Inspirational Quotes on Surprise

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”

“I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything”

“An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. . . . We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness.”

“The man who said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed," put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised." The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is the meek, for he shall inhereit the earth. Until we realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are.”

“When we would say 'No way,' he would say, 'My way.' Then the ones who doubted would scramble to salvage the blessing. And the one who gave it would savor the surprise.”

“There is nothing more wonderful than when you have been hiding yourself from Him, as it were, afraid to look at Him, but at last in desperation you just have to look up, and you see the most surprising thing you have ever seen. There is a look of love. There is a look of compassion and of mercy and of pity and of welcome, and you see the great invitation, “Come!” And you go back to Him filled with ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’.”