Quotes About Insight

Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.

It all happened," Lipton summed up, "because Shifty saw a tree almost a mile away that hadn't been there the day before.

According to Jung, a stranger can see in an instant something in you that you might spend years learning about yourself.

To find signals in data, we must learn to reduce the noise - not just the noise that resides in the data, but also the noise that resides in us. It is nearly impossible for noisy minds to perceive anything but noise in data.

Everything that informs us of something useful that we didn't already know is a potential signal. If it matters and deserves a response, its potential is actualized.

The greater the step forward in knowledge, the greater is the one taken backward in search of wisdom.

In my solitude I have seen things very clearly That were not true —Antonio Machado, 1983

You seem to know a lot about this particular genre we're in," he says.

In a similar way, the focus on the form of an object: which leg is larger on that chair, on that table, on that bed—which leaf shape is more oval among those three different plant species—disrupts subsequent meaning processing.

In essence, when sensory gating channels are narrow, as they commonly are, we only perceive a very small part of the world around us. Only a tiny bit of the radiance of the world can shine in through the narrow aperture that is left; the rest of it is gated out.

In cultures that recognize the importance of this capacity, this group of people are trained to use their enhanced perceptual capacities for the benefit of the group. there would then be many more holy people among us

The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.

Nearly all the wisdom that we possess, that is sound and true wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

Leaning on Augustine's insight, Bonhoeffer sees the sanctorum communio as "the community of loving persons who, touched by God's Spirit, radiate love and grace."17

The work of the elder is determined entirely by what prevails and what ails a people at a given time.

He had been around politicians for a long time, and he was prepared for some outburst.

We live better lives when we learn from our dreams.

Life is a school of the spirit.

Knowledge is a burden--once taken up, it can never be discarded.

The Prophet in Our Midst

When a man sits buried in a book, it is not the man that you see and know that is reading: deep down in him are antecedent generations--soldiers, pirates, martyrs, fading back to cave men. As he reads, the 'universal' book is calling to one of them.

Hmm,' said the King. 'I must write that down in my book of aphorisms. I don't know if it is deep, but it sounds deep.

There is no doom so black or deep that courage and clear sight may not find another truth beyond it.

For only he who has lived in darkness truly knows and values the light.