Quotes About Observation

I couldn't help noticing that people coming out of restaurants always had more joyful faces than those coming out of temples. That intrigued me.

Those who are immersed in their own psychological realities usually end up ignoring life around them. They seldom have the eyes to look at a flower, a sunset, a child, or a smiling face. And if it is an unsmiling face, they have no inclination to make it smile; they have no such small duties or minor cares in the world! They are too busy cracking the great puzzles of existence. But

Different people need different kinds of impetus. If they are sensible, they learn by just looking. If they are not sensible, they learn by a thrashing. Life will thrash them.

If creativity has to happen, we have to develop a certain level of un-distortedness in the mind. If you carry the baggage of life with you all the time, you cannot see anything the way it is.

The ability to simply look without motive is missing in the world today.

But let's not forget the Jew. Anybody that gives even a just criticism of the Jew is instantly labeled anti-Semite. The Jew cries louder than anybody else if anybody criticizes him. You can tell the truth about any minority in America, but make a true observation about the Jew, and if it doesn't 't pat him on the back, then he uses his grip on the news media to label you anti-Semite.

Los escritores contemporáneos no se leen los unos a los otros, sino que se vigilan.

But that doesn't stop me from moving about him like a junior high girl lingering by the lifeguard station

The sky is turning from black to gray and I stop to remember this melancholy moment for my acting. I huddle on a bench in my big thrift-store overcoat and my painful hair, watching my breath make clouds and thinking Holden Caulfield-y thoughts, like how come you never see any baby pigeons? This is what those people on black-and-white French postcards must feel like. I find myself craving a cup of coffee and a cigarette despite the fact that I neither drink coffee nor smoke.

What truly differentiates the heavies from the lightweights is not how tough they are, but how aware they are.

Immaginare non è rifiutare quel che c'è per scappare da un'altra parte, è invece saper leggere, vedere, ascoltare, riconoscere, paesaggire, dare un nome e un peso a quello che c'è per capire meglio cosa manca e cosa si rischia.

Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.

Look at the past—empire succeeding empire—and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events. Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new?

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine.

Failure to observe what is in the mind of another has seldom made a man unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

A man without ever the least appearance of anger, or any other passion; able at the same time most exactly to observe the Stoic Apathia, or unpassionateness, and yet to be most tender-hearted: ever of good credit; and yet almost without any noise, or rumour: very learned, and yet making little show.

Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

Note that everything that happens, happens justly, and if you observe carefully, you will find it to be so, not only with respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to what is just, as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing its value.

Thus thou must use to keep thyself to the first motions and apprehensions of things, as they present themselves outwardly; and add not unto them from within thyself through mere conceit and opinion.

Whatever happens, happens rightly. Watch closely, and you will find this true. In the succession of events there is not mere sequence alone, but an order that is just right, as from the hand of one who dispense to their due.

Consider that everything which happens, happens justly, and if thou observest carefully, thou wilt find it to be so. I do not say only with respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to what is just, and as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing its value. Observe then as thou hast begun; and whatever thou doest, do it in conjunction with this, the being good, and in the sense in which a man is properly understood to be good. Keep to this in every action.

De Frontón: haber observado a qué grado de envidia, de disimulo y duplicidad llegaron los tiranos, y cómo, casi siempre, esas gentes que llamamos los «patricios» son incapaces de verdadero afecto para los demás.