W is for Wonder

Image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev / freedigitalphotos.net

Many people have said that to be truly creative we need to maintain a childlike wonder for everything around us. I've been raiding the Goodreads quotes again and here are a few of my favourites listed under 'wonder'.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.” 
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
― Franz Kafka

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” 
― Albert Einstein

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” 
― W.B. Yeats

“You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down” 
― Charles Chaplin

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” 
― Socrates

“Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.” 
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
― Betty Smith, Joy in the Morning

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”
― Diane Ackerman

“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.” 

― Gerry Spence, How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday

And to finish it off, a poem:

“A Second Childhood.”

When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.

Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber’s dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.

Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.

Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.

Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters when I wake
And I find that I am not dead.

A thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.

Strange crawling carpets of the grass,
Wide windows of the sky;
So in this perilous grace of God
With all my sins go I:
And things grow new though I grow old,
Though I grow old and die.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton

Do you maintain a childlike sense of wonder when you are writing? Or do you have any more quotes to add? Share in the comments section below, I'd love to hear from you.