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61 " The twin aspects of genius, the passive and the active, are possessed by the fully realized artist; they also form the necessary equipment of the Adept. Yet in very few people are these twin aspects manifested. Nearly everyone has a capacity for the passive aspect, which involves some sort of appreciation of aesthetic values. There are few people totally unresponsive to the beauties of nature, and none at all that is not responsive to its ferocious manifestations.Fewer are able to respond profoundly to the beauty of natural phenomena, and fewer still to so-called works of art. It takes a degree of genius to respond to such manifestations the whole time. Artists in this category are among the saints, some of whom thrilled with rapture at the constant awareness of the total unity, harmony, and beauty of things.Such were Boehme, Ramakrishna, etc. Some yogis are immersed in an unsullied and vibrant bliss derived from the incessant contemplation of this 'world-bewitching maya'4-the breath-taking wonder of the great and glamorous illusion which surrounds us.On the other side of the fence, on the side of active or creative genius, there are yet fewer. Active or creative genius means nothing less than the ability to translate the wonder or the terror of the great lfla (the great play of life) in terms of visual, tactile, audible, olfactory, or some other sensual presentation of phenomena.But there is a third aspect of genius which is yet more rare. It is the ability to open the door of the theatre and admit the influences from outside, from the swarming gulfs beyond the grasp of the mind, and accessible only to the magical entity whose fantastic feelers can snare the most fugitive impulses as they flash through the holes in space, the kinks in time, to be reflected in the magic mirror of the artist's mind. "
― Kenneth Grant , Outside the Circles Of Time
62 " Think of it. Going to sleep and waking up later in a science fiction future. It'll be fantastic. The shock and the wonder of it. "
― Dexter Palmer , The Dream of Perpetual Motion
63 " The Lord of my life, who calls me to be brave and walk into the unknown, amazing future. I am always awed by the wonder of you. "
― Susan May Warren , The Wonder of You (Christiansen Family, #5)
64 " As the leader of the international Human Genome Project, which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House... Clinton's speech began by comparing this human sequence map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hundred years earlier. Clinton said, " Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. " Today," he said, " we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift." Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked closely with the president's speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph.When it came time for me to add a few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: " It's a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God." What was going on here? Why would a president and a scientist, charged with announcing a milestone in biology and medicine, feel compelled to invoke a connection with God? Aren't the scientific and spiritual worldviews antithetical, or shouldn't they at least avoid appearing in the East Room together? What were the reasons for invoking God in these two speeches? Was this poetry? Hypocrisy? A cynical attempt to curry favor from believers, or to disarm those who might criticize this study of the human genome as reducing humankind to machinery? No. Not for me. Quite the contrary, for me the experience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship. "
65 " A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa—to be a bay—releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise—become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall, and there are verbs for that, too. To be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in a world where everything is alive. Water, land, and even a day, the language a mirror for seeing the animacy of the world, the life that pulses through all things, through pines and nuthatches and mushrooms. This is the language I hear in the woods; this is the language that lets us speak of what wells up all around us.[…]This is the grammar of animacy. "
― Robin Wall Kimmerer , Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
66 " The days and the light feel like brief moments of torture, put here to remind us of what we don’t have any more. Joy is instantaneous, that, is the wonder of joy. Misery and suffering sneak up on someone like a bastard. They drip into your brain slowly, over time. Until one morning you wake up crying and you have no idea why. "
― Craig Stone , Deep In The Bin Of Bob
67 " Since then I’ve come to believe you don’t always have to use things you love, and it’s not always so practical to be so practical. Now that I’ve grown up, I realize that all that delicious dilettantism pays its way as much as any degree in medicine or engineering, by making me remember every day—whenever I pick up a book or watch the Science Channel or try to read a map of Asia for no particular reason—that life is amazing and there is no end to the wonder of it. "
― Barbara Sher , Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams
68 " Gnani Purush’ (the enlightened one) is considered to be the owner of the whole universe. And yet, there is not the slightest egoism in Him. Where there is no authority, there is egoism and where there is authority, there is no egoism. This is the wonder of ‘Gnani Purush!’ ‘Gnani Purush’ is the manifest light. "
― Dada Bhagwan
69 " Imagination is the wonder of the wise. "
70 " He could be distracted, still, by beauty, by the wonder of a stroke of sunlight. Perhaps at such times he made himself open to wizardry-or conversely, was as warded and safe at such moments as Ynefel at its strongest. Perhaps threats simply slid past his attention and he made himself immune. "
― C.J. Cherryh , Fortress of Eagles (Fortress, #2)
71 " This is the wonder of Christmas, that in the solitary form of an impoverished infant God has handed me everything that I could never create so that I can be everything that I could never be. "
― Craig D. Lounsbrough
72 " To be able to accept the wonder and the marvel of one's own personality, however flawed or 'accidental,' and place it in and trust it to the hands of the One who made it, is one of the greatest achievements in life. "
― Ravi Zacharias , The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
73 " Travel with the wit of an adult, and the wonder of a child. "
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74 " A traveller moves among real people in their own milieu and learns from them, soaking up their wisdom and philosophy, their way of being in the world. A tourist simply hops from one tourist highpoint to another, skimming across the surface, cramming in quantity rather than quality, and comes away with his soul and imagination unchanged, untouched by the wonder of a life lived differently. "
75 " The universe and all creation are there for you to connect your spirit to and you are special part of the whole. If you can sense the wonder of the vast infinite and eternal universe, your spirit will be lifted to great heights and you will tap the source of your life energy. "
― Timothy Simpson ,
76 " Life is funny. We all have periods of ups and downs. Of silence and discovery. And then we begin to know who we are. Like watching a rose opening. Ah, we say. And once we do, the love and the wonder truly begin. "
77 " Oh Moon, sweet, sweet Moon, I want to be naked on you. I want to be like a flower growing on your surface, unique and mysterious, at home in the wonder of you, as if my naked body would be something growing out of your soil, something precious, a lovely gift on your landscape. "
― James Lusarde , Naked on the Moon
78 " Is it always like that?" I ask, breathless. “No,” he says. “It's never like that.” I hear the wonder in his voice. And just like that, everything changes. "
79 " Fighting with tangles,fighting with curls,the poor barber yanked,the poor barber pulled,until with one last effort(and to the wonder of us all)a GINORMOUS Polar Bearlanded on the floor. "
― Mili Fay , Animals In My Hair
80 " ...it's not the medium that's the message - it's consciousness - the wonder of being able to wonder ... "