Quotes About Observation

Atwater gave the boy twopence and began to bite the apple. It was green and tasted of absolutely nothing. It was like eating material in the abstract.

I addressed a remark to him which he acknowledged simply by closing and opening his eyes, making me feel that, the next time I spoke, I ought to make an attempt to find something a trifle less banal to say: though his smile at the same time absolved me from the slightest blame in falling so patently short of his accustomed standards.

Torquil Fosdick is a funny boy, isn't he?    He certainly is.    I should think he was—well, at least I mean, you know—at least I should think anyone would think so, wouldn't you?    Oh yes, I should think so. If they took the trouble to think about him, I mean.

All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy." —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

The art of the police consists in not seeing what there is no use seeing.' Napoleon Bonaparte

You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.

It might have been seen, I said, with half an eye, that Mr. Broughton did not like the state of the money-market; and it might also be seen with the other half that he had been endeavouring to mitigate the bitterness of his dislike by alcoholic aid. Musselboro at once perceived that his patron and partner was half drunk, and Crosbie was aware that he had been drinking.

No one ever on seeing Mr Crawley took him to be a happy man, or a weak man, or an ignorant man, or a wise man.

He, as he told his tale, did not look her in the face, but sat with his eyes fixed upon her muff.

Servants are wonderful actors, looking often as though they knew nothing when they know everything, — as though they understood nothing, when they understand all.

Oh! do look at Miss Oriel's bonnet the next time you see her. I cannot understand why it should be so, but I am sure of this—no English fingers could put together such a bonnet as that; and I am nearly sure that no French fingers could do it in England.

But are no other portraits necessary? Should we not be taught to see the men and women among whom we really live,—men and women such as we are ourselves,—in order that we should know what are the exact failings which oppress ourselves, and thus learn to hate, and if possible to avoid in life the faults of character which in life are hardly visible, but which in portraiture of life can be made to be so transparent.

You have seen more of him here and in Italy than most girls see of their future husbands." "So I have, — but I have seen no one belonging to him. Don't you understand what I mean? I feel all at sea about him. I am sure he does not mean any harm." "Certainly he does not

Men may often do much without knowing that they do anything, and such probably had been the case with Reginald Morton during the journey from Dillsborough to Cheltenham.

Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?" said Carry.

To her the butterflies of the world had been all in all, and the working bees had been a tribe apart with which she was no more called upon to mix than is my lady's spaniel with the kennel hounds. But

There is a kind of gratification in seeing what one has never seen before, be it ever so little worth seeing;

I know him well; at least I know the inmost of his heart. Remember, child, a looker-on sees clearly the value of the move the player misses.

I am not sure of that. She has no conversation, you see; not a word. She has been sitting there with Lord Dumbello at her elbow for the last hour, and yet she has hardly opened her mouth three times.

It was a gathering which Soviet troops could not fail to miss.

There are a thousand things to hear about, informationally, daily, but the thing that doesn't go away is the one to pay attention to.

History, like beauty, depends largely on the beholder, so when you read that, for example, David Livingstone discovered the Victoria Falls, you might be forgiven for thinking that there was nobody around the Falls until Livingstone arrived on the scene.

If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development

And here will apply an observation made before, that whatever is proper to each is naturally best and pleasantest to him: such then is to Man the life in accordance with pure Intellect (since this Principle is most truly Man), and if so, then it is also the happiest.