Amazement Life Quotes & Sayings

I realized a long time ago, with a certain amazement, that no mattter how important something is in your life, no matter how huge it is, how much space it takes up in your heart and in your thoughts, unless you mention it to other people, they have no idea it exists. — Sharon Shinn

From the girl who sat before me now ... surged a fresh and physical life force. She was like a small animal that has popped into the world with the coming of spring. Her eyes moved like an independent organism with joy, laughter, anger, amazement, and despair. I hadn't seen a face so vivid and expressive in ages, and I enjoyed watching it live and move. — Haruki Murakami

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

I'm in love with that girl," she said out loud in amazement, because she knew that this was a life-changing thing and life-changing things should be said aloud, should have a moment in time, and a place in the air, some molecular structure to make them real. I'm in love with that girl, she heard as it reverberated inside her head. And it was truth, she realised, as things are which you don't think, but discover have always existed. — Paula Boock

It was a constant source of amazement to Alexia that the only thing she had ever done in her entire life that pleased her mama was marry a werewolf. — Gail Carriger

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart a love of wonder; the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts; the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life. — Samuel Ullman

One day, quite some time ago, I happened on a photograph of Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome, taken in 1852. And I realized then, with an amazement I have not been able to lessen since: 'I am looking at eyes that looked at the Emperor.' Sometimes I would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even to understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), I forgot about it. — Roland Barthes

There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and life's end is death. — Robinson Jeffers

One day, you will stand at the summit of a figurative mountain and look back on your life's journey. And, to your utter amazement, you will see how your experiences with depression, dark and painful as they were, only added to the overall beauty of your life. — Seth Adam Smith

Except... what Jesus said was: "I will build My church," not you. The verse is not a prediction, it is a proclamation of the Lord of the Earth, who never once talked of "children in subjection." or "wives be grave... sober, faithful in all things." In fact, reading the New Testament from the Gospels into Paul's letters, is like watching the Wizard of Oz backwards -- going from a world of color and amazement, into a land of black-and-white with insane devout women trying to kill your dog. -- editorial 2014 — Glenn Hefley

Life is amazing: and the teacher had better prepare himself to be a medium for that amazement. — Edward Blishen

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the ageing and grumpy Plato, in Book VII of the Laws, gave his definition of scientific illiteracy: Who is unable to count one, two, three, or to distinguish odd from even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the revolution of the Sun and Moon, and the other stars . . . All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement ... I ... have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Greeks. — Anonymous

To her amazement, she realized that the way of life of these people was nothing more than an indeterminate fiction, casually knotted together at particular points that were used again and again. With four or five remarks, and a couple of facial expressions, she had mastered it with no problem at all. — Gerhard Amanshauser

It is one thing to read about being filled with the Holy Spirit and quite another thing to experience the mighty infilling of the Holy Spirit that radically changes our life to a life of adoring wonder and amazement at the things of God. Reading and experiencing are two quite different things. — A.W. Tozer

I saw my name: THOMAS, Petria. Saw my time, 57.72. Saw the number one next to them. I'd done it. Me! Petria Thomas, Olympic champion. The feeling inside was one of pure, utter joy. Excitement, disbelief, relief, hapiness, amazement, the whole works. Id worked so hard. I'd gone through so much, privately, publicly. I'd lost faith in myself and found it again. I'd sometimes stopped believing that I could do it and that I had a purpose in life. I'd come through the darkness, and this, this moment, was the sweetest, most amazing light there could possibly be. I was alive and loving it! — Petria Thomas

The Elm Log
By Alexander Solzhenitsyn
We were sawing firewood when we picked up an elm log and gave a cry of amazement. It was a full year since we had chopped down the trunk, dragged it along behind a tractor and sawn it up into logs, which we had then thrown on to barges and wagons, rolled into stacks and piled up on the ground - and yet this elm log had still not given up! A fresh green shoot had sprouted from it with a promise of a thick, leafy branch, or even a whole new elm tree.
We placed the log on the sawing-horse, as though on an executioner's block, but we could not bring ourselves to bite into it with our saw. How could we? That log cherished life as dearly as we did; indeed, its urge to live was even stronger than ours. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

When I compare life to a dream I do not mean to denigrate it as some sort of meaningless fantasy. Life is too wonderful to be called an "illusion" unless we whisper the word in amazement, as we might when witnessing the most astonishing magic trick. What could be more magnificent than this glorious universe, in all its multifarious extravagance? Its awesome vastness and delicate detail. Its impersonal precision and intimate intensity. Its harsh necessities and lush sensuality. This dream of life is truly marvelous. — Timothy Freke

I doubt that I could create a character I loathed simply because when a character takes life, it is impossible not to be a little amazed by the phenomenon, and to find that the amazement has something of the quality of delight. — Marilynne Robinson

She prayed in the above manner several times daily, and her mother had a most remarkable recovery after a few days, much to the amazement of her specialist. He complimented her on her great faith in the power of God. The conclusion arrived at in the daughter's mind set the creative law of mind in motion on the subjective side of life, which manifested itself through her mother's body as perfect health and harmony. What the daughter felt as true about her mother was simultaneously resurrected in the experience of her mother. — Joseph Murphy

His whole being, his whole life was awakened in one instant, as if youth returned to him, as if the extinguished sparks of talent blazed up again. The blindfold suddenly fell from his eyes. God! to ruin the best years of his youth so mercilessly; to destroy, to extinguish the spark of fire that had perhaps flickered in his breast, that perhaps would have developed by now into greatness and beauty, that perhaps would also have elicited tears of amazement and gratitude! — Nikolai Gogol

Hello," Life says, "Remember me?
We started out together here
When you were just a bundle
Of innocent amazement.
Remember how you saw the world
With nothing but wonder?
We were such rowdy playmates then.
We painted on the sky with clouds
And made magic out of
Clothespins and peanut butter.
Remember, can you, how I became stained and heavy
With trouble?
Not safe now. Lots of no.
They dressed me in painful clothes
And made you wear them, too.
You don't recognize me, do you
But I've never abandoned you
Or lost my wild, happy desire
To show you
Play with you
Kiss you
Hide and seek down twisty paths
And always discover more.
Want to run away with me again?
Shall we elope without ever leaving
Because that's possible, you know.
I've never been anywhere but here
Waiting for you
To remember. — Jacob Nordby

Still there are moments when one feels free from one's own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments, one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable: life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only being. — Albert Einstein

Choose Life over the other stuff. Get out of your head. Live. Dress up. Eat. Touch people. Help out. Give up. Love people. Give your best away. There's more. What's the problem? Relax. You're going to die. Throw a party. Eat off my plate. Sing to me. Meet me in the bedroom. Get a massage. Give one. Let your amazement out into the room. Pry open the box you hide your joy in. Be a poem. — John Patrick Shanley

It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm - this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. "Begins" - this is important. Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is the gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening. At the end of the awakening comes, in time, the consequence: suicide or recovery. — Albert Camus

Doing this was like
wading and then throwing yourself into the lake for the first icy swim, in June. A sickening shock at first, then amazement that
you were still moving, lifted up on a stream of steely devotion
calm above the surface of your life, surviving, though the pain of
the cold continued to wash into your body. — Alice Munro

When we trust our creativity we encounter a supreme kind of enjoyment - an amazement at the natural unfolding of life beyond our ordinary way of looking at things. — Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Once again he was aware of eyes staring fixedly at him. He glanced sideways into the long, pointed face of Goodboy Bindle Featherstone, rearing up in a pose best described as The Last Puppy in the Shop.
To his astonishment, he found himself reaching over and scratching it behind its ears, or at least behind the two spiky things at the sides of its head which were presumably its ears. It responded with a strange noise that sounded like a complicated blockage in a brewery. He took his hand away hurriedly.
"It's all right," said Lady Ramkin. "It's his stomachs rumbling. That means he likes you."
To his amazement, Vimes found that he was rather pleased about this. As far as he could recall, nothing in his life before had thought him worth a burp. — Terry Pratchett

If you take a single step toward positive change, that divine energy will take a hundred steps toward you. New worlds and unbelievable possibilities will open up for you. The synchronicities that will begin appearing in your life will become a source of delight and amazement. — Joan Z. Borysenko

I have a friend who feels sometimes that the world is hostile to human life
he says it chills us and kills us. But how could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two conditions
gravity and a livable temperature range between freezing and boiling
have given us fluids and flesh. The trees we climb and the ground we walk on have given us five fingers and toes. The "place" (from the root plat, broad, spreading, flat) gave us far-seeing eyes, the streams and breezes gave us versatile tongues and whorly ears. The land gave us a stride, and the lake a dive. The amazement gave us our kind of mind. We should be thankful for that, and take nature's stricter lessons with some grace. — Gary Snyder

On 'EastEnders,' if someone gets surprising news on the phone, the scene ends with them looking at their handset in amazement. No one in real life does that. — Robert Webb

He couldn't remember where he had come from, and ultimately he didn't know where he would go. But he could look back without regret on the time in between, his life, with a full-throated laugh and utter amazement. — Robert Seethaler

Life is a fairy tale. Live it with wonder and amazement. — Welwyn Wilton Katz

Don't be concerned if you haven't been aware of these natural laws before. Once you begin to incorporate a philosophy into your life that is in accordance with Universal law, your life will bring you such joy, that you'll laugh in amazement. It will be as if you've spent your life driving a car in reverse and you've sudenly discovered that there are gears to make it go forward - and fast! — Chris Prentiss

Your human gods love to present you with such riddles and challenges, or so it has seemed to me for most of my life ... You often seem to prefer difficult choices when simple alternatives are available; it is a constant source of amazement to my kind. — Raymond E. Feist

For many feverish years he was burdened with the sensation, an ancient one to be sure, that the incredible sprawl of human history was no more than a pathetically partial record of an infinitely vast and shadowed chronicle of universal metamorphoses. How much greater, then, was the feeling that his own pathetic history formed a practically invisible fragment of what itself was merely an obscure splinter of the infinite. Somehow he needed to excarcerate himself from the claustral dungeon cell of his life. In the end, however, he broke beneath the weight of his aspiration. And as the years passed, the only mystery which seemed worthy of his interest, and his amazement, was that unknown day which would inaugurate his personal eternity, that incredible day on which the sun simply would not rise, and forever would begin. — Thomas Ligotti

The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages. — Albert Einstein

I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature. — Pablo Casals

As soon as he had left the room and walked into the air, he knew that he would never return and for the first time his fears lifted. It was a spring morning, and when he walked into Severndale Park he felt the breeze bringing back memories of a much earlier life, and he was at peace. He sat beneath a tree and looked up at its leaves in amazement - where once he might have gazed at them and sensed there only the confusion of his own thoughts, now each leaf was so clear and distinct that he could see the lightly coloured veins which carried moisture and life. And he looked down at his own hand, which seemed translucent beside the bright grass. His head no longer ached, and as he lay upon the earth he could feel its warmth beneath him. — Peter Ackroyd

The wonder in our life should always point the greater wonder of the Father. — Harry Neal

Every one of us can honestly claim that "worst of sinners" title. No, it isn't specially reserved for the Adolf Hitlers, Timothy McVeighs, and Osama bin Ladens of the world. William Law writes, "We may justly condemn ourselves as the greatest sinners we know because we know more of the folly of our own heart than we do of other people's."
So admit you're the worst sinner you know. Admit you're unworthy and deserve to be condemned. But don't stop there! Move on to rejoicing in the Savior who came to save the worst of sinners. Lay down the luggage of condemnation and kneel down in worship at the feet of Him who bore your sins. Cry tears of amazement.
And confess with Paul: "I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life" (1 Timothy 1:16) — C.J. Mahaney

If you think about it, we get robbed of the mystery of being alive. I think we get robbed of the glory of it because we don't remember how we got here. When you get born, you wake up slowly to everything. From birth to 26, God is slowly turning on the lights, and you are groggy and pointing at things, and say "Circle," and, "Blue,", and, "Car," and, "Sex," and then, "Job," and, "Healthcare". The experience is so slow, you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. Life IS staggering, and we are just too used to it. — Donald Miller

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement ... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

After seeing the various fantastic sights, a visitor to Panorama Island would have had to gasp in amazement at this unsurpassable view. He would have had the impression that the entire island was a rose floating on the vast ocean and that the giant scarlet flower of an opium dream was conversing on an equal footing with the sun in the sky, just the two of them. What kind of strange beauty had that incomparable simplicity and grandeur created? Some travelers might have recalled the world of myth that their distant ancestors had seen. . . .

How can the author describe the madness and debauchery, the pleasures of revelry and drunkenness, the numberless games of life and death that were played day and night on that magnificent stage? You readers might find something that resembled it, in part, in your most fantastic, bloodiest, and most beautiful nightmares. — Rampo Edogawa

Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me? — Albert Schweitzer

When it over, I want to say:all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's 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.
from When the death comes — Mary Oliver

The very fact of snow is such an amazement. — Roger Ebert

The cool thing about getting older, is that you have so much to look back on. If you take the time to reflect on your life journey to where you are now, you will be amazed at how many times "fate" caused you to make great decisions that lead you to where you are now. — Beth Ramsay

A little of everything, that's what a successful business is all about, Brian. Diversity, pleasure, amazement, fulfillment ... what a successful life is all about, for that matter ... I don't give advice, but if I did, you could do worse than to remember that ... now let me see ... somewhere — Stephen King

May spending time with You be my first priority, may listening and obeying mark my life, may extravagant childlike joy and amazement mark my demeanor, may an openness to share your grace quickly and easily flow from me, may I seek your forgiveness and excitedly accept it. — Katie Kiesler

One of the great events in my life was my first meeting with Edison. This wonderful man, who had received no scientific training, yet had accomplished so much, filled me with amazement. I felt that the time I had spent studying languages, literature and art was wasted; though later, of course, I learned this was not so. — Nikola Tesla

I see all this and I feel no amazement because making the shell implied also making the honey in the wax comb and the coal and the telescopes and the reign of Cleopatra and the films about Cleopatra and the Pyramids and the design of the zodiac of the Chaldean astrologers and the wars and empires Herodotus speaks of and the words written by Herodotus and the works written in all languages, including those of Spinoza in Dutch, and the fourteen-line summary of Spinoza's life and works in the instalment of the encyclopedia in the truck passed by the ice-cream van, and so I feel as if, in making the shell, I had also made the rest. — Anonymous

This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected
in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life. — Thomas Mann

With education symmetrical and true we will take the dead mass buried by slavery's hand and touch them to life. This beauteous angel, which has always done its work for those on earth, will roll away the stone from the tomb where is buried a race, and my people will come forth to their glory and the amazement of the world. — William Tecumseh Vernon

I remember that life in that room seemed to be occurring beneath the sea, time flowed past indifferently above us, hours and days had no meaning. In the beginning our life held a joy and amazement which was newborn every day. Beneath the joy, of course, was anguish and beneath the amazement was fear; but they did not work themselves to the beginning until our high beginning was aloes on our tongues. By then anguish and fear had become the surface on which we slipped and slid, losing balance, dignity, and pride. — James Baldwin

I am amazed about the greatness of God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while. That is the way of life, from the All-Highest down to the meanest creature in creation ... But whether this is the case or no, it is still a worthy thing to open cages. It is still a virtuous act to free the imprisoned. — Neil Gaiman

The talk of lovers who have just declared their love is one of life's most sweet delights. Each vies with the other in humility, in amazement at being so valued. The past is searched for the first signs and each one is in haste to declare all that he is so that no part of his being escapes the hallowing touch. — Iris Murdoch