John Steinbeck Quotes

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.

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?

How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see.

For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle.

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.

If you think of feelings you have when you are awed by something - for example, knowing that elements in your body trace to exploded stars - I call that a spiritual reaction, speaking of awe and majesty, where words fail you.

The pure air and dazzling snow belong to things beyond the reach of all personal feeling, almost beyond the reach of life. Yet such things are a part of our life, neither the least noble nor the most terrible.

Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.

Good God what a fine sight. I had no conception that there was such a scene in the world, and to find it in my own dominions.

There's something overwhelming about being in raw nature. It's got an aura about it is that is really kind of majestic and spiritual.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.

I am inspired and affected by Aspen, the light and the landscape and the natural world.

'Flower' is about the sublime.

The moments that I feel the most imbued with a sense of awe are always the moments when I am outdoors. I can't help but feel a certain sense of wonder - I become almost filled with it.

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

Water is the grand epic of creation; and there is not a human soul but feels the influence of its majesty, its power, or its beauty.

What wonders lie in every mountain day!

Mountains define you. You cannot define / Them.

There is a majestic grandeur in tranquillity.

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.

I have devoted myself to architecture as a sublime act of poetic imagination. Consequently, I am only a symbol for all those who have been touched by beauty. The words Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement, all these have nestled in my soul. Though I am fully aware that I have not done them complete justice in my work, they have never ceased to be my guiding lights.

Go up to the mountain, go up to the glen, where silence will touch you, and heartbreak will mend.

It doesn't take any imagination at all to feel awed

Earth has not anything to show more fair.

There's a group of 12 oak trees on my property in California that I call 'my disciples.' Their branches form a canopy over the ground, and I sit underneath them for inspiration.