Quotes About Observation

Quizá no contaba con que hay personas que, si lo divisan a uno y lo eligen, no abandonan ni se retiran del todo, sino que son como el buitre: se alejan y trazan círculos y sobrevuelan y esperan y prueban nueva fortuna.

Pero la gente no lleva el cómputo de lo que se diluye en el olvido. O de lo que flota en un limbo que nadie mira.

Es lo malo que tiene cuanto nos sucede y no es registrado, o aún peor, ni siquiera sabido ni visto ni oído, porque luego no hay forma de recuperarlo.

A veces uno se fija en alguien sólo porque ese alguien se ha fijado en uno.

the normal course of things, we don't notice the ways in which our story of the world is different from

We Notice Different Things.

Artificial intelligence expert Roger Schank has an observation about this: He notes that while computers are organized around managing and accessing data, human intelligence is organized around stories.2

Even when we have access to the same data, we tend to notice different things. We are all moving along the same sidewalk, but the historian may notice the brickwork, the jogger the impact on her knees, and the fellow in the wheelchair the areas that are less accessible. We're engulfed by information—far too much to take in—and so we select small samples to pay attention to and ignore the rest.

Yet he could not enjoy the walk. In the morning especially a bougainvillaea looks handmade, lawns are always lawns, and it is true indeed that dogs smell fear. Cats don't say.

En otras palabras, el observador no es una entidad concreta sino algo más, un proceso, un flujo…

Lo más difícil de observar es el mito personal, el tema de la identidad a través de la cual se percibe el mundo. Cuando se logra observarlo, desaparece como filtro y entonces la "Ignorancia Iluminada" se despierta porque ya no existe nada a qué aferrarse, nada de qué depender, nada conocido y familiar que otorgue seguridad.

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere!

You'll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.

He walked slowly up and down the rows, glancing at titles and authors, hoping to find something useful. He was so intent in his search that he failed to notice the dark, hooded figure that entered the archives and stood silently in the doorway, watching him

Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man's face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It's the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.

He spent a lot of time flying. He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered, once you have learnt birdspeak you quickly come to realize that the air is full of it the whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away from it.

Ecco quello che rivela la nostra origine materiale, spesso passiamo accanto alla felicità senza vederla, senza guardarla, oppure, se l'abbiamo vista e guardata, senza riconoscerla

Tumbling-hair picker of buttercups violets dandelions And the big bullying daisies through the field wonderful with eyes a little sorry Another comes also picking flowers

Now the ears of my ears are awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

if you like my poems let them walk in the evening,a little behind you then people will say "Along this road i saw a princess pass on her way to meet her lover (it was toward nightfall) with tall and ignorant servants. — E.E. Cummings, "if you like my poems let them," Etcetera: The Unpublished Poems of E.E. Cummings . Liveright February 5, 2001) Originally published 1983.

But the boy's eyes saw only the tracks made by the skaters, traces quickly erased of moments past, journeys taken.

Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.