What can we make of the inexpressible joy of children? It is a kind of gratitude, I think–the gratitude of the ten-year-old who wakes to her own energy and the brisk challenge of the world. You thought you knew the place and all its routines, but you see you hadn’t known. Whole stacks at the library held books devoted to things you knew nothing about. The boundary of knowledge receded, as you poked about in books, like Lake Erie’s rim as you climbed its cliffs. And each area of knowledge disclosed another, and another. Knowledge wasn’t a body, or a tree, but instead air, or space, or being–whatever pervaded, whatever never ended and fitted into the smallest cracks and the widest space between stars. Annie Dillard
Some Similar Quotes
  1. A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. - Elbert Hubbard

  2. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. - Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. Ur be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the... - Dorothy Parker

  4. The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. - Meister Eckhart

  5. Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth.] - Gautama Buddha

More Quotes By Annie Dillard
  1. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

  2. Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you.

  3. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

  4. Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

  5. Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?

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