Quotes About Observation

My work is about the world I live in. So, I sort of make a picture of my life or our lives. I'm always looking for something that is overlooked, so I need to constantly be aware of what's going on.

If we were to inspect ourselves or members of our family and our friends, we would see that we don't really have to go all the way overseas to be mystified - we can be mystified right at home.

in the woods, if you stopped, if you grew still, you'd hear a whole new set of sounds, wind rasping through silhouetted leaves and the cries and chatter of blue jays and brown thrashers and redbirds and sparrows, the calling of crows and hawks, squirrels barking, frogs burping, the far braying of dogs, armadillos snorkeling through dead leaves...

The visit hadn't lasted much longer, and Wallace never said what he'd done, but after Larry watched him go, he'd spent the rest of the night on his porch as daylight crept through the trees like am army of crafty boys.

interviewing that people said he could make a stump confess to saying "timber.

Joanna points her camera at a section of society unused to having cameras pointed at it. But I don't know about categorizing them in terms of class I'm a bit wary of that. My dad is the son of a shipbuilder.

Keep your eyes open and try to catch people in your company doing something right, then praise them for it.

Noticing that something is broken is an essential prerequisite for coming up with a creative solution to fix

Only the very simple can work in war," as Clausewitz observed. Complex drills simply won't work, even leaving aside that the time required to condition something goes up with that something's complexity, even as the probability of conditioning it drops.

Bad weather always looks worse through a window.

The most skillful teachers know how to tolerate the ambiguity of experimentation. They also know when to step back and pretend they're invisible. That's why, whenever I observe in a classroom, I like to measure the ratio of "teacher talk" to "student talk." When the ratio tips toward the students, it often means kids are testing their critical thinking skills. A noisier classroom is much harder to manage, but often more productive.

For anthropologists, even the exotic's not exotic, let alone the everyday.

No camera, no recording device, no laptop, none of this palm pilot nonsense or a cell phone. Paper and pencil, a book, maybe a bilingual dictionary. Anything beyond that (a) can be stolen, and (b) intimidates people you encounter. The more double-A batteries you carry, the more you distance yourself from the people you're writing about.

faces tell stories if you learn to read them!

There is no point in poverty if it does not make a rich man, observing it, feel better.

January 18, 1797 GENERAL, I have learned that the jack ass whose business it is to report to you upon the battle of the 27th [the 27 Nivôse, i.e., January 16] stated that I stayed in observation throughout that battle. I don't wish any such observation on him, since he would have shit in his pants. Salute and Brotherhood! ALEX. DUMAS

Walking through a town can be like flicking through a picture book.

Beauty may reside in the eye of the beholder, but what we see is determined by what we expect to see.

One thing that is known is that they do not look at paintings very long.

Art experts are said to have a "good eye." What they really have is a good brain. It is less that they spot things that others do not; it is that they know where to look;

Knowing where to look—and remembering what you have seen—is a hallmark of experience and expertise.

Take the most notes on the first day. That's when you see the most.

The road itself tells us far more than signs do.

I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train...