Quotes About Observation

But, as Voltaire had observed, history is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.

Santayana wrote, "The empiricist…thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than seeing." That

There are no new stories in nature, only new observers.

Her driveway is about a quarter-mile long. She walks to the mailbox, for her health. "Now they all follow her in a straight line, all of them, there and back," my brother told me.

In your relationships with others, be wary of criticizing. Feedback helps people improve their performance, and as such, is a positive thing. Criticism rarely improves, and generally destroys, whatever it is aimed at. When people offer suggestions or share their ideas and accomplishments with you, practice noticing and talking about what you like before offering your feedback on how to improve it.

I free myself not by trying to be free, but by simply noticing how I am imprisoning myself in the very moment I am imprisoning myself

making calls, jotting notes as the chatter spilled over the glass walls of the small office tucked in a corner of the newsroom. Experienced

The sounds of southwestern cacti are broadcast for several weeks until, by general assent, it is agreed that cacti make no sounds.

Goldwater's approach to any political problem invariably derived from the evidence of his own eyes.

In Denmark, "social trust"—a general feeling that you trust your fellow citizens and the pillar institutions of government, law courts, police, hospitals, and so on—is generally found to be the highest in the world. A perfect example of Danish "social trust" is the image of babies sleeping in carriages outside a restaurant while the parents eat inside. You might say, "But no one is watching!" A Dane will say, "Everyone is watching.

Mr. Fitzgerald is a novelist and Mrs. Fitzgerald is a novelty

Don looked up from his plate of bacon and eggs with an amused smile.

I see more of what is going on around me because I am not concerned with finding a parking place.

You never know what you're going to get, and children have their own personalities immediately. I was watching little kids on a carousel. Some kids were jumping on the horses; some kids were afraid of the horses; some kids were betting on the horses.

It was a strange, wonderful feeling. To discover eyes upon you when you expected no one to notice you at all.

Although I didn't hear the door swing

Thus empiricism directed attention away from abstract principles to the data of experience. Hence, while the philosophers of the pre-Enlightenment period favoured the geometric method, reasoning deductively from first principles, their successors worked by induction, first observing particular details and arriving eventually at general truths.

You can always tell the character of a person, by what they say about others who are not present.

I have heard men snore till I was really afraid they would choke, but as for acknowledging that they had been asleep—never!

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

It feels like cheating to look at a person when they're sleeping, Like you can see their innocent self.

Some nights I would drive up Route 29 to the all-night Wal-Mart. I'd push a cart around with some paper towels inside to look like a real shopper, just to spy on married people. I just wanted to be near them, to listen to them argue...Married people fight over some dumb shit when they think there aren't any widowers eavesdropping. And they never think there are widowers eavesdropping."--Rob Sheffield (Love is a Mix Tape)

Niko was a man of few words and flying, sugary snacks. I like that in a human. ~Catcher

As I stood, I took in a last breath of spring-scented air, listened to the birdsong, and then saw a member of wildlife the conservationists hadn't planned on reviving in this place. A perv in a white shirt and polyester pants. A standard hide-in-the-bushes-and-whack-it perv. Fat and balding, it was as appealing as watching a giant marshmallow go at it.