ~ Damian Kulash, #NFDB
1056:Yes, the wonder of God, the glory of creation. We should enjoy it and not run from it. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
1057:You Americans and your gun laws. So easy to get hold of. No wonder so many people get shot. ~ Matt Shaw, #NFDB
1058:Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? ~ John Green, #NFDB
1059:Energy, curiosity, and wonder are not products of age. They’re byproducts of what we do. ~ Eric Greitens, #NFDB
1060:Everything but me seemed utterly certain of itself. The sky didn’t wonder where it was. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1061:haven’t seen Imhotep in millennia. I wonder what he’s up to. Perhaps I should Google him— ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1062:He will hold her and wonder, very briefly, about the future that loving her will cost him. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
1063:How an open palm could meet her cheek with anything but wonder, he would never understand. ~ Tania James, #NFDB
1064:I live in Brooklyn. By choice. Those ignorant of its allures are entitled to wonder why. ~ Truman Capote, #NFDB
1065:I'm certainly not the lead of the film 'Wonder Woman' and I don't have a problem with that. ~ Chris Pine, #NFDB
1066:It is no wonder he wins every game. He has never done a thing in his life exept play games ~ Henry James, #NFDB
1067:It's my new single - please buy it so we can get Christmas gifts for the kids this year. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1068:I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws? ~ Alice Hoffman, #NFDB
1069:I wonder if a man meditating slowly inside a fast-moving car is moving fast or slowly. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
1070:I wonder if it's possible to have happiness without it being at someone else's expense. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
1071:I wonder what Dulcie tastes like. I wonder if she'd let me bite hard enough to find out. ~ Stylo Fantome, #NFDB
1072:Life is too wonderful, too full, too short and strength too limited to contain its wonder. ~ Ruth Draper, #NFDB
1073:Mr. Doctor, that loose gown becomes you so well I wonder your notions should be so narrow. ~ Elizabeth I, #NFDB
1074:No wonder I worried about talking dirty; talking in general seemed to escape me. ~ Jordan Castillo Price, #NFDB
1075:Oh all the world is a little queer, except thee and me, and sometimes, I wonder about thee. ~ Keri Hulme, #NFDB
1076:Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1077:That's your pitch to women? Let's get naked?" He snorted. "No wonder your balls are blue. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
1078:There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. ~ Brian Aldiss, #NFDB
1079:wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture. When ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1080:All spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and nature is a window into that wonder. ~ Richard Louv, #NFDB
1081:As I’ve said before, no wonder we think God has abandoned us; we’ve abandoned ourselves. ~ Melody Beattie, #NFDB
1082:...but the sea of stars was a work of wonder and a source of solace.
The Forbidden Door. ~ Dean Koontz,#NFDB
1083:Contrary to what people are saying, you can't go by what people say, but by their spirit. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1084:I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1085:I do wonder why women are always hemorrhaging in American literature.
-Pat Peoples ~ Matthew Quick,#NFDB
1086:It was really a fascinating book—no wonder he hadn’t noticed how fast the time had passed. ~ Robert Bloch, #NFDB
1087:I want to make my mark,' he says.
But what target, I wonder, are you going to hit? ~ Cecil Castellucci,#NFDB
1088:I wonder if this love will crack open my chest and split me in half. It's scary, this love. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
1089:I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
1090:Magic is an expression of the unlimited capacity of mystery and wonder in the world. ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
1091:None but God would ever have thought of justifying me. I am a wonder to myself. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1092:Nothing makes the light, the wonder, the treasure stand out so well as darkness. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Est s, #NFDB
1093:One question always leads to another question. Some things are better to wonder about. ~ Christopher Pike, #NFDB
1094:There are a lot of things happening that show us that this, right now, is a time to love. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1095:The universe was alive with staccato radio chatter and art and curiosity and wonder and change. ~ Exurb1a, #NFDB
1096:This year I am choosing to live beyond my wildest dreams. I wonder where they'll take me. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
1097:What, I wonder, are the social consequences of life in a country that has no use for history? ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB
1098:What would that be like? To never have an identity of your own? No wonder they call him mad. ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
1099:When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all ~ Paul Simon, #NFDB
1100:With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago. ~ Alan Brennert, #NFDB
1101:Women were meant to suffer;
no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love. ~ Charles Bukowski,#NFDB
1102:Wonder Woman and a gay dementor. It doesn’t bode well for the survival of the species. ~ Becky Albertalli, #NFDB
1103:Even when I write a song, lots of times I think - I wonder what my dad would think of this song. ~ SonReal, #NFDB
1104:George theThird Ought never to have occurred. One can only wonder At so grotesque a blunder. ~ E C Bentley, #NFDB
1105:I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - an endless prospect of magic and wonder. ~ Ansel Adams, #NFDB
1106:If you believe that God makes miracles you have to wonder if Satan has a few up his sleeve. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
1107:I hold the gun & wonder if an entry wound in the night would make a hole wide as morning ~ Ocean Vuong, #NFDB
1108:I never wanted to lose out on an acting job and wonder if I hadn't been trained enough. ~ David Alan Grier, #NFDB
1109:I often wonder if we could not solve the world's problems on a similar basis of harmony. ~ Artur Rodzinski, #NFDB
1110:I sometimes wonder whether you think you have been sent into the world for your own amusement. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1111:Is there any more natural expression of excitement, wonder, or awe than raising your hands? ~ Chris Tomlin, #NFDB
1112:It made me wonder how other people saw me. Not that I had any way of knowing, of course. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1113:I wonder how you survived with those sugary lips; maybe there is no ant in your territory. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
1114:I wonder if a few drops of a melting soul aren't what make a really fine loaf of bread. ~ Marlena de Blasi, #NFDB
1115:I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!- Elizabeth Bennet ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1116:I wonder why people work so hard to become politicians just in order to do something wrong. ~ Masuji Ibuse, #NFDB
1117:Mama gives you money for Sunday school, you trade yours for candy after church is through. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1118:Oh, the humanity....
It was a wonder Rhage hadn't blinded himself with all that pop culture. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
1119:Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. That pursuit fills me with wonder. ~ Bill Nye, #NFDB
1120:She lost God so smoothly and painlessly she had to wonder what she'd ever meant by the word. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
1121:The life we've been leading couldn't last forever. It's a wonder it lasted as long as it did. ~ Jack Vance, #NFDB
1122:There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. ~ Brian W Aldiss, #NFDB
1123:What is it that makes every man stare into a fire, I wonder. Does each see the same thing? ~ Ryan Winfield, #NFDB
1124:When I came to America in the '60s, it was the place to be. I wonder if I'd come here today. ~ Helmut Jahn, #NFDB
1125:When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school; It's a wonder I can think at all. ~ Paul Simon, #NFDB
1126:When someone starts to change, and it’s obvious, it's sort of natural to wonder why. Right? ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
1127:(Who but a drunk, I wonder looking back, could sit on the porch alone and get in an argument?) ~ Mary Karr, #NFDB
1128:Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
1129:Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time. ~ Diane Ackerman, #NFDB
1130:After recent events, one might wonder if the macroeconomy is the domain of any economist. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
1131:Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1132:Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside of you? ~ John Green, #NFDB
1133:Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder? ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
1134:He could heal them at once, but they prefer to wait for an angel and a wonder. To ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1135:He glanced at her, musing on the wonder of a beautiful woman with a disagreeable personality. ~ J G Farrell, #NFDB
1136:How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I'll say that. Wonder and terror. ~ Keanu Reeves, #NFDB
1137:I didn't truly understand the depth of my roots until I was old enough to wonder and care. ~ Aeriel Miranda, #NFDB
1138:if I gave up—” “Then you would begin to know the wonder and adventure of living in me, ~ William Paul Young, #NFDB
1139:I have such unmanageable thoughts,’ returned his sister, ‘that they will wonder.’ ‘Then ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1140:Is it only humans that look up with wonder at the stars and the vastness of the universe? ~ Gregory Colbert, #NFDB
1141:It was the first time in years I didn’t wonder if my father was out there, looking at it too. ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
1142:I wonder what all those Chinese poets sound like in Chinese. I like their distilled quality. ~ Tom Verlaine, #NFDB
1143:I wonder whether he is the real thing, or only the bundle of eccentricities he appears.”106 ~ Edmund Morris, #NFDB
1144:Life is so full of portents and signs and symbols that it's a wonder not everyone is a writer. ~ Susan Juby, #NFDB
1145:Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude (1870), #NFDB
1146:Never encourage a man to cook breakfast; it cause him to wonder if women are necessary. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
1147:Never lose the child like wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others. ~ Randy Pausch, #NFDB
1148:No wonder being a real Christian isn't popular. Who wants to suffer so they can find joy? ~ Michelle Sutton, #NFDB
1149:Oh, those wonder-filled evenings when acting enables me for a short moment to have more life. ~ Liv Ullmann, #NFDB
1150:Penryn: "Oh, I wonder if I can find a pink sheath for Pooky Bear. Maybe with little rhinestones? ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
1151:Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies, Im Not Cute Or Built To Fit A Fashion Models Size. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1152:Shitty weather. You wonder how people can raise the strength to go out and kill one another. ~ H kan Nesser, #NFDB
1153:Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under. ~ A E Housman, #NFDB
1154:There is another possibility: not the end of nature, but the rebirth of wonder and even joy. ~ Richard Louv, #NFDB
1155:The universe is an amazingly fickle and eventful place, and our existence within is a wonder. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1156:Why do you want me?"
"You rescue lost people for a living. Is it any wonder you found me? ~ Layla Reyne,#NFDB
1157:Wonder about mistress courses, certification, resumes. Perhaps you are not really qualified. ~ Lorrie Moore, #NFDB
1158:You kissed me like that when I was a blushing bride ...? I wonder what I was blushing about? ~ Gracie Allen, #NFDB
1159:You wonder if God has a place for a person like you. Find your answer in the Bethlehem stable. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1160:After a while, just staying alive becomes a full-time job. No wonder we need a vacation. ~ Michael Zadoorian, #NFDB
1161:Animals are a continuous source of inspiration and wonder to me. I would love to play a dog. ~ James Ransone, #NFDB
1162:But nope, she looks incredibly stupid right now, and I wonder if she can be any more perfect. ~ Nina G Jones, #NFDB
1163:Don’t you wonder sometimes,” sang Bowie all the way to Kinshasa, “about sound and vision? ~ Aleksandar Hemon, #NFDB
1164:His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about. ~ Jess Walter, #NFDB
1165:In Ali change creation faith growth hope humor life living Muhammad Ali transformation wonder ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
1166:I often wonder what I will be remembered in history for. Scholar? Military hero? Builder? ~ Ferdinand Marcos, #NFDB
1167:I think we read about things we don’t have. Things we wonder about, want to see in the world. I ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB
1168:It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start ~ Ron Rash, #NFDB
1169:It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper? ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
1170:I wonder if novels work for women because they give us a safe place to talk about our ish. ~ Jennifer Weiner, #NFDB
1171:I wonder if to stare into the face of God will drive me crazy. (I wonder who would blink first.) ~ Tim Allen, #NFDB
1172:I would listen to her soft voice and wonder if, somewhere deep inside, she was screaming, too. ~ Zo Marriott, #NFDB
1173:Just as heart is a fountain of unspoken words,
the universe is a womb of wonder weird worlds. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
1174:Never lose the awe and wonder of having a personal God get personally involved in your life. ~ Calvin Miller, #NFDB
1175:Stevie Wonder always smells so good... I'm like a DEA dog, I can smell people a block away! ~ Gloria Estefan, #NFDB
1176:The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn't. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
1177:The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn’t. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
1178:The Spirit is neither good nor bad, it runs where the wild heart leads" "Wisdom begins in wonder. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
1179:Though the familiar use of things about us take off our wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1180:To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1181:What a strange journey we embarked upon that afternoon, full of anguish and desire and wonder. ~ Esi Edugyan, #NFDB
1182:When I look back on my life, I wonder how I survived - my mother said I had a guardian angel. ~ Micky Dolenz, #NFDB
1183:wonder. As I wonder if somewhere out in this storm there is a clown selling balloons tonight. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1184:gravity, n.
I imagine you saved my life. And then I wonder if I'm just imagining it. ~ David Levithan,#NFDB
1185:If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
1186:I'm not saving you," I remind her. But something makes me wonder if she even wants me to. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
1187:Inigo Montoya: He's right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using. ~ William Goldman, #NFDB
1188:In journalism, there are only two stories - "Oh, the wonder of it," and "Oh, the shame of it." ~ Robert Reich, #NFDB
1189:It has been very erotic and provocative for people to wonder about my feelings for women. ~ Catherine Deneuve, #NFDB
1190:I wonder if our names determine our destiny, or if destiny leads us to choose certain names. ~ Michelle Moran, #NFDB
1191:I wonder what God was thinking about when he created the buttock.
Asking for a friend. ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe,#NFDB
1192:I wonder whether being a scientists daughter makes you so conflicted about free will and fate. ~ Lucy Hawking, #NFDB
1193:Now, being a science fiction writer, when I see a natural principle, I wonder if it could fail. ~ Rudy Rucker, #NFDB
1194:Sometimes, I look at my parents now and wonder what happened to make them the way they are. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
1195:Sometimes I wonder what it will be like to look back on all this. Whether it will seem real. ~ Michael Jordan, #NFDB
1196:The Kite Charm
For A Life Filled with High-Flying Fun, Play with the Wonder of A Child ~ Viola Shipman,#NFDB
1197:There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1198:We even refuse to be our true self with God- and then wonder why we lack intimacy with him. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
1199:We have a marriage of people of various cultures coming together. It's not a joke. It's real. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1200:When I look at you and you look at me,
I wonder what wonderful things you will be. ~ Emily Winfield Martin,#NFDB
1201:When it's over I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
1202:A lot of people thought I was going to be a one-hit wonder, so I had that chip on my shoulder. ~ Bubba Sparxxx, #NFDB
1203:And I wonder if that's what my scars really are: proof that I've put myself back together again. ~ Carrie Ryan, #NFDB
1204:Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him? ~ Bill Watterson, #NFDB
1205:Gaia has left us wonder wherever we go, if we only open our eyes to it." ~ Kevin Hearne Atticus ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
1206:Gods are not granted the power of choice; it is the price and the wonder of their godhead. ~ Robert Silverberg, #NFDB
1207:Having signed a few autographs in my time, I always wonder what the heck people do with them. ~ Jasper Carrott, #NFDB
1208:I don't want to have life figured out and then wonder, "What's next?" That seems scary to me. ~ Josh McDermitt, #NFDB
1209:If I could play any superhero, I'd probably want to play Wonder Woman. She's pretty awesome. ~ Fiona Gubelmann, #NFDB
1210:If there is one ‘constant’ in the structure and theme of the wonder tale, it is transformation. ~ Jack D Zipes, #NFDB
1211:I hear you're losing weight again, Mary Jane. Do you ever wonder who you're losing it for? ~ Alanis Morissette, #NFDB
1212:I'm a big child at heart. I think it's important to stay that way and not lose the wonder of life. ~ Pam Grier, #NFDB
1213:I sometimes wonder if fear isn’t just God’s way of saying, ‘Pay attention, this could be fun. ~ Craig Ferguson, #NFDB
1214:It's essential that a part of you not grow up. Childhood wonder gives us our spark and beauty. ~ Robin Quivers, #NFDB
1215:I wonder how it is possible to believe in religion and also believe nothing is wrong with you. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
1216:I wonder how many tears the ocean has swallowed, how much of the ocean is actually made of tears. ~ Anna Banks, #NFDB
1217:I wonder whoever put the word good with bye. It's stupid. There's nothing good about them. ~ Gwendolyn Heasley, #NFDB
1218:I wonder why rich people always grow fat I suppose it's because there's nothing to worry them. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1219:I wonder why you can always read a doctor's bill and you can never read his prescription. ~ Finley Peter Dunne, #NFDB
1220:I wonder...would you rather have 100 from an average person or 10 from someone who is outstanding ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
1221:No wonder dancing this way had been frowned upon in high school. This was practically foreplay. ~ Terri Osburn, #NFDB
1222:Sometimes it seems so easy to make people happy that I wonder why I don't do it more often. ~ C K Kelly Martin, #NFDB
1223:Sometimes I wonder how normal normal people are, and I wonder that most in the grocery store. ~ Elizabeth Moon, #NFDB
1224:That's the wonder of jazz, Mary," Johnny explained. "There's no right way and there's no order. ~ James Runcie, #NFDB
1225:The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1226:The real wonder is not that one man should be a genius, but that every man should not be. ~ Mary Hunter Austin, #NFDB
1227:Well, that explains a lot. Raised by wolves. No wonder the woman has completely lost the plot. ~ Barbra Annino, #NFDB
1228:What we need is change. I can't help but wonder if I might be the only person who can provide it. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
1229:What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture. ~ Robert Henri, #NFDB
1230:Why are we so hard on one another? I wonder. Hadn’t the world already given us challenges enough? ~ Pam Jenoff, #NFDB
1231:You can’t imagine what the Russian alphabet looks like. It’s no wonder people are illiterate. ~ Jonas Jonasson, #NFDB
1232:And with a last stardrop, a last circle, I arrive, and she's there, chemical wonder in her eyes. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
1233:Are you okay, man?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
It's a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again. ~ David Bellavia,#NFDB
1234:Enter the writing process with a childlike sense of wonder and discovery. Let it surprise you. ~ Charles Ghigna, #NFDB
1235:Even though we sometimes would not get a thing, we were happy with the joy the day would bring. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1236:Having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need. ~ Margaret Mead, #NFDB
1237:How long, I wonder, does it take a thing or a place or even a person to feel like home? ~ Lauren Baratz Logsted, #NFDB
1238:I often wonder if I was destined to be a composer. I think I decided and I followed my star. ~ Peter Sculthorpe, #NFDB
1239:I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
1240:Is it any wonder somebody like Donald Trump is racing through the presidential primary process? ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1241:I wish I could go home. I've been on the road since May. I wonder if my dogs still remember me ~ Brendan Fraser, #NFDB
1242:I wonder that no criminal has ever pleaded the ugliness of your city as an excuse for his crimes. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1243:I wonder why I never learn my lesson. It's feeling like the second chance and it's the first impression ~ Drake, #NFDB
1244:Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
1245:No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
1246:Questioners sooner or later end up in a library... And answers are dangerous; they kill your wonder. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1247:Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind. Then it passes off and I'm as intelligent as ever. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1248:That’s good, Marcia, because sometimes I wonder if you don’t realize just how much I love you. ~ Rachelle Ayala, #NFDB
1249:The art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man. ~ Carlos Castaneda, #NFDB
1250:Their hatred is so passionate that I can't help but wonder if they're attracted to each other. ~ Sarah Thornton, #NFDB
1251:The latter stage is apt to end in cynicism as we wonder what the one who praises really wants. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
1252:The sheer surprise, unbridled wonder,and exquisite joy of unexpected love. Love at first sight. ~ Cameron Dokey, #NFDB
1253:The wonder of all this - God looks at you at your lowest and loves you all the way up to the sky. ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
1254:This dangerous girl. This captivating beauty.
This destroyer of worlds and creator of wonder. ~ Ren e Ahdieh,#NFDB
1255:Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1256:Today 23 years ago dear Grandmama died. I wonder what she would have thought of a Labour Government. ~ George V, #NFDB
1257:And now I wonder which animal of us will eat the other first physically and last spiritually? ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
1258:And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew. ~ Oliver Goldsmith, #NFDB
1259:Do you ever wonder why music brings a soul to surface? What makes beauty work as well as pain? ~ Victoria Schwab, #NFDB
1260:For when it comes, she is gone, and sometimes I wonder whether she and I will ever love again. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
1261:Having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need. ~ Margaret Mead, #NFDB
1262:I close my eyes and wonder if people living in my special Hell are allowed a fuck-it pass in life. ~ Jewel E Ann, #NFDB
1263:I know. I seriously need to just give up men entirely. I wonder if Episcopalians can enter convents? ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
1264:Is it any wonder that for millions of men the only intimacy is physical, silent, and predictable? ~ Phil Donahue, #NFDB
1265:I sometimes wonder if necrophiliacs are really into dead people or if they just enjoy the quiet. ~ Doug Stanhope, #NFDB
1266:I sucked in so much air it was a wonder Hawk didn’t immediately pass out due to lack of oxygen. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1267:It makes me wonder if you live your life concerned about what other people might think about you. ~ Shannyn Leah, #NFDB
1268:It revealed a cruelty that really made one wonder if the universe was such a good idea after all. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
1269:I was focusing on the now. But that didn't mean I couldn't still wonder about what came after. ~ Robyn Schneider, #NFDB
1270:I wonder if he’s ever tasted salt water or got dizzy watching the tide pull away from his feet ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
1271:I wonder if she ever wants to trade lives with me, if only for the chance to punch something. ~ Scott Westerfeld, #NFDB
1272:I wonder what's worse-the invisible scars they leave or the visible scars I inflict upon myself? ~ Kathryn Perez, #NFDB
1273:I wonder what Talon would say. (Gallagher)
He would tell you not to piss me off. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1274:Love is like a booger, you pick and pick at it. Then when you get it you wonder how to get rid of it. ~ Mae West, #NFDB
1275:No wonder these people don’t believe in evolution. It obviously hasn’t worked in their favor. ~ Jeri Smith Ready, #NFDB
1276:People wonder how they are ever going to change their lives, but really it is frighteningly easy. ~ Chris Cleave, #NFDB
1277:Sarah: That's not fair! Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is? ~ Terry Jones, #NFDB
1278:Then I wonder if some people need a coach more than a therapist,” I said, thinking of Obligers. ~ Gretchen Rubin, #NFDB
1279:To hear Him, to know Him, and to understand the wonder of His love—one must trust Him completely. ~ Beth Wiseman, #NFDB
1280:We have all been brought into the world for some reason, and we must wonder why and hope to learn. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1281:When I see a large group of people, I wonder how many of them will eventually require autopsies. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
1282:Wonder takes our breath away, and makes room for new breath. That’s why they call it breathtaking. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
1283:Wonder Woman is lame. She flies around in an invisible jet, but she's not invisible. I don't get it. ~ Megan Fox, #NFDB
1284:After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1285:and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart. i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart). ~ E E Cummings, #NFDB
1286:As a leader, you have no right to have any employee wonder how they fit in and where they are going. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
1287:Even now, as we speak, people are having sex with animals. And we wonder why the animals attack us. ~ Dave Attell, #NFDB
1288:Ever wonder why the media never refers to 18 or 19 year old American soldiers as "armed teens"? ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
1289:He listened the way a cactus drinks rain—every word a precious drop in a world frugal with wonder. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
1290:He looked in wonder at angry people, wonder and uneasiness, as normal people look at the insane. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1291:"He picks up his dates in a van? No wonder he‘s such a hit with the ladies." - Jace about Simon ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1292:I also had Wonder Woman Underoos that I really liked. I actually wore them as an outfit to school. ~ Jennifer Sky, #NFDB
1293:If you can't see the joy and wonder to be found in genre fiction, that's your problem, not mine. ~ William Meikle, #NFDB
1294:Is it any wonder that I absent-mindedly take the entrance marked Aliens Only whenever I enter? ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
1295:It’s a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming into it. Tears from the very start. ~ Ron Rash, #NFDB
1296:I wonder if I'll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we're living or no life at all. ~ Susan Beth Pfeffer, #NFDB
1297:I wonder what words his headstone might carry: Loving husband, devoted father, merciless killer ~ Sharon J Bolton, #NFDB
1298:I wonder where we go when we die?”
“…Pittsburgh?”
“You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad? ~ Bill Watterson,#NFDB
1299:Love, over time, could either blossom or wither, become a source of wonder or a remembered ache. ~ Garrard Conley, #NFDB
1300:The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. G. K. CHESTERTON ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
1301:To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders...It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1302:We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling. ~ Henri Poincare, #NFDB
1303:What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
1304:You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot. ~ Eartha Kitt, #NFDB
1305:And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart [ i carry it in my heart ] ~ e e cummings, #NFDB
1306:Begin to see that life is very, very complex. It is made up of thousands of dimensions of wonder. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1307:Do not wonder if the common people speak more truly than those above them: they speak more safely. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1308:Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1309:Het mag een wonder heten dat zoveel mensen hun eigen en andermans jeugd hebben overleefd. ~ Olja Savi evi Ivan evi, #NFDB
1310:If that's what you call truth in this wicked world,
no wonder why you're so desperate to defend it. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
1311:Is that your real name?
Does it really matter?
It makes me wonder what else is not real. ~ Bret Easton Ellis,#NFDB
1312:It makes me wonder how many people have damaged their own lives by mistaking enablement for grace? ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1313:I've spent my entire life chasing wonder, and to me that word is synonymous with spirituality. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1314:I wonder if Stephen King ever uses dreams in his writing. You know, as yeast to make the plot rise. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1315:I wonder if you've got a minute."
I have many minutes, all of them used toward a common purpose. ~ Jodi Picoult,#NFDB
1316:I wonder why / no one ever told me / that the rainbow / and the treasure / were both within me. ~ Gerald Jampolsky, #NFDB
1317:Let your hands be clean; God loves clean hands and no wonder cleanliness is next to Godliness. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1318:My phone doesn't ring and the doorbell doesn't either and I begin to wonder whether I am still alive. ~ Sara Baume, #NFDB
1319:Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man? ~ Zhuangzi, #NFDB
1320:Olivia said that explanations were the thief of wonder, and that she was happy to live without one. ~ Hazel Gaynor, #NFDB
1321:Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder. ~ Eberhard Arnold, #NFDB
1322:S’nothing,” she says as she heads out the door. I wonder if she understands the depth of her talent. ~ S G Redling, #NFDB
1323:Their hatred is so passionate that I can't help but wonder if they're attracted to each other." S ~ Sarah Thornton, #NFDB
1324:There's so little wonder left in the world because we've seen everything one way or another'. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1325:The wonder is that communism lasted so long. But then again, modern poetry lasted a long time, too. ~ P J O Rourke, #NFDB
1326:To destroy wonder and mystery, is to destroy the only elements that make existence tolerable. ~ Clark Ashton Smith, #NFDB
1327:Use your heart to love somebody. And If your heart is big enough, use your heart to love EVERYBODY ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1328:When I'm 60, maybe, I'll look at my pile of papers and wonder, What really happened that year? ~ Christa McAuliffe, #NFDB
1329:Who invented the human heart, I wonder? Tell me and then show me the place where he was hanged. ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
1330:You understand nothing of—the horror—no wonder you can't write real books—you don't see—the horror— ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1331:after a minute, you continue writing.
she screams again.
you wonder how long this can go on. ~ Raymond Carver,#NFDB
1332:Finding your personal style is a rich journey of discovery, wonder, adventure, and excitement. ~ Alexandra Stoddard, #NFDB
1333:For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1334:He began to wonder with genuine concern just what sort of shithead the Pentagon had foisted on him. ~ Joseph Heller, #NFDB
1335:Hijacking by pseudoscience and bad science fiction is a threat to our legitimate sense of wonder. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1336:Horror gives place to wonder at your true account;
The rest outstrips our comprehension; we give up. ~ Aeschylus,#NFDB
1337:I hear they had our flag on their dressing room floor. I wonder if they'd like us to sign it? ~ Hayley Wickenheiser, #NFDB
1338:I know. I seriously need to just give up men entirely. I wonder if Episcopalians can enter
convents? ~ Meg Cabot,#NFDB
1339:I often wonder if I am entitled to be as happy as I am, given the amount of suffering in the world. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1340:I often wonder why God saw fit to limit man’s intelligence but to still allow him limitless stupidity. ~ Craig Zerf, #NFDB
1341:I really wonder sometimes what Savannah sees in the pre-pubescent man-girl that I call my brother. I ~ Meghan Quinn, #NFDB
1342:It made him wonder which pain was greater: to give up something precious, or to see it taken away. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
1343:It's a wonder you don't see the zebra being trotted out as a metaphor for racial harmony more often. ~ Dov Davidoff, #NFDB
1344:It scares me how fast I go from disliking to loving him, and I wonder if it’s this way for everyone. ~ Melissa Bank, #NFDB
1345:I wonder how long it will take the planet to tell us we can’t live here and the locks are changed. ~ Rudy Francisco, #NFDB
1346:I wonder if Luke would take a hit of tomato ketchup for me. I might ask him later. Just casually. ~ Sophie Kinsella, #NFDB
1347:I wonder, not for the first time, if shame and pride are merely two sides of the same coin. ~ Christina Baker Kline, #NFDB
1348:I wonder what the inside of your mouth tastes like and if you’d pull my hair when I go down on you. ~ Ainsley Booth, #NFDB
1349:Only a four-hundred-year-old vampire would wonder if a grad student could understand procrastination. ~ Chloe Neill, #NFDB
1350:Scripture brought me to the Gate of Paradise, and the mind stood in wonder as it entered. ~ Saint Ephrem the Syrian, #NFDB
1351:She's been used to hiding her feelings for so long, no wonder her manner can be a little awkward. ~ Sophie Kinsella, #NFDB
1352:She's my second chance, one I tried to throw away so many times it's a wonder she never gave up on me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1353:Some plays just come out of me, just on instincts. I'll make a play and wonder, How did I do that? ~ Roberto Alomar, #NFDB
1354:Sometimes I wonder if I got lulled into not wanting things because I grew up black in this country. ~ Kevin Eubanks, #NFDB
1355:The constrained lives of his characters made me wonder how my own existence might appear in his hands. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
1356:Throughout history, worship has been a wonder-filled response to the God who made a way to rescue us. ~ Mike Cosper, #NFDB
1357:We can distract ourselves with pleasure for only so long before beginning to wonder what the point is. ~ Jeff Goins, #NFDB
1358:We have all been brought into the world for some reason, and we must wonder why and hope to learn. My ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1359:When you come to do the film, it is not the time to wonder why you do it. It's just how to do it ~ Isabelle Huppert, #NFDB
1360:Who invented the human heart, I wonder? Tell me, and then show me the place where he was hanged. ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
1361:All that remained was the curiosity of it all. The wonder of the outside world beyond the veil of lies. ~ Hugh Howey, #NFDB
1362:But Froi looked around with wonder.
As if he had never seen the world from up so high before. ~ Melina Marchetta,#NFDB
1363:Did I see them waving?' said Mrs Liberty
'And particling, I shouldn't wonder' said the Alderman ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
1364:Guess what? Faisal Shahzad is a registered Democrat. I wonder if his SUV had an Obama sticker on it. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1365:He has been watching me sleep. I feel embarrassed and angry and flattered at the same time. I wonder ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
1366:Here is my music. It is all I have to tell you how I feel. Know that your love keeps my love strong. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1367:I always wonder why Republicans hate gay marriage, because they certainly don't hate gay prostitutes. ~ Margaret Cho, #NFDB
1368:If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving. ~ Jack McDevitt, #NFDB
1369:I no longer know where you are, and I walk on and wonder where the living goes
when it stops. ~ Charles Bukowski,#NFDB
1370:I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we've dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1371:Is it not a wonder of wonders? The quest “Who am I?” is the axe with which to cut off the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1372:It's not that simple or clear-cut - and I wonder if it ever is when it comes to matters of the heart. ~ Emily Giffin, #NFDB
1373:It's the last residue of our closeness with God, I reckon, the ability to see the wonder of things. ~ Celine Kiernan, #NFDB
1374:It takes 73 muscles to frown and only 14 to smile. No wonder grouchy people are always tired. ~ Suzanne Woods Fisher, #NFDB
1375:I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself." "Men sometimes are so," said her husband. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
1376:I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
1377:I wonder how it is that people's philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka, #NFDB
1378:I wonder why people you have to meet have to be such liars. They lie as if their lives depended on it. ~ Ry Murakami, #NFDB
1379:Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Behold the wonder! There He hang upon the cross! ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1380:Modern man has lost the sense of wonder
about the unknown and he treats it as
an enemy. ~ Laurens van der Post,#NFDB
1381:My first instinct, the product of a lifetime of insecurities, was to wonder what I had done wrong. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
1382:No one can tell if I’m laughing
or weeping. I wonder myself.
How can I be separated and yet in union? ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1383:Nothing lasts forever but we always try, and I just can't help but wonder why we let it pass us by ~ Amanda Marshall, #NFDB
1384:She wondered if the stars could sense the vibrations of human joy and wonder, of grief and despair. ~ Alison Croggon, #NFDB
1385:Sometimes I wake at night in the White House and rub my eyes and wonder if it is not all a dream. ~ Grover Cleveland, #NFDB
1386:Sometimes I wonder if I'm as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1387:The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught. ~ Henry Adams, #NFDB
1388:The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1389:The harpy’s eyes were wide with wonder. “So that’s Adriyel. No wonder it’s famous in poems and shit. ~ Thea Harrison, #NFDB
1390:The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
1391:The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
1392:There's a lot of people I'd like to write with, like Keith Urban or even as far out as Stevie Wonder. ~ Hunter Hayes, #NFDB
1393:We all have hearts.... If you have a heart, love somebody. If you have enough heart, love everybody. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1394:What a place to put a city, right on the front line of absolute zero. No wonder a cow burned it down. ~ Mark Helprin, #NFDB
1395:Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1396:With children like this having children of their own, it was no wonder the world was full of children. ~ Y ko Tawada, #NFDB
1397:...wonder admits to the existence of mystery...recognition of mystery allows the possibility of Truth. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1398:And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart [ i carry it in my heart ] ~ E E Cummings,#NFDB
1399:Don't wonder whether you have a call to go. Have you had a distinct call from Christ to stay at home? ~ George Wilson, #NFDB
1400:Elric offered Moonglum a smile that had gratitude in it. “You are—a good friend—I wonder why . . . ~ Michael Moorcock, #NFDB
1401:Everyones childhood plays itself out. No wonder no one knows the other or can completely understand. ~ Marilyn Monroe, #NFDB
1402:For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1403:Hey, Bogart. You and the wonder twins back off or the bedsheet gets it."
Harry Dresden, Death Masks. ~ Jim Butcher,#NFDB
1404:I always admired Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hulk - but I don't know if I'd be a very convincing hulk. ~ Lucy Liu, #NFDB
1405:I always thought that 'Good things happen to those who do the wave' No wonder I've been so confused ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1406:I don't want to die, obviously, but really, the wonder of life is amplified by the fact that it ends. ~ Dave Matthews, #NFDB
1407:I find this miraculous. I never cease to wonder at it. That words are more durable than anything... ~ Penelope Lively, #NFDB
1408:If I stretch my arms and wonder where my fingers are - that is all the space I need as a painter. ~ Willem de Kooning, #NFDB
1409:I guess because people are more aware of who I am, they're going to wonder about my personal life. ~ Victoria Justice, #NFDB
1410:I made her go because I knew she could do better and now I wonder if I should have just been better. ~ Atticus Poetry, #NFDB
1411:I’m trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. A nice thing to wonder about when you’re thirty. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
1412:I spend a lot of time thinking of the Hereafter - each time I enter a room I wonder what I'm here after. ~ Tim Conway, #NFDB
1413:I started to wonder what it might have felt like to live your life in a place someone else had carved. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1414:it seemed a great wonder that the world, which was so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty. ~ Norton Juster, #NFDB
1415:...it's not the medium that's the message - it's consciousness - the wonder of being able to wonder ... ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
1416:I used to wonder why it would hold on,” Sebastian says at last, “why it would cause such suffering. ~ Menna van Praag, #NFDB
1417:I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face. ~ Margaret Mitchell, #NFDB
1418:I wonder if anyone who needs a snappy song service can really appreciate the meaning of the cross. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr, #NFDB
1419:I wonder if sometimes you can miss something so much it breaks you, and still be happy you left. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson, #NFDB
1420:I wonder if we have a lot of sons running around saying, "I want a Dad." But you won't abide in anyone. ~ Judah Smith, #NFDB
1421:I wonder what it feels like to be a woman whose Christmas present must be bought in cash. Liberating. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
1422:Laughter is the most inexpensive and most effective wonder drug. Laughter is a universal medicine. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1423:My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
1424:No wonder Wonderland isn't funny to read anymore: We live there full time. We need a break from it. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
1425:Only, I wonder—the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly? ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1426:People look for greatness only in the extraordinary and completely overlook the wonder of the ordinary. ~ Ann Tatlock, #NFDB
1427:People who behave at forty as they did at twenty must sometimes wonder why their charm is not working. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
1428:Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1429:Sometimes I wish I could drive a car, but I'm gonna drive a car one day, so I don't worry about that. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1430:Sometimes I wonder if I’m falling in love with her. Sometimes I wonder how long I can pretend I’m not. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
1431:Stare too long at anything and you start to wonder. And where does wondering get you? Nowhere good. ~ Victoria Schwab, #NFDB
1432:What’s with books and soldiers? I wonder. The whole bloody army is turning into pansy intellectuals. ~ Mohammed Hanif, #NFDB
1433:When you're a kid you have this sense of wonder and wholeness and a strong sense of your own identity. ~ Hugo Weaving, #NFDB
1434:You ever wonder if Adam and Eve were just the puppies God dumped because they wouldn't house-train? ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1435:Always take some of the play, fun, freedom and wonder of the weekend into your week & your work ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, #NFDB
1436:A truth discovered always seems so plain and simple that we wonder why the discovery was so long delayed. ~ Vash Young, #NFDB
1437:Born through hard times, Ghetto child of mine. I wonder if you have to suffer for your father's crimes. ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
1438:But it’s not that simple or clear-cut—and I wonder if it ever is when it comes to matters of the heart. ~ Emily Giffin, #NFDB
1439:...don't settle for pap - our thoughts wander through eternity - experience the wonder of being alive... ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
1440:Every so often I wonder what on earth we are waiting for. Silence. For it to be too late, Madame. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
1441:For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1442:For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1443:He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1444:I feel thankful to God, first and foremost, allowing me to enjoy this 'smell the roses' kind of thing. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1445:If you're an actor and you don't act for a long time you sort of think, I wonder if I can still do it. ~ Michael Caine, #NFDB
1446:I often wonder if it’s the curse of old age, to feel young in your heart while your body betrays you. ~ Alyson Richman, #NFDB
1447:...I sometimes wonder if every living thing doesn't need kind words as much as sunshine and water. ~ Laura Amy Schlitz, #NFDB
1448:I sometimes wonder if the world is run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who mean it. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1449:It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1450:It's a new low for actresses when you have to wonder what is between her ears instead of her legs. ~ Katharine Hepburn, #NFDB
1451:I've thought a lot about those veils. I wonder if, every once in a while, someone is born without one. ~ Rebecca Stead, #NFDB
1452:I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.' 'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance. ~ Shirley Jackson, #NFDB
1453:I wonder if I should back off from our friendship sometimes, to make sure she's kept at arm's length. ~ Simone Elkeles, #NFDB
1454:I wonder what kind of sound it would make if I were to smash this glass against the side of his head. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
1455:May I never loose the Wonder, Oh the Wonder of Your Mercy! May I sing Your Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Amen! ~ Matt Redman, #NFDB
1456:Miracles is the sort of book that once you've read it you'll wonder where it's been all your life ~ Kathie Lee Gifford, #NFDB
1457:Nobody should want to wake up on November 9th and wonder whether there was more you could have done. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1458:One has to wonder, do we really want people to grow, or do we just want to be in control of the moment? ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1459:Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder. ~ Edward Hirsch, #NFDB
1460:Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
1461:The journey of patience involves relaxing, opening to what’s happening, experiencing a sense of wonder. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1462:They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's anyone left alive! ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
1463:Trying your best to bring the water to your eyes, thinking it might stop her from woopin' your behind. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
1464:Where humans are concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure. ~ Rohinton Mistry, #NFDB
1465:You don't have to pound your head after hearing a country song and wonder if you missed something. ~ Annette Funicello, #NFDB
1466:and I sometimes wonder if every living thing doesn’t need kind words as much as sunshine and water. ~ Laura Amy Schlitz, #NFDB
1467:Animals are good for the soul. Sometimes I wonder if I’m rescuing them or if it’s the other way around. ~ Melinda Leigh, #NFDB
1468:A Presbyterian minister recently said to me that science and religion share a sense of wonder. I agree. ~ Alan Lightman, #NFDB
1469:Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It's based on wonder. ~ Daniel Libeskind, #NFDB
1470:A tiger of a rather and a wolf of a brother. Sandwiched between the two, I wonder what my tomorrow holds. ~ Kazuo Koike, #NFDB
1471:Curiosity began my journey, which led to regret, which brings me always to wonder and dedication. ~ Christopher Cokinos, #NFDB
1472:Deconstruction glorifies the critic, humiliates the author, and makes the reader wonder why he bothered. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
1473:his fight has no panic in it. I wonder if he has any plans or if he is just as desperate as I am? He ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
1474:His love wrote the first chapters of my life and is the reason I never had to wonder if I was adored. ~ Melanie Shankle, #NFDB
1475:If you voluntarily quit in the face of adversity, you'll wonder about it for the rest of your life. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
1476:I love you, Daddy,” she says, slowly drifting off to sleep. I wonder how many more days I have with her. ~ River Savage, #NFDB
1477:I’m not sure if it’s because of us or because of the Enemy. I wonder who they think is the bigger threat. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
1478:I sometimes wonder if our world leaders are very smart and just putting us on, or very stupid and mean it. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1479:It's always a live experience - anything that happens around you. It's so easy to just put it to a song. ~ Wayne Wonder, #NFDB
1480:I wonder at the goodness of God, the generosity of my friends, the bounty of my lot. I do not repine. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
1481:I wonder how many tears the ocean has swallowed, how much of the ocean is actually made up of tears" -Emma ~ Anna Banks, #NFDB
1482:I wonder if Batman would save Robin over his girlfriend of the week. (The Dark Knight gets around, man.) ~ Adam Silvera, #NFDB
1483:I wonder if it is harder for a woman who was beautiful to get older or a woman who was never looked at. ~ China Machado, #NFDB
1484:Magic happens when you head out into the unknown with wonder in your right hand and terror in your left. ~ Clara Bensen, #NFDB
1485:Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio - he be soo gorgeous, no wonder all the ladies flockin' to him - He be Gatsby. ~ Amitabh Bachchan, #NFDB
1486:My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1487:Only, I wonder - the thing one's so certain of in advance; can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly? ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1488:Sarah: That's not fair!
Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is? ~ Terry Jones,#NFDB
1489:Science Fiction will never run out of things to wonder about until the human race ceases to use its brain. ~ Julian May, #NFDB
1490:Sometimes, Chelsea, I wonder, how you get by from day to day. It's a good thing you're so voluptuous. ~ Chelsea Handler, #NFDB
1491:Sometimes I look around cable news and it's like you wonder whether you're looking at anchors or authors. ~ Megyn Kelly, #NFDB
1492:The magic, grace, growth and wonder of life is that wisdom follows a fall and defeat not from a win. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, #NFDB
1493:What I say is from my heart. You must be sincere. So when I sing a song, people are supposed to feel it. ~ Wayne Wonder, #NFDB
1494:You ever wonder why we hesitate to rush into something good, but drag our feet getting out of something bad? ~ L A Witt, #NFDB
1495:'1984' is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under different names. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
1496:As in most cases when the truth becomes clear you wonder how you could ever have seen things differently. ~ Ruth Rendell, #NFDB
1497:Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1498:He let the light from the upstairs world enter him and fill him. He gasped aloud with the wonder of it. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
1499:I begin to wonder if it's coincidence that the one person most unafraid to touch me is a monster himself. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
1500:I begin to wonder if it’s coincidence that the one person most unafraid to touch me is a monster himself. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
823 Integral Yoga
385 Poetry
116 Fiction
94 Philosophy
80 Occultism
77 Christianity
75 Yoga
38 Mysticism
29 Psychology
17 Mythology
13 Islam
10 Sufism
10 Hinduism
9 Science
7 Philsophy
7 Integral Theory
7 Education
5 Baha i Faith
4 Theosophy
3 Cybernetics
3 Buddhism
2 Zen
1 Thelema
1 Kabbalah
1 Alchemy
639 The Mother
478 Satprem
187 Sri Aurobindo
97 Nolini Kanta Gupta
85 H P Lovecraft
46 Sri Ramakrishna
41 William Wordsworth
40 Percy Bysshe Shelley
33 Robert Browning
32 John Keats
29 Saint Augustine of Hippo
28 Walt Whitman
28 Aleister Crowley
27 Carl Jung
26 James George Frazer
25 Rabindranath Tagore
19 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
17 Friedrich Schiller
17 Friedrich Nietzsche
15 Swami Vivekananda
15 Saint Teresa of Avila
15 A B Purani
14 Plotinus
13 William Butler Yeats
13 Muhammad
12 Swami Krishnananda
12 Saint John of Climacus
12 Plato
12 Ovid
12 Lucretius
11 Nirodbaran
11 Anonymous
10 Lewis Carroll
10 Jorge Luis Borges
10 Aldous Huxley
9 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8 George Van Vrekhem
8 Edgar Allan Poe
7 Rudolf Steiner
7 Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 Sri Ramana Maharshi
6 Henry David Thoreau
5 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
5 Joseph Campbell
5 Baha u llah
5 Al-Ghazali
4 Thubten Chodron
4 Patanjali
4 Jalaluddin Rumi
4 Ibn Arabi
3 Norbert Wiener
3 Ken Wilber
3 Kabir
3 Franz Bardon
2 Vyasa
2 Symeon the New Theologian
2 Saint Hildegard von Bingen
2 Rainer Maria Rilke
2 Jordan Peterson
2 H. P. Lovecraft
2 Aristotle
2 Allama Muhammad Iqbal
2 Alice Bailey
85 Lovecraft - Poems
54 Agenda Vol 10
45 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
44 Agenda Vol 08
42 Agenda Vol 04
41 Wordsworth - Poems
41 Agenda Vol 03
40 Shelley - Poems
39 Savitri
37 Agenda Vol 01
36 Agenda Vol 07
33 Browning - Poems
33 Agenda Vol 06
32 Keats - Poems
32 Agenda Vol 05
31 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
31 Agenda Vol 11
30 Questions And Answers 1953
30 Agenda Vol 09
30 Agenda Vol 02
28 Collected Poems
27 Whitman - Poems
26 The Golden Bough
26 Agenda Vol 13
24 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
23 Tagore - Poems
23 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
21 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
19 City of God
19 Agenda Vol 12
18 Prayers And Meditations
17 Schiller - Poems
17 Magick Without Tears
15 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
15 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
15 Questions And Answers 1956
15 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
14 The Bible
14 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
13 Yeats - Poems
13 The Synthesis Of Yoga
13 Quran
12 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
12 The Study and Practice of Yoga
12 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
12 Questions And Answers 1954
12 Of The Nature Of Things
12 Metamorphoses
11 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
11 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
11 Essays Divine And Human
10 The Perennial Philosophy
10 Talks
10 Questions And Answers 1955
10 Mysterium Coniunctionis
10 Alice in Wonderland
9 Words Of Long Ago
9 The Way of Perfection
9 Some Answers From The Mother
9 Liber ABA
8 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
8 Raja-Yoga
8 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
8 Preparing for the Miraculous
8 On the Way to Supermanhood
7 The Life Divine
7 Poe - Poems
7 Goethe - Poems
7 Essays On The Gita
7 Emerson - Poems
7 5.1.01 - Ilion
6 Walden
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Phenomenon of Man
6 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
6 The Future of Man
6 On Education
5 Twilight of the Idols
5 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Letters On Yoga IV
5 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
5 Aion
4 Words Of The Mother III
4 The Red Book Liber Novus
4 The Practice of Psycho therapy
4 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
4 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
4 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 Letters On Yoga II
4 Labyrinths
4 Hymn of the Universe
4 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
4 Borges - Poems
4 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
3 Words Of The Mother II
3 Vedic and Philological Studies
3 The Practice of Magical Evocation
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Human Cycle
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
3 Letters On Poetry And Art
3 Let Me Explain
3 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
3 Cybernetics
3 Crowley - Poems
3 Bhakti-Yoga
3 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
3 Arabi - Poems
3 Anonymous - Poems
3 Amrita Gita
2 Vishnu Purana
2 The Secret Of The Veda
2 The Problems of Philosophy
2 Theosophy
2 The Gateless Gate
2 The Essentials of Education
2 The Book of Certitude
2 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
2 Symposium
2 Songs of Kabir
2 Rumi - Poems
2 Rilke - Poems
2 Poetics
2 Notes On The Way
2 Maps of Meaning
2 Letters On Yoga I
2 Isha Upanishad
2 God Exists
2 Faust
2 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This AGENDA ... One day, another species among men will pore over this fabulous document as over the tumultuous drama that must have surrounded the birth of the first man among the hostile hordes of a great, delirious Paleozoic. A first man is the dangerous contradiction of a certain simian logic, a threat to the established order that so genteelly ran about amid the high, indefeasible ferns - and to begin with, it does not even know that it is a man. It Wonders, indeed, what it is. Even to itself it is strange, distressing. It does not even know how to climb trees any longer in its usual way
- and it is terribly disturbing for all those who still climb trees in the old, millennial way. Perhaps it is even a heresy. Unless it is some cerebral disorder? A first man in his little clearing had to have a great deal of courage. Even this little clearing was no longer so sure. A first man is a perpetual question. What am I, then, in the midst of all that? And where is my law? What is the law? And what if there were no more laws? ... It is terrifying. Mathematics - out of order. Astronomy and biology, too, are beginning to respond to mysterious influences. A tiny point huddled in the center of the world's great clearing. But what is all this, what if I were 'mad'? And then, claws all around, a lot of claws against this uncommon creature. A first man ... is very much alone. He is quite unbearable for the pre-human 'reason.' And the surrounding tribes growled like red monkies in the twilight of Guiana.
--
Then we have caught the tail of the Great Possible, we are upon the wayless way, radically in the new, and we flow with the little lizard, the pelican, the big man, we flow everywhere in a world that has lost its old separating skin and its little baggage of habits. We begin seeing otherwise, feeling otherwise. We have opened the gate into an inconceivable clearing. Just a light little vibration that carries you away. Then we begin to understand how it CAN CHANGE, what the mechanism is - a light little mechanism and so miraculous that it looks like nothing. We begin feeling the Wonder of a pure little cell, and that a sparkling of joy would be enough to turn the world inside out. We were living in a little thinking fishbowl, we were dying in an old, bottled habit. And then suddenly, all is different. The Earth is free! Who wants freedom?
It begins in a cell.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and Wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Apart from the question whether the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak for another order of reality, and even taking it at its face value, what is to be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic cycle that proceeds through the principle of sacrifice. If it is asked what there is Wonderful or particularly spiritual in this rather naf description of a very commonplace happening that gives it an honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is that it is Wonderful to see how the Upanishadic Rishi takes from an event its local, temporal and personal colour and incorporates it in a global movement, a cosmic cycle, as a limb of the Universal Brahman. The Upanishads contain passages which a puritanical mentality may perhaps describe as 'pornographic'; these have in fact been put by some on the Index expurgatorius. But the ancients saw these matters with other eyes and through another consciousness.
We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more conscious and courageous, knowledge of things that were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower, darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the unveiling and the natural and not merely naturalisticdelineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective sub specie aeternitatis. The sexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double movement of ascent and descent that is secreted in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakriti in the cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his movementsof soul and mind and bodyin the light and rhythm of that integral Reality.11
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The age-old advice, "Know thyself," is more imperative than ever. The tempo of science has accelerated to such a degree that today's discoveries frequently make yesterday's equations obsolescent almost before they can be chalked up on a blackboard. Small Wonder, then that every other hospital bed is occupied by a mental patient. Man was not constructed to spend his life at a crossroads, one of which leads he knows not where, and the other to threatened annihilation of his species.
In view of this situation it is doubly reassuring to know that, even in the midst of chaotic concepts and conditions there still remains a door through which man, individually, can enter into a vast store-house of knowledge, knowledge as dependable and immutable as the measured tread of Eternity.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
One day Haladhari upset Sri Ramakrishna with the statement that God is incomprehensible to the human mind. Sri Ramakrishna has described the great moment of doubt when he Wondered whether his visions had really misled him: "With sobs I prayed to the Mother, 'Canst Thou have the heart to deceive me like this because I am a fool?' A stream of tears flowed from my eyes. Shortly afterwards I saw a volume of mist rising from the floor and filling the space before me. In the midst of it there appeared a face with flowing beard, calm, highly expressive, and fair. Fixing its gaze steadily upon me, it said solemnly, 'Remain in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness.' This it repeated three times and then it gently disappeared in the mist, which itself dissolved. This vision reassured me."
A garbled report of Sri Ramakrishna's failing health, indifference to worldly life, and various abnormal activities reached Kamarpukur and filled the heart of his poor mother with anguish. At her repeated request he returned to his village for a change of air. But his boyhood friends did not interest him any more. A divine fever was consuming him. He spent a great part of the day and night in one of the cremation grounds, in meditation. The place reminded him of the impermanence of the human body, of human hopes and achievements. It also reminded him of Kali, the Goddess of destruction.
--
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up Wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
--
Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my Wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and Wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
--- SUMMARY OF THE MASTER'S SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
--
During this period Sri Ramakrishna suffered several bereavements. The first was the death of a nephew named Akshay. After the young man's death Sri Ramakrishna said: "Akshay died before my very eyes. But it did not affect me in the least. I stood by and watched a man die. It was like a sword being drawn from its scabbard. I enjoyed the scene, and laughed and sang and danced over it. They removed the body and cremated it. But the next day as I stood there (pointing to the southeast verandah of his room), I felt a racking pain for the loss of Akshay, as if somebody were squeezing my heart like a wet towel. I Wondered at it and thought that the Mother was teaching me a lesson. I was not much concerned even with my own body — much less with a relative. But if such was my pain at the loss of a nephew, how much more must be the grief of the householders at the loss of their near and dear ones!" In 1871 Mathur died, and some five years later Sambhu Mallick — who, after Mathur's passing away, had taken care of the Master's comfort. In 1873 died his elder brother Rameswar, and in 1876, his beloved mother. These bereavements left their imprint on the tender human heart of Sri Ramakrishna, albeit he had realized the immortality of the soul and the illusoriness of birth and death.
In March 1875, about a year before the death of his mother, the Master met Keshab Chandra Sen. The meeting was a momentous event for both Sri Ramakrishna and Keshab. Here the Master for the first time came into actual, contact with a worthy representative of modern India.
--
Sri Ramakrishna, dressed in a red-bordered dhoti, one end of which was carelessly thrown over his left shoulder, came to Jaygopal's garden house accompanied by Hriday. No one took notice of the unostentatious visitor. Finally the Master said to Keshab, "People tell me you have seen God; so I have come to hear from you about God." A magnificent conversation followed. The Master sang a thrilling song about Kali and forthwith went into samadhi. When Hriday uttered the sacred "Om" in his ears, he gradually came back to consciousness of the world, his face still radiating a divine brilliance. Keshab and his followers were amazed. The contrast between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmo devotees was very interesting. There sat this small man, thin and extremely delicate. His eyes were illumined with an inner light. Good humour gleamed in his eyes and lurked in the corners of his mouth. His speech was Bengali of a homely kind with a slight, delightful stammer, and his words held men enthralled by their wealth of spiritual experience, their inexhaustible store of simile and metaphor, their power of observation, their bright and subtle humour, their Wonderful catholicity, their ceaseless flow of wisdom. And around him now were the sophisticated men of Bengal, the best products of Western education, with Keshab, the idol of young Bengal, as their leader.
Keshab's sincerity was enough for Sri Ramakrishna. Henceforth the two saw each other frequently, either at Dakshineswar or at the temple of the Brahmo Samaj. Whenever the Master was in the temple at the time of divine service, Keshab would request him to speak to the congregation. And Keshab would visit the saint, in his turn, with offerings of flowers and fruits.
--
Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, the right-hand man of Keshab and an accomplished Brahmo preacher in Europe and America, bitterly criticized Sri Ramakrishna's use of uncultured language and also his austere attitude toward his wife. But he could not escape the spell of the Master's personality. In the course of an article about Sri Ramakrishna, Pratap wrote in the "Theistic Quarterly Review": "What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centred, semi-sceptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I, who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? . . . And it is not I only, but dozens like me, who do the same. . . . He worships Siva, he worships Kali, he worships Rama, he worships Krishna, and is a confirmed advocate of Vedantic doctrines. . . . He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted meditator on the perfections of the One Formless, Absolute, Infinite Deity. . . . His religion is ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with a permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. . . . So long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime precepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality, and inebriation in the love of God. . . . He, by his childlike bhakti, by his strong conceptions of an ever-ready Motherhood, helped to unfold it [God as our Mother] in our minds Wonderfully. . . . By associating with him we learnt to realize better the divine attributes as scattered over the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of mythological India, the gods of the Puranas."
The Brahmo leaders received much inspiration from their contact with Sri Ramakrishna. It broadened their religious views and kindled in their hearts the yearning for God-realization; it made them understand and appreciate the rituals and symbols of Hindu religion, convinced them of the manifestation of God in diverse forms, and deepened their thoughts about the harmony of religions. The Master, too, was impressed by the sincerity of many of the Brahmo devotees. He told them about his own realizations and explained to them the essence of his teachings, such as the necessity of renunciation, sincerity in the pursuit of one's own course of discipline, faith in God, the performance of one's duties without thought of results, and discrimination between the Real and the unreal.
--
Even before Rakhal's coming to Dakshineswar, the Master had had visions of him as his spiritual son and as a playmate of Krishna at Vrindavan. Rakhal was born of wealthy parents. During his childhood he developed Wonderful spiritual traits and used to play at worshipping gods and goddesses. In his teens he was married to a sister of Manomohan Mitra, from whom he first heard of the Master. His father objected to his association with Sri Ramakrishna but afterwards was reassured to find that many celebrated people were visitors at Dakshineswar. The relationship between the Master and this beloved disciple was that of mother and child. Sri Ramakrishna allowed Rakhal many liberties denied to others. But he would not hesitate to chastise the boy for improper actions. At one time Rakhal felt a childlike jealousy because he found that other boys were receiving the Master's affection. He soon got over it and realized his guru as the Guru of the whole universe. The Master was worried to hear of his marriage, but was relieved to find that his wife was a spiritual soul who would not be a hindrance to his progress.
--- THE ELDER GOPAL
--
One day, soon after, Narendra requested Sri Ramakrishna to pray to the Divine Mother to remove his poverty. Sri Ramakrishna bade him pray to Her himself, for She would certainly listen to his prayer. Narendra entered the shrine of Kali. As he stood before the image of the Mother, he beheld Her as a living Goddess, ready to give wisdom and liberation. Unable to ask Her for petty worldly things, he prayed only for knowledge and renunciation, love and liberation. The Master rebuked him for his failure to ask the Divine Mother to remove his poverty and sent him back to the temple. But Narendra, standing in Her presence, again forgot the purpose of his coming. Thrice he went to the temple at the bidding of the Master, and thrice he returned, having forgotten in Her presence why he had come. He was Wondering about it when it suddenly flashed in his mind that this was all the work of Sri Ramakrishna; so now he asked the Master himself to remove his poverty, and was assured that his family would not lack simple food and clothing.
This was a very rich and significant experience for Narendra. It taught him that Sakti, the Divine Power, cannot be ignored in the world and that in the relative plane the need of worshipping a Personal God is imperative. Sri Ramakrishna was overjoyed with the conversion. The next day, sitting almost on Narendra's lap, he said to a devotee, pointing first to himself, then to Narendra: "I see I am this, and again that. Really I feel no difference. A stick floating in the Ganges seems to divide the water; But in reality the water is one. Do you see my point? Well, whatever is, is the Mother — isn't that so?" In later years Narendra would say: "Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who, from the time he met me, believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my mother and brothers did not. It was his unwavering trust and love for me that bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love. Worldly people, only make a show of love for selfish ends.
--
The Master knew Hari's passion for Vedanta. But he did not wish any of his disciples to become a dry ascetic or a mere bookworm. So he asked Hari to practise Vedanta in life by giving up the unreal and following the Real. "But it is not so easy", Sri Ramakrishna said, "to realize the illusoriness of the world. Study alone does not help one very much. The grace of God is required. Mere personal effort is futile. A man is a tiny creature after all, with very limited powers. But he can achieve the impossible if he prays to God for His grace." Whereupon the Master sang a song in praise of grace. Hari was profoundly moved and shed tears. Later in life Hari achieved a Wonderful synthesis of the ideals of the Personal God and the Impersonal Truth.
--- GANGADHAR
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
and SPERMA, and is the exclamation of Wonder or ecstasy,
which is the ultimate nature of things.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The two pamphlets in English entitled the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared in October and November 1897. They drew the spontaneous acclamation of Swami Vivekananda, who wrote on 24th November of that year from Dehra Dun to M.:"Many many thanks for your second leaflet. It is indeed Wonderful. The move is quite original, and never was the life of a Great Teacher brought before the public untarnished by the writer's mind, as you are doing. The language also is beyond all praise, so fresh, so pointed, and withal so plain and easy. I cannot express in adequate terms how I have enjoyed them. I am really in a transport when I read them. Strange, isn't it? Our Teacher and Lord was so original, and each one of us will have to be original or nothing.
I now understand why none of us attempted His life before. It has been reserved for you, this great work. He is with you evidently." ( Vednta Kesari Vol. XIX P. 141. Also given in the first edition of the Gospel published from Ramakrishna Math, Madras in 1911.)
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I still Wonder why and I can find no answer except that stupidity
rules the world.
--
Your orders please, Mother Wonderful!
What can we do? He is a good and regular worker, isn't he? I
--
after the accident I Wondered whether there was any
connection, and when You said that You had doubts
--
How can people insult me so easily, I Wonder. Is
it that my features are lacking in vigour? Is it that I
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No Wonder that Ojas2 gave some trouble. These bullocks are
quite intelligent enough to feel the change of people. This new
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
sleep peacefully, and you would have no time to Wonder whether
you are in a good or a bad mood.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
him seem particularly so. These treatises are a Wonderful illustration of the
theological truth that grace, far from destroying nature, ennobles and dignifies it,
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I always Wonder that people imagine they can know the
reasons for my actions! I act differently for each one, according
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"Keep your faith." I am still Wondering what exactly
you meant, dear Mother. What kind of faith would you
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How can one most effectively call this Wonderful
world of delight?
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And beauty and Wonder disturbed the fields of God.
1.21
--
The rarity and Wonder lived no more.
1.44
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge that seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it that is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high that may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a Wonderful example of that fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
Indeed it would be wrong to associate any cold ascetic nudity to the spiritual body of Sri Aurobindo. His poetry is philosophic, abstract, no doubt, but every philosophy has its practice, every abstract thing its concrete application,even as the soul has its body; and the fusion, not mere union, of the two is very characteristic in him. The deepest and unseizable flights of thought he knows how to clo the with a Kalidasian richness of imagery, or a Keatsean gusto of sensuousness:
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And Wondered at this world of fragile forms
Carried on canvas-strips of shimmering Time,
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Blake had this Wonderful gift of transmuting the baser metal of mundane experience into the gold of a deep mystic and spiritual experience:
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A fiery portion of the Wonderful,
Artist of his own beauty and delight,
--
In the wide workshop of the Wonderful world,
Modelled in inward Time his rhythmic parts.
--
It was a region of Wonder and delight.
All now his bright clairaudience could receive;
--
Out of the rich Wonders and the intricate whorls
Of the spirit's dance with Matter as its mask
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That involves something which throws all your reasoning out of gear. For these are aspects of the Divine Nature, powers of it, states of his being, - but the Divine Himself is something absolute, someone self-existent, not limited by his aspects, - Wonderful and ineffable, not existing by them, but they existing because of him. It follows that if he attracts by his aspects, all the more he can attract by his very absolute selfness which is sweeter, mightier, profounder than any aspect. His peace, rapture, light, freedom, beauty are marvellous and ineffable, because he is himself magically, mysteriously, transcendently marvellous and ineffable. He can then be sought after for his Wonderful and ineffable self and not only for the sake of one aspect or another of him. The only thing needed for that is, first, to arrive at a point when the psychic being feels this pull of the Divine in himself and, secondly, to arrive at the point when the mind, vital and each thing else begins to feel too that that was what it was wanting and the surface hunt after Ananda or what else was only an excuse for drawing the nature towards that supreme magnet.
Your argument that because we know the union with the
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is what is wanted at present in the artistic world the true inspiration, the breath from higher altitudes. And here comes the role of the mystic, the Yogi. The sense of evolution, the march of human consciousness demands and prophesies that the future poet has to be a mysticin him will be fulfilled the travail of man's conscious working. The self-conscious craftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventurous analytic mind has sharpened his instrument, made it supple and elastic, tempered, refined and enriched it; that is comparable to what we call the aspiration or call from below. Now the Grace must descend and fulfil. And when one rises into this higher consciousness beyond the brain and mind, when one lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of things, one becomes a perfectly conscious operator and still retains all spontaneity and freshness and Wonder and magic that are usually associated with inconscience and irreflection. As there is a spontaneity of instinct, there is likewise also a spontaneity of vision: a child is spontaneous in its movements, even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more spontaneous, for the higher consciousness means not only awareness but the free and untrammelled activity and expression of the truth and reality it is.
Genius had to be generally more or less unconscious in the past, because the instrument was not ready, was clogged as it were with its own lower grade movements; the higher inspiration had very often to bypass it, or rob it of its serviceable materials without its knowledge, in an almost clandestine way. Wherever it was awake and vigilant, we have seen it causing a diminution in the poetic potential. And yet even so, it was being prepared for a greater role, a higher destiny it is to fulfil in the future. A conscious and full participation of a refined and transparent and enriched instrument in the delivery of superconscious truth and beauty will surely mean not only a new but the very acme of aesthetic creation. We thus foresee the age of spiritual art in which the sense of creative beauty in man will find its culmination. Such an art was only an exception, something secondary or even tertiary, kept in the background, suggested here and there as a novel strain, called "mystic" to express its unfamiliar nature-unless, of course, it was openly and obviously scriptural and religious.
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And Wonder at the hidden cause of things.
Yet a foreseeing Knowledge might be ours,
--
A glance can make his whole day Wonderful,
A word from her lips with happiness wings the hours.
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world being nothing but Spirit made visible is, according to Tagore, fundamentally a thing of beauty. The scars and spots that are on the surface have to be removed and mankind has to repossess and clo the itself with that mantle of beauty. The world is beautiful, because it is the image of the Beautiful, because it harbours, expresses and embodies the Divine who is Beauty supreme. Now by a strange alchemy, a Wonderful effect of polarisation, the very spiritual element in Tagore has made him almost a pagan and even a profane. For what are these glories of Nature and the still more exquisite glories that the human body has captured? They are but vibrations and modulations of beauty the delightful names and forms of the supreme Lover and Beloved.
Socrates is said to have brought down Philosophy from Heaven to live among men upon earth. A similar exploit can be ascribed to Tagore. The Spirit, the bare transcendental Reality contemplated by the orthodox Vedantins, has been brought nearer to our planet, close to human consciousness in Tagore's vision, being clothed in earth and flesh and blood, made vivid with the colours and contours of the physical existence. The Spirit, yes and by all means, but not necessarily asceticism and monasticism. So Tagore boldly declared in those famous lines of his:
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Amid whose falls Wonders like flowers rise,
Are surer than reason, defter than device
--
A Wonder-weft of knowledge incalculable,
A compendium of divine invention's feats
--
In her unhedged Circean Wonderland
Pell-mell she shepherds her occult mightinesses;
--
Paces of the many-visaged Wonderful,
Predestined stadia of the evolving Way,
--
Half-seen at first through Wonder's gleaming lids,
Surprised the vision with felicity;
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Pascal's faith had not the calm, tranquil, serene, luminous and happy self-possession of an Indian Rishi. It was ardent and impatient, fiery and vehement. It had to be so perhaps, since it was to stand against his steely brain (and a gloomy vital or life force) as a counterpoise, even as an antidote. This tension and schism brought about, at least contri buted to his neuras thenia and physical infirmity. But whatever the effect upon his inner consciousness and spiritual achievement, his power of expression, his literary style acquired by that a special quality which is his great gift to the French language. If one speaks of Pascal, one has to speak of his language also; for he was one of the great masters who created the French prose. His prose was a Wonderful blend of clarity, precision, serried logic and warmth, colour, life, movement, plasticity.
A translation cannot give any idea of the Pascalian style; but an inner echo of the same can perhaps be caught from the thought movement of these characteristic sayings of his with which we conclude:
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
From the twentieth century back to the fourteenth is a far cry: a far cry indeed from the modern scientific illumination to mediaeval superstition, from logical positivists and mathematical rationalists to visionary mystics, from Russell and Huxley to Ruysbroeck and Hilton. The mystic lore, the Holy Writ, the mediaeval sage says, echoing almost the very words of the Eastern Masters, "may not be got by study nor through man's travail only, but principally by the grace of the Holy Ghost." As for the men living and moving in the worldly way, there are "so mickle din and crying in their heart and vain thoughts and fleshly desires" that it is impossible for them to listen or understand the still small voice. It is the pure soul touched by the Grace that alone "seeth soothfastness of Holy Writ Wonderly shewed and opened, above study and travail and reason of man's kindly (i.e. natural) wit."
What is day to us is night to the mystics and what is day to the mystics is night for us. The first thing the mystic asks is to close precisely those doors and windows which we, on the contrary, feel obliged to keep always open in order to know and to live and move. The Gita says: "The sage is wakeful when it is night for all creatures and when all creatures are wakeful, that is night for the sage." Even so this sage from the West says: "The more I sleep from outward things, the more wakeful am I in knowing of Jhesu and of inward things. I may not wake to Jhesu, but if I sleep to the world."
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
sight. One Wonders why God has made all these deformations in Nature. The only answer - which answers
nothing - is that it is "the Divine's play". It is incomprehensible.
--
to his words, I am Wonder-struck: how can this eternal
truth, this beauty of expression escape people! It is really
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Satan proposes to lead man down into hell through a sure means, nothing more sure, according to him, viz., love for a woman and a woman's love in return. Nothing like that to make man earth-bound or hell-bound and force out of him the nostalgic cry, "Time must have a stop." A most simple, primal and primeval lyric love will most suit Satan's purpose. Hence the Margaret episode. Love=Passion=Lust=Hell; that is the inevitable equation sequence, and through which runs the magic thread of infatuation. And that charm is invincible. Satan did succeed and was within an ace, as they say, of the final and definitive triumph: but that was not to be, for he left out of account an incalculable element. Love, even human love has, at least can have, a Wonderful power, the potency of reversing the natural decree and bring about a supernatural intervention. Human love can at a crucial momentin extremiscall down the Divine Grace, which means God's love for man. And the soul meant for perdition and about to be seized and carried away by Satan finds itself suddenly free and lifted up and borne by Heaven's messengers. Human Jove is divine love itself in earthly form and figure and whatever its apparent aberrations it is in soul and substance that thing. Satan is hoisted with his own petard. That is God's irony.
But Goethe's Satan seems to know or feel something of his fate. He knows his function and the limit too of his function. He speaks of the doomsday for people, but it is his doomsday also, he says in mystic terms. Yes, it is his doomsday, for it is the day of man's liberation. Satan has to release man from the pact that stands cancelled. The soul of man cannot be sold, even if he wanted it.
--
The angels weave the symphony that is creation. They represent the various notes and rhythmsin their higher and purer degrees that make up the grand harmony of the spheres. It is magnificent, this music that moves the cosmos, and Wonderful the glory of God manifest therein. But is it absolutely perfect? Is there nowhere any flaw in it? There is a doubting voice that enters a dissenting note. That is Satan, the Antagonist, the Evil One. Man is the weakest link in the chain of the apparently all-perfect harmony. And Satan boldly proposes to snap it if God only let him do so. He can prove to God that the true nature of his creation is not cosmos but chaos not a harmony in peace and light, but a confusion, a Walpurgis Night. God acquiesces in the play of this apparent breach and proves in the end that it is part of a wider scheme, a vaster harmony. Evil is rounded off by Grace.
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
become aware of a Wonderful transformation in all things.
13 December 1968
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
a unique and Wonderful opportunity to open themselves to the
divine influence.
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realization,most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda1 which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a Wonderful divines Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.
Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
--
I dont know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday3 No, I dont know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONES help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekanandas Raja Yoga, it really seemed so Wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.
I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, Read the Gita (this translation of the Gita which really wasnt worth much but it was the only one available at the timein those days I wouldnt have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and well, Sri Aurobindo hadnt done his yet!). He said, Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within. That was all. Read it with THAT knowledgewith the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you. Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!
0 1956-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Then I Wondered when and how I am at the height of myself. And this is what I saw:
Two things which were parallel and concomitant that is, they are always together:
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The conflict that is tearing me apart is between this shadowy part of a past that does not want to die, and the new light. I Wonder if, rather than escaping to some desert, it would not be wiser to resolve this conflict by objectify it, by writing this book I spoke to you about.
But I would like to know whether it is really useful for me to write this book, or whether it is not just some inferior task, a makeshift.
0 1957-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sweet Mother, this is what is rising from my soul: I feel in me something unemployed, something seeking to express itself in life. I want to be like a knight, your knight, and go off in search of a treasure that I could bring back to you. The world has lost all sense of the Wonderful, all beauty of Adventure, this quest known to the knights of the Middle Ages. It is this that calls so relentlessly within me, this need for a quest in the world and for a beautiful Adventure which at the same time would be an adventure of the soul. How I wish that the two things, inner and outer, be JOINED, that the joy of action, of the open road and the quest help the souls blossoming, that they be like a prayer of the soul expressed in life. The knights of the Middle Ages knew this. Perhaps it is all childish and absurd in the midst of this 20th century, but this is what I feel, this that is summoning me to leavenot anything base, not anything mediocre, only a need for something in me to be fulfilled. If only I could bring you back a beautiful treasure!
After that, perhaps I would be riper to accept the everyday life of the Ashram, and know how to give myself better.
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is this artificiality, this insincerity, this complete lack of truth that appeared so shocking to me that one Wonders how, in a world as false as this one, we can arrive at any truthful evaluation of things.
But instead of feeling grieved, morose, rebellious, discontent, I had rather the feeling of what I spoke of at the end: of such a ridiculous absurdity that for several days I was seized with an uncontrollable laughter whenever I saw things and people! Such a tremendous laughter, so absolutely inexplicable (except to me), because of the ridiculousness of these situations.
0 1958-05-11 - the ship that said OM, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And then I Wondered, If we were to repeat the mantra we heard the other day4 (Om Namo Bhagavateh) during the half-hour meditation, what would happen?
What would happen?
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If we could truly, perfectly know all the details of the ceremony of life, the worship of the Lord in physical life, it would be Wonderfulto know, and no longer to err, never again to err. To perform the ceremony as perfectly as an initiation.
To know life utterly Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And its strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras1 (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, like that):
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
He said he had received initiation in India (he knew a little Sanskrit and the Rig-Veda thoroughly), and then he formulated a tradition which he called the cosmic tradition and which he claimed to have received I dont know howfrom a tradition anterior to that of the Cabala and the Vedas. But there were many things (Madame Theon was the clairvoyant one, and she received visions; oh, she was Wonderful!), many things that I myself had seen and known before knowing them which were then substantiated.
So personally, I am convinced that there was indeed a tradition anterior to both these traditions containing a knowledge very close to an integral knowledge. Certainly, there is a similarity in the experiences. When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras.
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
At the time, I Wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, Ah, so thats it! It came to give me my message for the new year! Then I transcribed the experienceit cant be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obviously in a mental way, and I am thinking of using it as my message.
There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want us to decide upon the final text together.
--
Later, after I returned (to the Ashram), I Wondered, What was that? What does it signify? Then I understood.
Thats all.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It can be expressed in this way (but its quite approximate, more than diminished or deformed): its as if our entire spiritual life were made of silver, whereas the supramental life is made of goldas if our entire spiritual life here were a vibration of silver, not gold but simply a light, a light that goes right to the summit, an absolutely pure light, pure and intense; but in the other, in the supramental world, there is a richness and a power that make all the difference. This whole spiritual life of the psychic being and of all our present consciousness that appears so warm, so full, so Wonderful, so luminous to the ordinary consciousness, well, all this splendor seems poor in comparison to the splendor of the new world.
I can explain the phenomenon like this: successive reversals such that an EVER NEW richness of creation will take place from stage to stage, making whatever came before seem so poor in comparison. What to us seems supremely rich compared to our ordinary life, appears so poor compared to this new reversal of consciousness. Such was my experience.
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Concerning the disciple's karma and the tantric discipline that he is following to dissolve this karma, Mother Wonders why She herself had not been able to dissolve it directly and why it was necessary to resort to intermediaries)
I am used to seeing the process or the working of things more from a spiritual point of view, something more universal, whereas this needs to be seen from a detailed, occult point of view.
0 1959-03-10 - vital dagger, vital mass, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When you see them, oh! its suffocating. When youre in contact with that Really, you Wonder how anyone can brea the in such an atmosphere. And yet people CONSTANTLY live in that atmosphere! They live in it. Only when they rise above are they NOT in it. Or else there are those who are entirely below; but those are the toys of these things, and their reactions are sometimes not only unexpected but absolutely dreadfulbecause they are puppets in the hands of these things.
Those who rise above, who enter into a slightly intellectual region, can see all this from above; they can look down at it all, keep their heads above and breathe; but those who live in this realm
0 1959-06-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As of yesterday evening I am a man delivered. It took only a very little word from X, and suddenly a weight seemed to have been lifted from me, and I knew at last that I would be fulfilled. All this is still so new, so improbable that I can scarcely believe it, and I Wonder if by chance some evil blow is not still lurking in wait for me behind this promise of happiness; thus I shall be reassured only when I have told you everything, recounted all. But X has asked, me to wait a few more days before telling you this story, for he wants to give me certain additional details so that you may have all the elements, as accurately as possible.
But I did not want to wait any longer to express my gratitude. I am still not so sure how all this will turn out nor how this destiny that he predicts for me can be realized, but I want to repeat to you, with all my confidence: I am your child, may your will be done now and forever.
0 1959-07-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is what I should have told you this morning, but I was afraid. For the last month I have been afraid of you, afraid that you might not understand. But I cannot leave with this weight on me. I beg of you to understand, Sweet Mother. I want nothing bad, nothing impure. I feel I have something to create with Sujata, I feel she is absolutely a part of something I have to achieve, that we have something to achieve together. For the five years we have known each other I have never had a single wrong thought but suddenly she opened my heart, which had been so completely walled-off, and this was like a Wonder in me and at the same time a fear. A fear, perhaps because this love has been thwarted for so many lives.
Mother, I need Sujata like my very soul. It seems to me that she is a part of me, that she alone can help me break with this horrible past, that she alone can help me to love truly at last. I need peace so much, a quiet, PEACEFUL happinessa base of happiness upon which I could use my strength to build, instead of always fighting, always destroying. Mother, I am not at all sure of what must be, but I know that Sujata is part of this realization.
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is similar with this japa: an imperceptible little change, and one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, to the true japa full of power and light. I even Wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call the power of the japa. For example, the other day I was down with a cold. Each time I opened my mouth, there was a spasm in the throat and I coughed and coughed. Then a fever came. So I looked, I saw where it was coming from, and I decided that it had to stop. I got up to do my japa as usual, and I started walking back and forth in my room. I had to apply a certain will. Of course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the japa, because then you feel nothing, none of all the bodys drawbacks. But the work has to be done in the body! So I got up and started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced the Light, the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the japa tired, ill, and I came out of it refreshed, rested, cured. So those who tell me they come out of it exhausted, contracted, emptied, it means that they are not doing it in the true way.
I understand why certain tantrics advise saying the japa in the heart center. When one applies a certain enthusiasm, when each word is said with a warmth of aspiration, then everything changes. I could feel this difference in myself, in my own japa.
0 1960-01-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of all forms of ego, you might think that the physical ego is the most difficult to conquer (or rather, the body ego, because the work was already done long ago on the physical ego). It might be thought that the form of the body is a point of concentration, and that without this concentration or hardness, physical life would not be possible. But thats not true. The body is really a Wonderful instrument; its capable of widening and of becoming vast in such a way that everything, everything the slightest gesture, the least little taskis done in a Wonderful harmony and with a remarkable plasticity. Then all of a sudden, for something quite stupid, a draft, a mere nothing, it forgetsit shrinks back into itself, it gets afraid of disappearing, afraid of not being. And everything has to be started again from scratch. So in the yoga of matter you start realizing how much endurance is needed. I calculated it would take 200 years to say ten crore of my japa. Well, Im ready to struggle 200 years if necessary, but the work will be done.
Sri Aurobindo had made it clear to me when I was still in France that this yoga in matter is the most difficult of all. For the other yogas, the paths have been well laid, you know where to tread, how to proceed, what to do in such-and-such a case. But for the yoga of matter, nothing has ever been done, never, so at each moment everything has to be invented.
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And what is Wonderful is that at each moment the Grace, the Joy, the Light, the Love never cease pouring down in the very midst of all thisdespite the ego, despite the shame, despite the unworthiness. To be humble
***
0 1960-05-28 - death of K - the death process- the subtle physical, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
During the operation and just afterwards, I had simply put the Force on him, as I always do in such cases, so that everything would turn out for the best. Then a few days ago, during my japa, a kind of order camea very clear orderto concentrate on him so that he would be conscious of his soul and able to leave under the best conditions. And I saw that the concentration worked Wonderfully: it seems that during his last days he was ceaselessly repeating Ma-Ma-Ma1even while he was in a semi-coma.
And the concentration grew stronger and stronger. The day before yesterday it became very, very powerful, and yesterday morning, around half past noon, it pulled me inward; he came to me in a kind of sleep, a conscious sleep, and I even said almost aloud, Oh, K!
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And now it has become constant; each time I hear or see something ugly or horrible, or each time something ugly or horrible happens, something which is a negation of the divine life just behind is this flameso Wonderful. And then the effect is annulled.
There is a magnificence of realization which could not have been had this evil, this horror and this negation not been.
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And this vehicle was going faster than the flood (I saw and felt it by its motion)a formidable flood, but the vehicle was going still faster. It was so Wonderful. In places there were some especially difficult and dangerous spots, but I ALWAYS got there before the water, just before the water barred the way. And we kept going and going and going. Then, with a final effort (there was no effort, really, it was willed), with a final push, we made it to the other side and the water came rushing just behind! It rushed down at a fantastic speed. We had made it. Then, just on the other side, it changed color. It was it changed in color to a predominant blue, this powerful blue which is the force, the organizing force in the most material world. So there we were, and the vehicle stopped. And then, after having been looking straight ahead the whole time we were speeding along, I turned around and said, Ah, now I can start helping those who are behind.
Here, Ill draw you a little sketch:
--
I remember wandering about one night some time ago. Its no longer very clear, but one thing has remained I had gone out of India, and then when I returned to India, I found huge elephants installed EVERYWHEREenormous elephants. At that time I was not at all aware that the Communists in India had adopted the elephant as their symbol; I only learned that later. What does this mean, I said to myself. Does it signify the Indian army? But they did not resemble war elephants. These elephants were like immense mammoths, and they looked like they were settling down with all the power of a tremendous inertia. That was the impression something heavy in an inert and very tamasic way, forever immovable. I did not like this occupation. When I came back, I had a rather painful feeling, and for several days I Wondered if it did not mean war. Then by chance, in a conversation, I learned that the Communists had selected the elephant as their symbol whereas the Congress had chosen the bullock In my vision, I was moving (as I always do), I was moving among them, and nothing moved. And if I needed room, some of them even tried to stir a little.
But when human beings are involved, I believe that visions take on a special formits a special image. Not an inundation like this. That was very, very impersonal. They were forces. A feeling of floodgates bursting open, of something being held back, retained or prevented, then suddenly
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But L has enlarged the program. (Mother indicates the plan) This is only a small part of his extensive total program. He is planning to have a school of agriculture, a modern dairy with grazing landtheres a lot of agriculture, really a lotfruit orchards, large rice fields, many things. And then a ceramics factory. My ceramics factory will be at the far end of the lake, so as to utilize the clay the government has agreed; as they have to dig out the lake one day, we shall use the top soil for the fields. First well remove all the pebbles (you know, there are hills over there), which can be used for constructionits a mine of pebbles. After removing the pebbles, there will be holes which then well fill with earth from the lake. And below this earth is a thick and compact layer of clay which is so hard it cant be used for farmingits impossible but its Wonderful for making ceramics. So right at the very end, in Indian territory,4 well have a large ceramics industry. On the other side, well have a little factory for firing clay.
All this is huge. A tremendous program.5
0 1960-09-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
After leaving your room, X kept repeating, Very Wonderful. Then he explained to me that white rays were vibrating everywherealong the whole length of the Kundalini, white, yellow and blue, but especially white (he indicated the forehead in particular).
He looked quite ecstatic while speaking of his experience.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Along the way, I once went down into this physical mind for awhile to try to set it right, to organize it a little (it was done rather quickly, I didnt stay there long). So when I went inside X, I saw It was rather curious, for its the opposite of the method we follow. In his material consciousness (physical and vital), he has trained himself to be impersonal, open, limitless, in communication with all the universal forces. In the physical mind, silence, immobility. But in the speculative mind, the one there at the very top of the head what an organization, phew! All the tradition in its most superb organization, but such a ri-gi-dity! And it had a pretty quality of light, a silver blueVERY pretty. Oh, it was very calm, Wonderfully calm and quiet and still. But what a ceiling it had!the outer form resembled rigid cubes. Everything inside was beautiful, but that There was a very large cube right at the top, I recall, bordered by a purple line, which is a line of powerall this was quite luminous. It looked like a pyramid; the smaller cubes formed a kind of base, the lower part of which faded into something cloudy, and then this passed imperceptibly downwards to a more material realm, or in other words, the physical mind. The cube on top was the largest and most luminous, and the least yieldingeven inflexible, you could say. The others were somewhat less defined, and at the bottom it was very blurred. But up at the top!thats where I wanted to go, right to the top.
When I got there, I felt a moment of anguish; my feeling was that nothing could be done. Not for him in particular, but universally, for all those in his categoryit seemed hopeless.6 If that was perfection, then nothing more could be done. This lasted only a second, but it was painful. And then I tried that is, I wanted to bring my consciousness down into the highest cubethis eternal, universal and infinite consciousness which is the first and foremost expression of the manifestation but nothing doing. It was impossible. I tried for several minutes and saw that it was absolutely impossible. So I had to make a curious movement (I couldnt get through it, it was impassable), I had to come back down into the so-called lower consciousness (not lower, actuallyit was vast and impersonal), and from there I came out and regained my equilibrium. This is what gave me that splitting headache I told you about. I came out of there as if I were carrying the weight the weight of an irreducible absoluteit was dreadful. Unfortunately, I was unable to rest afterwards, and as people were waiting to see me, I had to talkwhich is very tiring for me. And this produced a bubbling in my head, like a this dark blue light of power in matter was there, shot through with streaks of white and gold, and all this was flashing back and forth in my head, this way and that way I thought I was going to have a stroke! (Mother laughs)
0 1960-09-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Basically, it must be the same for my eyes. Sometimes I see Wonderfully, and sometimes its blurred. It must be for the same reason I probably have to learn to concentrate!
Yes, laugh if you wantwhat I mean is concentrate on what Im doing. Not concentrate within Precisely, Im rather too concentrated!
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This Wonderful world of
delight waiting at our
--
Before going to bed, sometimes I say to myself, I will do what is necessary to spend my night in these great currents of force(because there is a way to do it). And then I think, Oh, what an egotist you are, my girl! So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesntwhen theres something important to do, it doesnt happen. But all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way before going to sleep to spend my whole night in these very far from here, very far I cant say very far from the earth, for surely its in an intermediate zone between the forces from above and the earths atmosphere. Thats what it mainly is, in any case. Its a great universal current as well, but mainly its what descends and comes onto the earth, and it is permeating the earths atmosphere all the time, all the time, and it comes with this wide, overall visionit makes for Wonderful nights I no longer bother about people at allat least not as such, but in a more impersonal way.
(silence)
--
This has protected me from all seeking for pleasure in life. It was a Wonderful protection, because pleasure always seemed so futile to meyes, futile; for the sake of your personal satisfaction. Later, I even understood how foolish it is, for you can never be satisfiedthough when youre small you dont yet know that. I never liked it: But is it really useful, does it serve some purpose? And I still have this attitude in regard to my nights. I have this widening of the consciousness, this impersonalization, this Wonderful joy of being above all that. But at the same time I also have, Im here in this body, on earth, to do something I mustnt forget it. And this is what I have to do. But probably Im wrong!
Im waiting for the Lord to tell me clearly.
0 1960-10-02b, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
'This Wonderful world of delight, at our gates, waiting for our call to come down upon earth.'
'waiting at our gates for our call...'
0 1960-10-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Each thing carries within itself its own truthits absolute truth, so luminous and so clear. And if you are in contact with THAT, then everything falls into place so Wonderfully; but men are NOT in contact with that, they are always in contact through their thought: what they think of something, what they feel about something, the meaning they attach to it (or sometimes its worse)but the highest they go is always the thought they have of it. Thats what creates all this mixture and all this disorderthings in themselves are very good, and then they get confused.
Z's work involved seeing Mother everyday to watch over her health and her food.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
She was a Wonderful woman, Wonderful. But as for him well
Its funny I dont know why, but a short while ago this house on Val de Grce suddenly came to me (to Pavitra) When did this photograph come?
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So of course they were terribly worried; they Wondered what had happened. I had someone write to X, I concentrated, and four days later the boy (the brothers friend, that is) returned in a lamentable state: white, emaciated, barely able to speak. Then he recounted his story:
On his way to the grandmo thers house, he passed by the station and went in to drink something. While drinking, two persons who were there started playing with some balls in front of him. He WATCHED. But suddenly, he felt very uneasy; he wanted to leave and ran towards an exit that opened onto the tracksit was closed and he could not get out. And these two people were just behind him; suddenly he lost consciousness: I dont know what happened to me after that.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Was it by chance the wallet that brought this to mind? I Wondered right at first. I had the impression of having given you something Egyptian, but I could no longer remember what it was Im happy it wasnt that! I hesitated for barely a moment, then said to myself, Why? And what came is that everything, even apparently accidental things, is organized by the same Consciousness for the same endsits obvious.
But I found this interesting, so I began looking, and I LIVED the scene, all kinds of scenes of initiation, worship, etc., for quite some time. When that lifted, a light much stronger than the last time (during the last meditation) came down, in a Wonderful silence. (I might add that the first thing I did, at the beginning, was to try to establish a silence around you, to insulate you from other things so as to keep your mind quiet; it kept jumping a little, but once this light came down ) And it came down with a very hieratic quality and (how can I put this?) Egyptian in charactervery occult, very occult, very, very distinct, very specific, like this (gesture indicating a block of silence descending).
And then there came a long moment of absolutely motionless contemplation with something that now escapes meit may come back.
--
I Wonder if at night Sometimes its so intense that I Wonder if it doesnt radiate. But I cant see as my eyes are closed!
Again last night, for a large part of the night, it was the body has no more limitsits only a great MASS of vibrations.
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And I Wondered why people are so rigid and severe, why they condemn others (but one day Ill understand this as well). I say this because very often I run into these two states of mind in my activities (the grave and serious mind which sees hypocrisy and vice, and the religious and yogic mind which sees the illusion that prevents you from nearing the Divine)and without being openly criticized, Im criticized Ill tell you about this one day
Youre criticized?
--
How strange it is! You have the feeling of ascending, of a progress in consciousness, and everything, all the events and circumstances of life follow one another with an unquestioning logic. You see the Divine Will unfolding with a Wonderful logic. Then, from time to time, there appears a little set of circumstances (either isolated or repeated), which are like snags on the way; you cant explain them, so you put them aside for later on. Some such accidents have been quite significant, but they dont seem to follow this ascending line of the present individuality. Theyre scattered along the way, sometimes repeated, sometimes only once, and then they vanish. And when you go through such an experience, you sense that they are things put aside for later on. And then, all of a sudden (especially during these last two years when I have again descended to take all that up), all of a sudden, one after another, all these snags return. And they dont follow the same curve; rather, its as if suddenly you reach a certain state and a certain impersonal breadth that far surpasses the individual, and this new state enters into contact with one of those old accidents that had remained in the deepest part of the subconscientand that makes it rise up again, the two meet in an explosion of light. Everything is explained, everything is understood, everything is clear! No explanation is needed: it has become OBVIOUS.
This is entirely another way of understandingits not an ascent, not even a descent nor an inspiration it must be what Sri Aurobindo calls a revelation. Its the meeting of this subconscious notationthis something which has remained buried within, held down so as not to manifest, but which suddenly surges forth to meet the light streaming down from above, this very vast state of consciousness that excludes nothing and from it springs forth a lightoh, a resplendence of light!like a new explanation of the world, or of that part of the world not yet explained.
--
And, even with Sri Aurobindo, even with him I didnt speak of these things for I wouldnt waste his time, and I found it quite useless to burden him with all this. I would tell him I always described my visions and experiences at night I always recounted that to him. And he would remember (I myself would forget; the next day, the whole thing would be gone), he would remember; then sometimes, long afterwards, even years afterwards, he would say, Ah, yes! You had seen that back then. He had a Wonderful memory. While myself, I would already have forgotten. But those were the only things I told him, and even then only when I saw that it had a very sure, very superior quality. I didnt bother him with a whole jumble of words. But otherwise . even Nolini,4 who understands well I never, never felt even the (its not the need) not even the POSSIBILITY.
I dont want to tell you this too precisely, to expand on it, for these things cannot be explained. I want you tonot know nor think it, but feel it suddenly, like a little electric shock within that leaps forth.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But its explained very well in Savitri! All these things have their laws and their conventions (and truly speaking, a really FORMIDABLE power is needed to change anything of their rights, for they have rightswhat they call laws) Sri Aurobindo explains this very well when Savitri, following Satyavan into death, argues with the god of Death.3 Its the Law, and who has the right to change the Law? he says. And then comes this Wonderful passage at the end where she replies, My God can change it. And my God is a God of Love. Oh, how magnificent!
And by force of repeating this to him, he yields She replies in this way to EVERYTHING.
0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
While it was all coming up, I thought, How is this possible? For during those years of my life (Im now outside things; I do them but Im entirely outside, so they dont involve mewhether its like this or like that makes no difference to me; Im only doing my work, thats all), I was already conscious, but nevertheless I was IN what I was doing to a certain extent; I was this web of social life (but thank God it wasnt here in India, for had it been here I could not have withstood it! I think that even as a child I would have smashed everything, because here its even worse than over there). You see, there its its a bit less constricting, a bit looser, you can slip through the mesh from time to time to brea the some air. But here, according to what Ive learned from people and what Sri Aurobindo told me, its absolutely unbearable (its the same in Japan, absolutely unbearable). In other words, you cant help but smash everything. Over there, you sometimes get a breath of air, but still its quite relative. And this morning I Wondered (you see, for years I lived in that way for years and years) just as I was Wondering, How was I ABLE to live that and not kick out in every direction?, just as I was looking at it, I saw up above, above this (it is worse than horrible, it is a kind of Oh, not despair, for there isnt even any sense of feeling there is NOTHING! It is dull, dull, dull gray, gray, gray, clenched tight, a closed web that lets through neither air nor life nor lightthere is nothing) and just then I saw a splendor of such sweet light above itso sweet, so full of true love, true compassion something so warm, so warm the relief, the solace of an eternity of sweetness, light, beauty, in an eternity of patience which feels neither the past nor the inanity and imbecility of thingsit was so Wonderful! That was entirely the feeling it gave, and I said to myself, THAT is what made you live, without THAT it would not have been possible. Oh, it would not have been possible I would not have lived even three days! THAT is there, ALWAYS there, awaiting its hour, if we would only let it in.
(silence)
--
Formerly, that was my first stepa long time ago. Now its so very different I Wonder how it was possible to have been so totally blind as to call that oneself at any moment in ones life! Its a collection of things. And what was the link by which that could be called oneself? Thats more difficult to find out. Only when you climb above do you come to realize that THAT is at work here, but it could work there as well, or as well here, or here, or here At times there is suddenly a drop of something (Oh, I saw that this morningit was like a drop, a little drop, but with SUCH an intense and perfect light ), and where THAT falls it makes its center and begins radiating out and acting. THAT is what can be called oneselfnothing else. And THAT precisely is what enabled me to live in such dreadfully uninteresting, such nonexistent circumstances. And at the moment when you ARE that, you see how that has lived and how that has used everything, not only in this body but in all bodies and through all time.
At the core, this is the experience; it is no longer knowledge. I now understand quite clearly the difference between the knowledge of the eternal soul, of life eternal through all its changes, and this CONCRETE experience of the thing.
0 1960-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
That was the Wonderful thing when we were together and all these hostile forces were fighting (they tried to kill me any number of times. He always saved me in an absolutely miraculous and marvelous way). But you see, this seemed to create very great BODILY difficulties for him. We discussed this a great deal, and I told him, If one of us must go, I want that it should be me.
It cant be you, he replied, because you alone can do the material thing.3
0 1960-12-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Yes, I have always felt that in Nature one can live in beauty, always. But then once man shows up, something gets thrown out of joint. Its the mind, actually. What gives birth to ugliness is really the intrusion of the mind in life. I Wonder if it was necessary, if it could not have been immediately harmonious. But it appears not.
Even stones are beautiful; they are always beautiful in one way or another. When life appeared, there were some forms that were a little difficult, but not to that extent, not like certain human mental creations. Of course, there may have been some animal species which were rather but they were more monstrous than actually ugly. And most probably, it only seems like that to our consciousness. But the mind And its the same for all these ideas of sin, of wrong, of all thatits a falsehood. But it was man who invented falsehood, wasnt it? The mind invented falsehood: to deceive! to deceive! And its a curious fact that animals domesticated by man have also learned to lie!
--
There should be machines to graph the curves, for its so sometimes it goes like this (gesture of a very steep ascent) and at such moments you feel, Ah! now Ive caught the thing. And then back it fallstoil. Sometimes it even feels like youre falling in a hole, really a hole and how are you ever going to get out? But that ALWAYS precedes a rapid ascent and a revelation or illumination: Ah, how Wonderful! Ive finally got it!
And that goes on for weeks and weeks.
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A sweetness, a sensation (both together) a sensation of eternity, and a sweetness! I Wonder if its even possible for anything to escape That!
(silence)
0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
'This Wonderful world of Delight waiting at our gates for our call, to come down upon earth.'
Original English.
0 1961-01-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
51When I hear of a righteous wrath, I Wonder at mans capacity for self-deception.
What do you have to say?
--
I would like to ask you a question in turnbecause there are two ways of understanding your question. It can be taken in the same ironic or humorous tone that Sri Aurobindo has used in his aphorism when he Wonders at mans capacity for self-deception. That is, you are putting yourself in the place of the self-deceiver and saying, But I am of good faith! I always want the welfare of others the interests of humanity, to serve the Divine (of course!). Then how can I be deceiving myself?
But actually, there are really two quite different forms of self-deception. One can be very shocked by certain things, not for personal reasons but precisely because of ones goodwill and ardor to serve the Divine, when one sees people misconducting themselves, being egoistical, unfaithful, treacherous. There comes a stage when one has mastered these things and doesnt permit them to manifest IN ONESELF; but to the extent that one is in contact with ordinary consciousness, ordinary viewpoints, ordinary life and thought, their possibility is still there, latent, because they are the inverse of the qualities one is striving for. And this opposition always exists until one has risen above and no longer has either the quality or the defect. As long as one has virtue, one always has its latent opposite. The opposition disappears only when one is beyond virtue and sin.
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But all of that is Wonderfully, accurately expressed and EXPLAINED in Savitri. Only you must know how to read it! The entire last part, from the moment she goes to seek Satyavan in the realm of Death (which affords an occasion to explain this), the whole description of what happens there, right up to the end, where every possible offer is made to tempt her, everything she must refuse to continue her terrestrial labor it is my experience EXACTLY.
Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternityin an earthly personality for the Earths salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earths jiva. So when the Lord says, he whom you love and whom you have chosen, it means the earth. All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, Go, go with him, the one you have chosen, how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasnt forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is something there to be found. Something extraordinary. How Wonderful it will be when we find it!
There are a few secrets like that I feel them as secrets. And now and then its as though I am given an example, as though I am being told, You see, thats really how it is. And I am dumbfounded. In ordinary language, one would say, Its miraculous! But it isnt miraculous, it is something to be found.
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here, I have brought you two flowers. They have two different yet very typically Indian fragrances: this one is Straightforwardness,1 and this is Simplicity.2 I have always found that this one (Mother holds out the Simplicity) has a cleansing fragrance: when you brea the it, ah, everything becomes cleanits Wonderful! (Mother breathes in the flowers fragrance.) Once I cured myself of the onset of a cold with itthis can be done when you catch it at the very beginning. It fills you completely, the nose, the throat. And this [Straightforwardness] is right at the other end of the spectrum. I find it very, very powerfulstrange, isnt it?
Its not at all sweet-smelling.
--
Then after these two incidents, I received a visit one night from the King of Serpents. He was wearing a superb crown on his headsymbolic, of course, but anyway, he was the spirit of the species. He had the appearance of a cobra, and he was Wonderful! A formidable beast, and Wonderful! He said he had come to make a pact with me: I had demonstrated my power over his species, so he wanted to come to an understanding. All right, I said, what do you propose? I not only promise that serpents wont harm you, he replied, but that they will obey you. But you must promise me something in return: never to kill one of them. I thought it over and said, No, I cant make this promise, because if ever one of yours attacks one of mine (a being that depends upon me), my pact with you could not stop me from protecting him. I can assure you that I have no bad feelings and no intention of killingkilling is not on my program! But I cant commit myself, because it would restrict my freedom of decision. He left without replying, so it remains status quo.
I have had several experiences demonstrating my power over snakes (not so much as over catswith cats its extraordinary!). Long ago, I often used to take a drive and then stop somewhere for a walk. One day after my walk, as I was getting back into the car to drive away (the door was still open), a very large snake came out, right from the spot I had just left. He was furious and heading straight towards the open door, ready to strike (luckily I was alone, neither the driver nor Pavitra were there, otherwise). When the snake had come quite near, I looked at him closely and said, What do you want? Why have you come here? There was a pause. Then he fell down flat and off he went. I hadnt made a move, only asked him, What do you want? Why have you come here? You know, they have a way of suddenly falling back, going limp, and prrt! Gone!
--
And do you know how he received me when I arrived there? It was the first time in my life I had traveled alone and the first time I had crossed the Mediterranean. Then there was a fairly long train ride between Oran and Tlemcenanyway, I managed rather well: I got there. He met me at the station and we set off for his place by car (it was rather far away). Finally we reached his est