Quotes About Observation

The kind of hope that I often think about…I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us, or we don't. It is a dimension of the soul It's not essentially dependent upon some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

He spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. 'Well, I'm not a cop. And I'm not a woman.' She couldn't resist. 'I had noticed.

when us profilers

An outside toilet occupied one corner, its door half-open. 'He's not been here long enough to accumulate much crap

As he often did, he remembered reading the opening of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, where Philip Marlowe itemises his smartest outfit then observes, 'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

Tony took a deep breath and deliberately relaxed his body. He used breathing techniques to put himself into a light state of trance. He instructed his conscious mind to let go, to allow his higher self to access directly all he knew about Handy Andy and to answer for him. When he spoke, even his voice was different. The timbre was rougher, the tones deeper. 'I blended in. I took care. I watched and I learned.

You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat other people's office staff.

You've got four organs of perception and observation – two eyes and two ears – and one for interrogation. You usually learn least by using your mouth.

And this man, who during three long decades had not once remembered that the world contains lilac bushes - and pansies, sandy garden paths, little carts with containers of fizzy water - this man gave a deep sigh, convinced now that life had gone on in his absence, that life had continued.

I'm serious, now let me know every time you see her cry. The thought brings me great joy. Hope.

It's not visual. He's not. You know him by his work, for one thing, and that part is visual, I suppose, isn't it? The sky, moon, stars, and trees, all those exotic colors you're apt to see in birds' feathers. When you look at a painting, you don't try to visualize the artist, do you? But you know somebody painted it or it wouldn't be there.

I allowed myself a microscopic view into his ice-colored eyes. It was like viewing one of those photographs of the Arctic region – very foreign, exotic, clearly a place you've never dreamed of going.

does a man who makes his observations while he himself is a prisoner possess the necessary detachment? Such detachment is granted to the outsider, but he is too far removed to make any statements of real value. Only the man inside knows. His judgments may not be objective; his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. An attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty...

Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.

where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?

The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.

When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.

There are plenty who regard a wall behind which something is happening as a very curious thing.

He who does not weep does not see.

M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

The reflection of a fact is in itself a fact.

Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has a grander view?

He had to submit to the fate of every newcomer in a small town, where many tongues talk but few heads think.

We may remain more or less open-minded on the subject of the death penalty, indisposed to commit ourselves, so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes.