Quotes About Observation

To her mind there was nothing of the infinite about Mrs. Penniman; Catherine saw her all at once, as it were, and was not dazzled by the apparition; whereas her father's great faculties seemed, as they stretched away, to lose themselves in a sort of luminous vagueness, which indicated, not that they stopped, but that Catherine's own mind ceased to follow them.

He has depths of silence—which he breaks only at the longest intervals by a remark. And when the remark comes it's always something he has seen or felt for himself—never a bit banal. That would be what one might have feared and what would kill me. But never.

The Countess was very good company and not really the featherhead she seemed; all one had to do with her was to observe the simple condition of not believing a word she said.

The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality.

Try to be someone upon whom nothing is lost!

The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business, in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement.

Mrs. Wix gave a sidelong look. She still had room for wonder at what Maisie knew.

She saw herself in this connexion without detachment – saw others alone with intensity; otherwise she might have been struck, fairly have been amused, by her free assignment of the pachydermatous quality. If

Well, said Winterbourne, when you deal with natives you must go by the custom of the place. Flirting is a purely American custom; it doesn't exist here. So when you show yourself in public with Mr. Giovanelli, and without your mother— Gracious!

Avete ragione che Millie non è facile a conoscere. Uno la vede, con intensità: la vede più di quanto non veda nessun altro; ma poi scopre che ciò non significa conoscerla, e che si può conoscere meglio una persona che non si riesca, diciamo, a vedere neppure appena la metà.

Because she has seen for herself. I've told her nothing. She's a person who does see.

Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element- direct observation.

He saw her try, for a time, to appear to consider it; but he saw her also not consider it.

Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost.

The young girl inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again; and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself.

He had seen the follies of the romantic disposition, but there seemed somehow no follies in theirs – nothing, one was obliged to recognise, but innocent pleasures, pleasures without penalties.

However much you might watch me I should be watching you more.

He comes to loos at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn't think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he does away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.

He comes and looks at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn't think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he does away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.

He comes and looks at one's daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn't think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he goes away after having got a month's lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.

Her eyes] had taken hold of him straightaway, measuring him up and down as if they knew how; as if he were human material they had already in some sort handled.

strolled down the hill without meeting a creature, though I could see through the palings of the Common that that recreative expanse was peopled with dim forms.  I remembered Mrs. Nettlepoint's house—she lived in those days (they

of a spying servant, on the other side of

I don't know what's the matter with you, she observed to him once; but I suspect you're a great humbug.