Quotes About Observation

Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be; Euripides, as they are.

We physicists, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion—which is indeed made plain by induction.

Que no existe ningún otro sentido aparte de los cinco 424b 22 —me refiero a vista, oído, olfato, gusto y tacto—

Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation.

Inspiration is everywhere so don't get trapped in reading and watching too much. Get out. Talk to people, friends, family, loved ones. Draw inspiration from everyday life. It has inexhaustible references and is always original.

Never take things for granted. Never ignore what is obvious.

It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind.

Nothing in this scene will be changed by my death, Nicole thought. There will just be one less pair of eyes to observe its splendor. And one less collection of chemicals risen to consciousness to wonder what it all means.

The image of Jupiter, with its ribbons of white cloud, its mottled bands of salmon pink, and the Great Red Spot staring out like a baleful eye, hung steady on the flight-deck projection screen.

When 2001 was written, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto were mere pinpoints of light in even the most powerful telescope; now they are worlds, each unique, and one of them—Io—is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System.

They could never guess that their minds were being probed, their bodies mapped, their reactions studied, their potentials evaluated.

Cassini—who discovered Japetus in 1671—also observed that it was six times brighter on one side of its orbit than the other.

Even if, to the naked human eye, a waterfall and a shower of bricks appeared very different, they were really much the same. The tiny "bricks" of H2O were too small to be visible to the unaided senses, but they could be easily discerned by the instruments of the physicists.

Norton was not quite certain what a buck was, but he knew when one had stopped at his desk.

Your society, at least what I have observed of it, seems not to understand the fundamental inconsistency between individual freedom and the common welfare.

My God -- it's full of stars!

All that happened was that as the sun passed the meridian at Cape Town it went out. There remained visible merely a pale, purple ghost, giving no heat or light.

Hogyan háborgathat bárki is egy két kilométer hosszú, fekete hasábot? És vajon milyen formában közölné a rosszallását?

Week by week, month by month, it slowly faded, though even when it moved back into the daylight sky it was still easy to find if one knew exactly where to look. And at night for years it was often the brightest of the stars. Mirissa saw it one last time, just before her eyesight failed.

Allá lejos estaban las montañas, donde moraban el poder y la belleza, donde el trueno sonaba alegremente por encima de los hielos y el aire era claro y penetrante. Allá, cuando la Tierra ya estaba envuelta en sombras, brillaba todavía el sol, transfigurando las cimas. Y ellos sólo podían observar y maravillarse. Nunca escalarían esas alturas.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains, he remarked with a smile. It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.