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RESPONDING WITH WONDERMENT AND AWE

The most beautiful experience in the world is the experience of the mysterious."
Albert Einstein.

The real mark of the creative person is that the unforeseen problem is a joy and not a curse.
Norman H. Mackworth

To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.
Tyrone Edwards

"Practice being excited."

Bill Foster

"It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys."
Antoine De Saint-Exupery

"Align people's passions with the priorities and you'll achieve performance."
Steve Brown

"Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion."

George Hegel

"A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity."
Samuel Johnson

"Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things."
Denis Diderot

"Be anchored to some ideal, philosophy or cause that keeps you too excited to sleep."
Brian Koslow

"Your work is to discover your work, and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. "
Buddha

"Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift."

Albert Einstein

"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it."
Harry Emerson Fosdick

"Disgust and resolve are two of the great emotions that lead to change."
Jim Rohn

You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.
Bob Nelson

"You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing... Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something... The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."
Norman Vincent Peale

"I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind."

Samuel Johnson

"To me the desire to create and to have control over your own life, irrespective of the politics of the time or social structures, has always been a part of the human spirit. What I did not fully realize was that work could open the doors to my heart."
Anita Roddick, Founder/CEO, The Body Shop

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
Charles Kingsley

"Enthusiasm is not something you can eat or drink. It's something that bubbles up from the depth of your own heart and soul."
Robert Schuller

"We have to pursue this subject of fun very seriously if we want to stay competitive in the twentyfirst century."

George Yeo

"People do their best work when they are passionately engaged in what they are doing."
Erie S. Raymond

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."
Jawaharlal Nehru

"Fun is going to enhance interest, because people don't feel incompetent when they're having fun."
Matthew S. Richter

"There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment."
Norman Vincent Peale

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm."
Aldous Huxley, author

"To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work."
Sister Mary Lauretta

"Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge."

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Enthusiasm moves the world."

J. Balfour

"Winning isn't everything. *Wanting* to win is."

Catfish Hunter

"I don't want people who want to dance,I want people who *have* to dance."
George Balanchine

"The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams."
Og Mandino

"Man's mind is not a container to be filled but rather a fire to be kindled."

Dorothea Brande

"A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake during the night."
Marilyn Vos Savant

"When every physical and mental resources is focused- one's power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously."
Norman Vincent Peale

"Once you do something you love, you never have to work again."
Willie Hill, student

Genius is initiative on fire

Holbrook Johnson

If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.
Steven Jobs

One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.
John Stuart Mills

Find a way to engage the heart in the problem and you are likely to see the child rise naturally to his own optimal levels of uncertainty, risk and relevance.
Richard Jones

"A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means."
Henry Hazlitt

"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it."
Joseph Campbell

All thinking begins with wondering

Socrates

"Wisdom begins in wonder."

Socrates

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"
Isaac Asimov

"I would sooner live in a cottage and wonder at everything than live in a castle and wonder at nothing!"
Joan Winmill Brown, Actress

"Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act."
Claude Helvetius

"Practice being excited."

Bill Foster

" We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."
Frank Tibolt, Author

"I want to be excited, thrilled, ecstatic about all sorts of things as long as I live."
Win Couchman, Writer and Speaker

"I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity."
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

"The great man is he who does not lose his child-heart"

Mencius

"A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood."
Rachel Carson

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
Pablo Picasso

"You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis."
Henry Ford, Industrialist

Life is enthusiasm, zest.

Sir Laurence Olivier

"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."
Ralph W. Sockman, Minister

" A child's attitude toward everything is an artist's attitude."

Willa Cather

"My work, which I've done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men."
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Renowned Biologist

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed."
Albert Einstein

"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark."
Henri-Frdric Amiel, Swiss Philosopher and Poet

"It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit."

Antoine Rivarol

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
Edmund Burke

"One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead t o something else."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Nietzsche

"We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic."
E. Merrill Root

"Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act."
Claude Helvetius

"Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours."
Dale Carnegie

"Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity."

Paul Goodman, Author and Poet

"We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure."
Carl Sagan

"Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves."
Herbert W. Boyer

"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief."
- Gerry Spence, Author

Source: These quotes originally compiled by Emeritus Professor Art Costa. Also available at www.instituteforhabitsofmind.com