Diane Ackerman Quotes

If you are seeing something for the first time, one of your first reactions should be fascination.

Wonder is from surprise, and surprise stops with experience.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

Amazement awaits us at every corner.

Life never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel.

The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us.

The mystery was gone but the amazement was just starting.

A stranger here Strange things doth meet, strange glories see; Strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear, Strange all, and new to me. But that they mine should be, who nothing was, That strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

Predictability is boring! I want a book to take me someplace I haven't been before, show me sights I haven't seen, make me ponder questions I may not have pondered before.

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

Holy cow!

Astonishment is the root of philosophy.

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 a powerful appeal in the 'I didn't know that' effect. I love it when people say, 'Gosh, I didn't know that.'

Sometimes you find something new, and you just say, 'Wow.'

Everything was a miracle until we solved it. ... the first man who ever saw a flying fish probably thought he was witnessing a miracle - and the first man who ever described a flying fish was doubtless called a liar.

O amazement of things-even the least particle!

The unknown always passes for the marvellous.

No wonder is greater than any other wonder, and if once explained ceases to be a wonder.

Stuff your eyes with wonder.

Live in a perpetual great astonishment.

I look with wonder at that which is before me.

What surprises you in life? The marvel of consciousness -- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidts the night of non-being.

Admiration is one of the most bewitching, enthusiastic passions of the mind; and every common moralist knows that it arises from novelty and surprise, the inseparable attendants of imposture.