Quotes for
the Journey:

Mystery



Mystery creates wonder
and wonder is the basis of
one's desire to understand.

Neil Armstrong

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.       -Henri Frederic Amiel

   

When all the words have been written, and all the phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of life will still remain.  We may map the terrains of our lives, measure the farthest reaches of the universe, but no amount of searching will ever reveal for certain whether we are all children of chance or part of a great design.  And who among us would have it otherwise?  Who would wish to take the mystery out of the experience of looking into a newborn infant's eyes?       -Kent Nerburn

   
The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.        -Arthur Christopher Benson
   

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the source of all true art and science.  Those to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; their eyes are closed.        -Albert Einstein

   
The very commonplaces of life are components of its eternal mystery.        - Gertrude Atherton
    
Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life.  Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.       -R.I. Fitzhenry

Soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions.  Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego.  Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn.  The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise.  After that day. . . we become seekers.       -Peter Matthiessen
    
Real faith means holding ourselves open to the unconditional mystery which we encounter in every sphere of our life and which cannot be comprised in any formula.  Real faith means the ability to endure life in the face of this mystery.        -Martin Buber
    
I am entirely on the side of mystery.   I mean, any attempt to explain away the mystery is ridiculous.  I believe in the profound and unfathomable mystery of life which has a sort of divine quality about it.        - Aldous Huxley
   
Most of us encounter a great deal more Mystery than we are willing to experience.  Sometimes knowing life requires us to suspend disbelief, to recognize that all our hard-won knowledge may only be provisional and the world may be quite different than we believe it to be.  This can be very stressful, even frightening.  But if we are not willing to wonder, we may have to hang up the phone on life.        -Rachel Naomi Remen
   
Mystery is a resource, like coal or gold, and its preservation is a fine thing.       -Tim Cahill
   
One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us.  All one need do is to notice intelligently, if even for a brief moment, a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling.       -Simon Greenberg
    
    
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.        -Rachel Carson
   
Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?        -Charles DeLint
   
If something controls you in a way that puzzles you, think of it as a mystery.  Mysteries are best approached by closing your eyes and mouth to experience darkness and silence.  I find new and healing images in that dark, silent place away from emotions that control me.  Do not be afraid to close your eyes and be silent in prayer, meditation, rest or sleep.  In those states you may rediscover a new self.  Then your life, time and thoughts will become yours again and you can live your unique myth.        -Bernie Siegel
    
There is nothing beautiful or sweet or great in life that is not mysterious.        -François René de Chateaubriand
   
Both the person of science and the person of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.       -J. Robert Oppenheimer
    
Perhaps some day, modern people will learn that mystery is not the prison of the mind of people, it is their home.       -Walter Farrell
    
I no longer feel that life is ordinary.  Everyday life is filled with mystery.  The things we know are only a small part of the things we cannot know but can only glimpse.  Yet even the smallest of glimpses can sustain us.  Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend meaning in times of loss and pain.  In surprising ways it is the mysterious that strengthens us in such times.  I used to try to offer people certainty in times which were not at all certain and could not be made certain.  I now just offer my companionship and share my sense of mystery, of the possible, of wonder.           -Rachel Naomi Remen

     

 Mystery is at the heart of creativity.  That, and surprise.        -Julia Cameron

   

    

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