Quotes About Observation

I have known a man who did not know what color his sister's eyes were, though he had seen her every day for twenty years; or rather, he did not know because he had so seen her: so true is the philosophical maxim that we neglect the constant element in our thoughts, though it is probably the most important, and attend almost only to the varying elements—the differentiating elements (as men now speak)—though they are apt to be less potent.

When I got started again, I drove slower and felt smaller. I think it does us all good to get looked at like that now and then by a wild animal.

I remember the Sherlock Holmes stories where he and Watson would go to the countryside. Watson would see the beautiful cottages and Holmes would see a harbinger of crime. He went on to say that in London there are at least many police officers that would be nearby compared to the countryside where there are miles and miles from local law enforcement. If there is a police force it is very small which allows people to get away with a lot.

All you have to do is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.

And then they walked through the town, in which not even a cat seemed to be moving; and everywhere they walked, the cathedral was watching them.

Things are not changed by a mere change of place, but a change of place relative to an observer always changes their appearance for him. Common sense is, therefore, compelled in this, as in countless other cases, to distinguish the appearance of a thing from its reality; and to hold, as an essential article of its working creed, that appearances may alter, leaving realities unchanged.

Science also deems perception to be the source of all our knowledge of external nature. But it regards it as something more, and different. For perception is itself a part of nature, a natural process, the product of antecedent causes, the cause of subsequent effects. It requires, therefore, like other natural facts, to be observed and explained; and it is the business of science to explain it.

Who is right? How do we know? Where is the answer written? Perhaps it's not written anywhere ... or perhaps it is written all around us, in letters so big that we can't see them! Imagine that, we could be walking on a world where the answer is all around us, and we can't even see it!

The heavens and the earth, the woods and the wayside, teem with instruction and knowledge to the curious and thoughtful.

When there is an old maid in a house, watch-dogs are unnecessary; not the slightest event can occur that she does not see and comment upon and pursue to its utmost consequences.

To saunter is a science; it is the gastronomy of the eye. To take a walk is to vegetate; to saunter is to live.

From the moment that your suspicions are aroused, you ought to be like a man mounted on a tricky horse, who always watches the ears of the beast, in fear of being thrown from the saddle.

I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.

Quando lo stesso tema si presenta per ben due volte in poco tempo, bisogna prestarvi attenzione.

I'm extremely, almost pathologically sensitive to violence, and I pick up on it immediately when something violent is happening. Most people are constantly perpetrating little acts of violence on others, even when they don't mean to.

I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.

I'd just as lief hear a thing as see it any day. I saw some music once and it wasn't half as pretty to look at as it was when I heard it.

A visitor reading all the reviews the day after a New York opening would arrive at the conclusion that these men had not all seen the same play, so conflicting are their judgments.

That's the trouble with people like them, I suppose; whenever you think you're detecting the first signs of them starting to behave responsibly, it's just them being even more devious and underhand than usual.

Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes. Apparently this is for psychological reasons. Eyebrows are very expressive and you appear a lot more authoritative if you keep them covered up. The advantage of this is that it makes a lot harder for cops to see anything more than six foot off the ground. Which is why painting rooftops and bridges is so easy.

As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments.

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.

If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture.

I walk around in my human fog, lost in my own head, while he comes up with twenty-two words for seagull.