In Tasmania, an island the size of Ireland whose primeval forests astonished 19th-century Europeans, an incomprehensible ecological tragedy is being played out.
Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible.
Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing.
Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit.
There are huge holes in it, unfortunately. But I'm astonished at how successful scientists have been in putting things together.
I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.
Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.
I'm not interested in attacking, I'm interested in astonishing.
A socialist is just someone who is unable to get over his or her astonishment that most people who have lived and died have spent lives of wretched, fruitless, unremitting toil.
Astonishment is the proper response to reality.