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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Vocabulary

Want of wander

Hallo!
Could anyone please explane the meaning of the saying of G.K.Chesterton: The world will never starve for wonder, but only for want of wonder.

Thank you in advance

Anda
Estonian-Latvian, English-Latvian translator
  

Top answer

The actual sentence is: Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. There are plenty of them, I assure you. T he world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

— Feebs11

  • The actual sentence is: Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude.
  • There are plenty of them, I assure you.
  • T he world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
  • There is no lack of amazing things [wonders] in the world, but without a sense of wonder man lacks the ability to see properly the world around him.
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4 Answers
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The actual sentence is:
Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies.There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
There is no lack of amazing things [wonders] in t
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Thank you very much! I think I got it now. So I can say: The world will never suffer from lack of wonders, but only from wish to see wonder (or people who are keen to see)?
The words "want" were confusing here.

Anda
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AnsiiteThank you very much! I think I got it now. So I can say: The world will never suffer from lack of wonders, but only from wish to see wonder (or people who are keen to see)?
The words "want" were confusing here.

Anda

I would phrase this slightly differently:

...from a lack of wonders....
...from the lack of a wish
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It's slightly misquoted. What he actually said was "The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder."

Wonders are marvel things, object that are out there. Wonder is a feeling. It means, more or less, the problem is not the lack of wonderful things but a lack of people feeling wonder about them.
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