Quotessence
Home / Topics / Mystery Quotes

Mystery Quotes

Browse 5304 quotes about Mystery.

Related topics

WorldKnowsIfsThinkingPeopleMenHumansWayUniverseHeartWritingWantWonderFeelsMindNeedsArtDoeBookBelieveLittlesSecretTryingStillsScienceFactsShouldGivingLife IsSoulKindMayMeanSeemsExistenceMystery Of LifeStoriesLooksMomentsEndsMadeTwoAnswersLightFirstsRealLyingWholeMagicEarthEyeLifeWellsPersonsNovelMysteriousMatterCertainDivineHas BeensLongReasonEnoughOrderUnderstandingChristSaidSelfSpiritChildrenDifferentMovingRealitySometimesFacesYearsBeautifulFictionSolveSpiritualBodyLove IsProblemHappensJoyArtistHelpingIdeasShowsDarkMightMurderCharacterCreationStarsAweGivenGrowsImportantKnownmore

Mystery Quotes

“I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.”

IfsThinkingWorldWritingHeartTwoMightWould BeLiteratureGrowsChurchTeachNovelMysteryTheoryDeterminedRelyHowlDeterminism
Author:Flannery O'Connor
Create image

“Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. 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 Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn.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.”

LifeYearsHeartChildrenDoeHas BeensIdeasMomentsEyePainSpiritualMemoriesSimpleBeautyOpinionSunClearMysteryStrangeEgoInstinctParadiseAbstractionVitalitySeekersArmorPiercePreconceptionsLife Is BeautifulCloudedWithdrawingClear Eyes
Book:Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982
Create image

“But it is possible, it is possible: the old grief, by a great mystery of human life, gradually passes into quiet, tender joy; instead of young, ebullient blood comes a mild, serene old age: I bless the sun's rising each day and my heart sings to it as before, but now I love its setting even more, its long slanting rays, and with them quiet, mild, tender memories, dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life--and over all is God's truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!”

HumansHeartLongWholeAgeMovingYoungJoyMemoriesGriefSunMysteryBloodMy HeartQuietBlessedForgivingDearSettingOld AgeSettingsHuman LifeRisingEach DayBlessRaysSereneBlessed Life
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
Create image

“But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us—to know Whence our lives come and where they go.”

KnowsWorldHeartDesireCoursesForceFireOur LivesMysteryStreetsBeatsOriginalsLongingBuriedThirstStrifeRestlessCrowdedUnspeakableTrackingCrowded Streets
Book:Dover Beach and Other Poems
Create image

“I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”

PeopleWorldHeartBookCharacterMysteryTreeWorstFieldsStandingCloudsConfusionAntidoteDeep InsideOtherness
Book:Upstream: Selected Essays
Create image

“I put my hand out and wiped the vomit from his lips, and cooed soothing words to him. It squeezed my heart to see him suffer like this - but where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are. "Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love - or do we love them behind a facade of loathing? "We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.”

HeartMadeSelfHandsSufferingInterestBehindsMysteryMastersMy HeartConcernLipsGenuineServantMotiveLockedSelf InterestLoathingSoothingLoatheFacadeRoostersGenuine Concern
Author:Aravind Adiga
Create image

“As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.”

MenGivingBelieveHeartTwoReasonForceCasesGreaterMysteryLogicMythSuitsExcitementDullInterpretationLegendsIncidentsPlausibleEnigmaInsignificance
Author:Bryce Courtenay
Create image

“Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time. Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it. Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.”

ThinkingKnowsHumansHeartLittlesSeemsHoursKnownMysteryEternityRateGrantedClockFlashHuman HeartCommonplaceCalendarsThink TwiceSecond Thoughts
Author:Michael Ende
Create image

“If much in the world were mystery the limits of that world were not, for it was without measure or bound and there were contained within it creatures more horrible yet and men of other colors and beings which no man has looked upon and yet not alien none of it more than were their own hearts alien in them, whatever wilderness contained there and whatever beasts.”

IfsMenWorldHeartMysteryColorCreaturesLimitsBoundsHorribleAliensBeastWildernessAlienation
Book:Blood Meridian: Picador Classic
Create image

“I will tell you a little secret about archaeologists, dear Reader. They all pretend t be very high-minded. They claim that their sole aim in excavation is to uncover the mysteries of the past and add to the store of human knowledge. They lie. What they really want is a spectacular discovery, so they can get their names in the newspapers and inspire envy and hatred in the hearts of their rivals.”

WantHumansHeartLittlesPastLyingNamesSecretMysteryInspireReaderDiscoveryHatredClaimsAimAddDearEnvyStoresNewspapersSoleRivalsSpectacularHuman KnowledgeArchaeologists
Author:Barbara Mertz
Create image

“Every pellet has a story all its own. Every pellet has a story all its own. With its fur and teeth and bones And one or two stones, Every pellet has a story all its own. We shall dissect every pellet with glee. Perhaps we'll find a rodents knee. And never shall we tire In the sacred task that we conspire, No do our work less perfectly And those bright flecks at the core, Which makes our hearts soar, Shall forever remain the deepest mystery. - The owlets in the Pelletorium at St. Aegolius”

HeartTwoStoriesForeverMysteryStonesTasksSacredBonesCoreTeethKneesSoarTireFurGleeRodents
Book:Guardians of Ga'Hoole Collection: Legend of the Guardians
Create image

“Idealism, though just in its premises, and often daring and honest in their application, is stultified by the exclusive intellectualism of its own methods: by its fatal trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart. It interests man, but does not involve him in its processes: does not catch him up to the new and more real life which it describes. Hence the thing that matters, the living thing, has somehow escaped it; and its observations bear the same relation to reality as the art of the anatomist does to the mystery of birth.”

MenHeartDoeArtRealMatterRealityProcessInterestBrainVisionMysteryHonestBearsBirthRelationMethodReal LifeObservationMysticismApplicationDaringIdealismExclusiveLiving ThingsPremisesThings That MatterIntellectualismSquirrelsIndustriousPiercings
Book:The Complete Christian Mystic: A Practical, Step - By - Step Guide for Awakening to the Presence of God
Create image

“Mirabelle replaces the absent friends with books and television mysteries of the PBS kind. The books are mostly nineteenth-century novels in which women are poisoned or are doing the poisoning. She does not read these books as a romantic lonely hearts turning pages in the isolation of her room, not at all. She is instead an educated spirit with a sense of irony. She loves the gloom of these period novels, especially as kitsch, but beneath it all she finds that a part of her indentifies with all that darkness.”

HeartKindDoeBookSpiritRoomsDarknessNovelMysteryCenturyTelevisionPeriodsPagesLonelyEducatedIronyIsolationAbsentGloomNineteenth CenturyPoisoningKitschPbsLonely HeartAbsent Friends
Author:Steve Martin
Create image

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”

HumansHeartFactsNightHouseRoomsSecretCitiesWonderfulMysteryCreaturesProfoundBreastsConsiderationSolemnGreat CitiesTale Of Two Cities
Author:Charles Dickens
Create image

“Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream. Inside, the fireplace is brightly lit, and the Yule log crackles with orange and crimson sparks. There’s a steaming mug in your hands, warming your fingers. There’s a friend seated across from you in the cozy chair, warming your heart. There is mystery unfolding.”

WorldHeartDreamHandsHealingMysteryWindowBlueFingersChristmasChairsWarmthSparksOrangeLitUnfoldingOutside WorldCozySnowflakeCrimsonHazeSwirlsMugFireplacesYule
Author:Vera Nazarian
Create image

“What moralists describe as the mysteries of the human heart are solely the deceiving thoughts, the spontaneous impulses of self-regard. The sudden changes in character, about which so much has been said, are instinctive calculations for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.”

HumansLooksHeartHas BeensSaidTwoSelfWholeCharacterDifferencesPleasureSeeingMysteryYouthFineClothesConscienceMirrorsRegardShoesDareNobleImpulseMaturityResolveDeceivingPhasesSpontaneousHuman HeartCalculationsGlovesMoralistSwervePhases Of LifeSudden Change
Author:Honore de Balzac
Create image

“I imagine John Watson thinks love’s a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive. When we first met, you told me that a disguise is always a self portrait, how true of you, the combination to your safe – your measurements. But this is far more intimate. This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you worked for. But you just couldn’t resist it, could you? I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.”

ThinkingShouldFirstsHeartSelfTodaySimpleLove IsNumbersImagineMysteryDangerousMetsSafeFinalsProofChosenCombinationIntimateDestructiveChemistryDisguisePortraitsMeasurementDisadvantagesWatsonSelf PortraitSelf Portrait PhotographyJohn Watson
Author:Mark Gatiss
Create image

“In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.”

ThinkingKnowsBelieveHeartSoulMatterHardHappensGreaterImpossibleMysterySolutionsUnderstoodBasesAspirationCosmicTanks
Book:Neal Shusterman's Skinjacker Trilogy: Everlost; Everwild; Everfound
Create image

“Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only say, ‘I do not understand,’ it is true that he who knows can only reply or repeat ‘You do not understand.’ And under that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would be worth understanding.”

KnowsHeartBookWould BeJobsUnderstandingAnswersDoubtMysteryTypeAuthorityRepeatsProphecyRiddleRebuke
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“When I was younger, I used to vacillate between thinking love was this great and glorious mystery and thinking it was just something a bunch of Hollywood move producers made up to sell more tickets in the Depression, when Dish Night kind of played out." Eddie laughed. Now I think that all of us are born with a hole in our hearts, and we go around looking for the person who can fill it. You...Eddie, you fill me up.”

ThinkingHeartKindPersonsMadeMovingUsedNightBornMysteryHollywoodSellsHolesBunchProducersGloriousLaughedDishesTicketsThinking Love
Author:Stephen King
Create image

“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.”

IfsLoveMindFirstsHeartAgeLiteratureLanguageMysteryMinutesDangerousStrangeLettersCombinationUnexpectedPrintDisplayHeart And Mind
Book:Stoner: A Novel
Create image