“Wonder, or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man’s attitude toward nature and history. One attitude is alien to his spirit: taking things for granted, regarding events as the natural course of things. To find an approximate cause of a phenomenon is no answer to his ultimate wonder. He knows that there are laws that regulate the course of natural processes; he is aware of the regularity and pattern of things. However such knowledge fails to mitigate his sense of perpetual surprise at the fact that there are facts at all.”
“Awareness of the divine begins with wonder. It is the result of what man does with his higher incomprehension. As civilization advances the sense of wonder declines. Such a decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of happiness lies in understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.” -Abraham Joshua Heschel
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