Quotes About Observation

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

Ahenny (adj.) - The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.

But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.

I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

How do you know you're having fun if there's no one watching you have it?

When the girl sitting at the next table looked away from a moment, Dirk leaned over and took her coffee. He knew that he was perfectly safe doing this because she would simply not be able to believe that this had happened.

He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left.

The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world.

He turned slowly like a fridge door opening.

The light was only just visible - except of course that there was no one to see, no witnesses, not this time, but it was nevertheless a light.

No private detective looks like a private detective. That's one of the first rules of private detection. But if no private detective looks like a private detective, how does a private detective know what it is he's supposed not to look like? Seems to me there's a problem there.

The Saab seethed off into the night. Arthur watched it go, as stunned as a man might be who, having believed himself to be totally blind for five years, suddenly discovers that he had merely been wearing too large a hat.

There is a particular disdain with which Siamese cats regard you. Anyone who has walked in on the Queen cleaning her teeth will be familiar with the feeling.

Some fish were jumping up the beach and into the tree, which struck me as an odd thing for a fish to do, but I tried not to be judgmental about it. I was feeling pretty raw about my own species, and not much inclined to raise a quizzical eyebrow at others. The fish could play about in trees as much as they liked if it gave them pleasure, so long as they didn't try and justify themselves or tell each other it was a malign god who made them play in trees.

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating the obvious... At first Ford formed a theory to account for this human behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on excercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.

One of Zaphod's heads looked away. The other turned round to see what the first was looking at, but it wasn't looking at anything very much.