Astonishing Quotes - Page 11

• Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Discovery, Two

  Letter to J.S. Switzer on April 23, 1953. "The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry". Book by H. Floris Cohen, p. 234, 1994.

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• It is astonishing that gay and lesbian Americans are still treated as second-class citizens. I am confident that, very soon, the laws of this nation will reflect the basic truth that gay and lesbian people - like all human beings - are born equal in dignity and rights.

  George Clooney

  Gay, Rights, Law

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• I wish I could show you...the astonishing light of your own being.

  Hafez

  Confidence, Self Esteem, Light

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• What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. ... Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Dark, Years

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". TV Series (Episode 11: The Persistence of Memory), 1990.

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• Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy which we call mathematics.

  Gregory Bateson

  Math, World, Fantasy

  "Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology".

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• Alternate currents, especially of high frequencies, pass with astonishing freedom through even slightly rarefied gases. The upper strata of the air are rarefied. To reach a number of miles out into space requires the overcoming of difficulties of a merely mechanical nature.

  Nikola Tesla

  Air, Numbers, Space

  Nikola Tesla (2016). “Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency: [Illustrated & Biography Added]”, p.57, eKitap Projesi

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• The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.

  Milan Kundera

  Purpose, Dazzle, Unbearable

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• It's funny. When we were alive we spent much of our time staring up at the cosmos and wondering what was out there. We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.

  Jon Stewart

  Mother, Moon, Men

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• For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.

  David Mitchell

  Men, White Man, Sea

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• There is no ideal in observation. When you have an ideal, you cease to observe, you are then merely approximating the present to the idea, and therefore there is duality, conflict, and all the rest of it. The mind has to be in the state when it can see, observe. The experience of the observation is really an astonishing state. In that there is no duality. The mind is simply - aware.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Ideas, Mind, Conflict

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• She is the crescendo, the final, astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish with Eve. She is the Master's finishing touch.

  John Eldredge

  Finishing, Finals, Lasts

  John Eldredge, Stasi Eldredge (2011). “Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul”, p.21, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.

  Neil Gaiman

  Work Out, Assuming, Trouble

  "The Wake (The Sandman, Book 10)". Book sub-series by Neil Gaiman, August 1995 – March 1996.

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• Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Fashion, Two, Mind

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• [T]he astonishing purity of pain, how it will not be mixed with any other sensation.

  Charles Baxter

  Pain, Purity, Sensations

  Charles Baxter (2012). “First Light”, p.178, Vintage

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• The moth settled onto the curtain and sat still. It was an astonishing creature, with black and white wings patterned in geometric shapes, scarlet underwings, and a fat white body with black spots running down it like a snowman's coal buttons. No human eye had looked at this moth before; no one would see its friends. So much detail goes unnoticed in the world.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, Eye, Black And White

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.140, Faber & Faber

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• I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Real, Believe

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.201, Yale University Press

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• Babes, I am so bored here that I don't think, since I've come, I've ever been more than three minutes away from some really astonishing act of violence.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Thinking, Bored, Three

  "Dhalgren". Book by Samuel R. Delany, January, 1975.

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• So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished the most astonishing deeds, and which, more then once, showed me that the too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the sucess of those projects which require rapid decision, and vigorous and determined execution. In reality, when you have once devoted your life to your enterprises, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals, and whosoever has taken this resolution, feels his strength and resources doubled.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Taken, Reality, Men

  Alexandre Dumas (2013). “Delphi Works of Alexandre Dumas (Illustrated)”, p.3487, Delphi Classics

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• And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old.

  Anne Lamott

  Dance, Cold, Moments

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• These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

  Yann Martel

  Children, Thinking, People

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• Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

  Thomas Mann

  Solitude, Originality, Absurd

  Thomas Mann, Stanley Appelbaum (1995). “Death in Venice”, p.19, Courier Corporation

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• This is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding-- it's got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Girl, Dream, Eye

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “Flappers and Philosophers: American Literature”, p.16, VM eBooks

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• They lifted their faces to the astonishing warmth. The sky arched over them, a pale, clear blue. Lina felt as though a lid that had been on her all her life had been lifted off. Light and air rushed though her, making a song, like the songs of Ember, only it was a song of joy. She looked at Doon and saw that he was smiling and crying at the same time, and she realized that she was, too.

  Jeanne DuPrau

  Song, Light, Air

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• The observations and encounters of a solitary, taciturn man are vaguer and at the same times more intense than those of a sociable man; his thoughts are deeper, odder and never without a touch of sadness. Images and perceptions that could be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions, occupy him unduly, become more intense in the silence, become significant, become an experience, an adventure, an emotion. Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd and the forbidden.

  Thomas Mann

  Adventure, Sadness, Men

  Thomas Mann (2012). “Death in Venice & A Man and His Dog: A Dual-Language Book”, p.101, Courier Corporation

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• When Ulysses hears his own story sung by an epic poet and then he reveals his identity and the poet wants to continue singing, Ulysses isn't interested any longer. That's very astonishing.

  Raymond Queneau

  Epic, Singing, Identity

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