Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Wonders
He shall have chariots easier than air,
That I will have invented;… And thyself,
That art the messenger, shalt ride before him
On a horse cut out of an entire diamond.
That shall be made to go with golden wheels,
I know not how yet.
Beaumont and Fletcher—A King and No King. Act V.
A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto II. St. 2.
Mira cano; sol occubuit;
Nox nulla secuta est.
Wonders I sing; the sun has set; no night has followed.
Burton, quoting from a reference to a phrase of Giraldus Gambrensis, found in Camden—Epigrammes.
If a man proves too clearly and convincingly to himself … that a tiger is an optical illusion—well, he will find out he is wrong. The tiger will himself intervene in the discussion, in a manner which will be in every sense conclusive.
G. K. Chesterton.
The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
G. K. Chesterton—Tremendous Trifles.
We were young, we were merry, we were very, very wise,
And the door stood open at our feast,
When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.
Mary E. Coleridge—Unwelcome.
“Never see … a dead post-boy, did you?” inquired Sam…. “No,” rejoined Bob, “I never did.” “No!” rejoined Sam triumphantly. “Nor never vill; and there’s another thing that no man never see, and that’s a dead donkey.”
Dickens—Pickwick Papers. Ch. LI.
Long stood the noble youth oppress’d with awe,
And stupid at the wondrous things he saw,
Surpassing common faith, transgressing nature’s law.
Dryden—Theodore and Honoria. L. 217.
Men love to wonder and that is the seed of our science.
Emerson—Works and Days.
This wonder lasted nine daies.
Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. II. Ch. I. Nine days wonder. Roger Ascham—Scholemaster. Title of book by Kemp. Massinger—New Way to Pay Old Debts. Act IV. Sc. 2.
The things that have been and shall be no more,
The things that are, and that hereafter shall be,
The things that might have been, and yet were not,
The fading twilight of joys departed.
Longfellow—Christus. Divine Tragedy. First Passover. III. Marriage in Cana.
Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this.
Plato—Theætetus. XXXII. Cary’s trans.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, of straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.
Pope—Prologue to the Satires. L. 169.
Out of our reach the gods have laid
Of time to come th’ event,
And laugh to see the fools afraid
Of what the knaves invent.
Sir C. Sedley—Lycophron.
O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping.
As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 201.
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 164.
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder?
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 110.
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 123.
’Twas strange, ’twas passing strange;
’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 160.
There’s something in a flying horse,
There’s something in a huge balloon.
Wordsworth—Peter Bell. Prologue. St. 1.
We nothing know, but what is marvellous;
Yet what is marvellous, we can’t believe.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night VII.
Nothing but what astonishes is true.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night IX.