Quotes About Observation

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?

is that the President? Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep

In Whitman's writings in and about New Orleans, the kind of man Whitman was attracted to can be found scattered over almost every page, be they oyster vendors, omnibus drivers, or street toughs. Their type struck Whitman's fancy — personally and politically.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass.

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next

I lean and loafe at my ease...observing a spear of summer grass.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;

The camera is getting smaller and smaller, ever readier to capture fleeting and secret moments whose images paralyse the associative mechanisms in the beholder.

The expressions of those moving about a picture gallery show ill-concealed disappointment that they only find pictures there.

Anyone who cannot cope with life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate . . . but with his other hand he can jot down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different and more things than the others; after all, he is dead in his own lifetime and the real survivor." —Franz Kafka, Diaries, entry of October 19, 1921

Lawford had soundlessly stolen a pace or two nearer, and by stopping forward he could, each in turn, scrutinize the little intent company sitting over his story around the lamp at the further end of the table; squatting like little children with their twigs and pins, fishing for wonders on the brink of the unknown.

Leonardo had almost no schooling and could barely read Latin or do long division. His genius was of the type we can understand, even take lessons from. It was based on skills we can aspire to improve in ourselves, such as curiosity and intense observation. He had an imagination so excitable that it flirted with the edges of fantasy, which is also something we can try to preserve in ourselves and indulge in our children.

But I did learn from Leonardo how a desire to marvel about the world that we encounter each day can make each moment of our lives richer.

Occasionally Leonardo appended a moral lesson to the entry, such as this: "The oyster, when the moon is full, opens itself wide, and when the crab looks in he throws in a stone or seaweed and the oyster cannot close again, whereby it serves for food to that crab. This is what happens to him who opens his mouth to tell his secret. He becomes the prey of the treacherous hearer.

That goes a step too far, I think. Leonardo did not invent the scientific method, nor did Aristotle or Alhazen or Galileo or any Bacon. But his uncanny abilities to engage in the dialogue between experience and theory made him a prime example of how acute observations, fanatic curiosity, experimental testing, a willingness to question dogma, and the ability to discern patterns across disciplines can lead to great leaps in human understanding.

When birds are descending near the ground and the head is below the tail, they lower the tail, which is spread wide open, and take short strokes with the wings; consequently, the head is raised above the tail, and the speed is checked so that the bird can alight on the ground without a shock."9 Ever notice all that?

One purpose of these notebooks was to record interesting scenes, especially those involving people and emotions. "As you go about town," he wrote in one of them, "constantly observe, note, and consider the circumstances and behavior of men as they talk and quarrel, or laugh, or come to blows."1 For that purpose, he kept a small notebook hanging from his belt.

By noting that she seems to listen but not speak, Bellincioni conveyed what makes the portrait so momentous: it captures the sense of an inner mind at work. Her emotions seem to be revealed, or at least hinted at, by the look in her eyes, the enigma of her smile, and the erotic way she clutches and caresses the ermine.

Take a note of them with slight strokes in a little book which you should always carry with you," he wrote. "The positions of the people are so infinite that the memory is incapable of retaining them, which is why you should keep these sketches as your guides." 22

What made Leonardo a genius, what set him apart from people who are merely extraordinarily smart, was creativity, the ability to apply imagination to intellect. His facility for combining observation with fantasy allowed him, like other creative geniuses, to make unexpected leaps that related things seen to things unseen. "Talent hits a target that no one else can hit," wrote the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. "Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Ginevra de Benci was made by a young artist with astonishing skills of observation. The Mona Lisa is the work of a man who had used those skills to immerse himself in a lifetime of intellectual passions.

I did learn from Leonardo how a desire to marvel about the world that we encounter each day can make each moment of our lives richer.

By exalting the interplay between art and science, Leonardo wove an argument that was integral to understanding his genius: that true creativity involves the ability to combine observation with imagination, thereby blurring the border between reality and fantasy. A great painter depicts both, he said.

using analogy to discover nature's patterns.