Astonishment is the root of philosophy.

When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists? Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending -- something dead, cold, and lifeless.

Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigurations," said Ron, to general astonishment.

"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.

I have a theory about marriage, Monsieur Boustouler. And it's that nearly always you will know within two weeks if it's going to work. It's astonishing how many people remain shackled for years, decades even, in a protracted and mutual state of self-delusion and false hope when in fact they had their answer in those first two weeks.

"So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished the most astonishing deeds, and which, more then once, showed me that the too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the sucess of those projects which require rapid decision, and vigorous and determined execution.

So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder?

Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

"I have been astonished that men could die martyrs

It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.

It is astonishing what force purity and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed when that little wisdom is its own.

Wherever we go across the Pacific or Atlantic we meet not similarity so much as 'the bizarre'. Things astonish us when we travel that surprise nobody else.

I'm astonished by my success.

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.

I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.

Under these conditions it is not astonishing that learning was highly prized in fact my parents made sacrifices to be able to give their children a good education.

English girls' schools today providing the higher education are so far as my knowledge goes worthily representative of that astonishing rise in the intellectual standards of women which has taken place in the last half-century.

Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence.

And as I have said it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five.