Quotes About Observation

Do not try to predict the effects your actions will have, because you can't. Instead, encourage people to adapt their actions to realize the overall intention as they observe what is actually happening. Give them boundaries which are broad enough to take decisions for themselves and act on them.

I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.

There is a class of tourists who never seem to see the things they're visiting, I thought. They prefer to look at directions to the next place they're not going to look at.

You may see all that is around you But you may feel nothing at all. So try and close your eyes so tight And listen to the night time fall.

But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.

It all happened," Lipton summed up, "because Shifty saw a tree almost a mile away that hadn't been there the day before.

Older British observers complained, "The trouble with you Yanks is that you are overpaid, oversexed, and over here." (To which the Yanks would reply, "The trouble with you Limeys is that you are underpaid, undersexed, and under Eisenhower.")

The Enlightenment taught that observation unrecorded was knowledge lost.

White girls know the names of everything.

That had been his secret Indian Trick to hunting, back then: to not hunt. The same way you never find your wallet when you're actually looking for it. Just, keep a rifle with you.

This went on for four hours. By Millie's count, four hours was enough time to kill twenty-seven prairie dogs. They might have a language of sorts, but they didn't use it to tell each other not to have a look-see at what all the commotion was topside.

THE OBSERVER AND HIS OBSERVATION, AS WELL AS THE WORLD OBSERVED, APPEAR AND DISAPPEAR TOGETHER. BEYOND IT ALL, THERE IS VOID. THIS VOID IS ONE FOR ALL.

In a similar way, the focus on the form of an object: which leg is larger on that chair, on that table, on that bed—which leaf shape is more oval among those three different plant species—disrupts subsequent meaning processing.

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn.

There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

You're a genius," she said. "Hardly," he said. "I just show up and pay attention.

A man may lie to his psychiatrist, his doctor, his wife, his employer, to God and to Mom, but his teeth tell all;

In the animal kingdom, the predators are easy to spot. They all have their eyes in the front of their heads to facilitate an attack. Lions, tigers, and wolves are designed by nature to kill. Antelopes, deer, and rabbit all have their eyes on the side of their heads. These prey animals are designed for flight and their vision allows them to see things coming at them peripherally. In the wild there are no exceptions to this rule. With people, it was a lot harder to tell.

Nothing matches the holiness and fascination of accurate and intricate detail.

I had to slow down. If I was going to listen to Venice properly I needed to hear the cadence of the place. I needed to stand still. <...> I thought of Whitman observing the parade of humanity with lewd concentration. Walt had a good ear. He loved opera and knew how to sit perfectly still.

He had been around politicians for a long time, and he was prepared for some outburst.

How often are you aware of your surroundings, really aware? And how often are you merely reacting in the same automatic way as you do in dreams?

The Jedi is a practitioner of mind mastery. He realizes that whatever they are experiencing, they are creating and that they can change their lives in an instant by changing their thoughts, their focus and the way they are observing and engaging the energy of the world around them and the people who they've invited into their lives to play whatever roles they've chosen them to play.

In the spiritual world many forms of the physical universe that are potentially effective can be perceived but with regard to time, we can observe only one form.