Quotes About Observation

I thought: I am most completely myself when nobody's watching. I had only just begun to discover this truth. When there is no one to observe us, the other self we keep hidden inside can come out and do as it pleases. But when you have a father near enough to keep an eye on you, that second self remains buried within.

Every discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing things ... Keep your eyes open, your ears open ... Trace difficulties.

You must have birds in your heart, Madam, before you can find them in the bushes, said John Burroughs, the great naturalist, to a woman who complained that no birds ever came to her orchard, while he counted a score or more there, even while she uttered her plaint.

An old sculptor said of his carvings, whose backs were to be out of all possible inspection, "But the gods will see. Every

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life. —Smiles.

I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get.

I saw, I wrote, and the world changed a little.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

He couldn't go into his army's barracks -- he had long since learned that the best commanders stay away unless they have some reason to visit. The boys have to have a chance to be at peace, at rest, without someone listening, to favor or despise them depending on the way they talk, and act, and think.

That was great. They're calling him Buttwatcher now. Just "Watcher" in front of the teachers, but everybody knows what he's watching.

So the I.F. is spying on Earth. Just as a mother spies on her children at play in the yard. Good to know you're looking out for us, Mummy.

Peter had even named it once, when he said that he could always see what other people hated most about themselves, and bully them, while Val could always see what other people liked best about themselves, and flatter them.

Ender began to eat, slowly and carefully, pretending not to notice he was the center of attention.

She believed that people revealed themselves most when they were vaguely anxious, and few things brought out nonspecific anxieties like being in the presence of a person who never speaks.

He could just look at people and listen to them and suddenly he'd know things about them.

You get used to being naked, that's the first thing that Ivan discovered. Crashing through thick brush with branches snagging at your bare skin, you stop worrying about who's looking and and spend your time trying to keep yourself from being flayed alive. He got shy again when they entered the village, but once he decided simply to let the gawkers gawk, he found himself much more interested in what he was seeing than what they were.

All he had to do was watch the game and understand how things worked, and then he could use the system, and even excel.

Until you have examined and comprehended the world around you, you can't possibly create a complex and believable imaginary world.

He had long since learned that when something unusual was going on, something that was part of someone else's plan and not his own, he would find out more information by waiting than by asking. Adults almost always lost their patience before Ender did.

Only a wise man could see my people so clearly in so short a time. Only a ruthless one would say it all out loud. Your virtue and your flaw – we need them both.

He had momentarily forgotten that at a restaurant everyone is supposed to pretend there's an eight-foot wall around each table. Except the waiters, of course, who are supposed to pretend that each table is the only one they're waiting on. Like living in a small town. Notice me when I want to be noticed, but why are you prying when I want to be left alone?

True implies that you have found a connection that exists independent of your apprehension of it, that would exist whether you noticed it or not.

as you look up at these towering mound-people

Yes, the bear was smart—for a bear—able to figure out about stone-throwing—he had never seen that behavior on the Discovery Channel.