Quotes About Observation

cease to regard the canvas as a surface on which to paint a picture, but instead as a surface on which to record an event

Think of it this way: no scientist has ever seen an electron, but all scientists agree that electrons exist. No physicist has ever seen a quark, but all physicists believe that quarks are real. Why? Because when they look into their microscopes, they see things happening that could only happen if quarks and electrons existed. I believe in the reality of God the way scientists believe in the reality of electrons. I see things happening that would not happen unless there is a God.

Writing derives from an accumulation of experience. It's as if you collect facts and observations over time, like a stone to stand on. From there, imagination takes over.

You can measure the amount of anxiety in any system by the amount of gossip going on.

Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it.

Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist.

Pryce's chicken is an unhealthy-looking grey, the way my sister looked when she had glandular fever. He examines it gloomily. 'We'll get

You cannot possibly remember anything you do not observe; and it is extremely difficult to observe or remember anything that you do not want to remember, or that you are not interested in remembering.

One of the fundamentals of a trained memory is what we call Original Awareness. Anything of which you are Originally Aware cannot be forgotten. And, applying our systems of association will force Original Awareness. Observation is essential to Original Awareness—anything you wish to remember must first be observed.

You are absentminded when your mind is absent; when you perform actions unconsciously, without thinking. We've discussed the difference between seeing and observing—we see with our eyes, but we observe with our minds. If your mind is "absent" when performing an action, there can be no observation; more important, there can be no Original Awareness.

Alles waar je je wil en je aandacht op richt, wordt onzichtbaar, onbereikbaar, dat is tenminste mijn ervaring. Je ziet de dingen pas werkelijk uit je ooghoeken, als je eigenlijk ergens anders mee bezig bent. Het is net of de werkelijkheid zich dan gepasseerd voelt, het niet neemt en zich aan je opdringt.

but he would bet his life that it had a white CB antenna on the roof and that the driver was listening to police bands.

How many scenes in your life like this have you missed? I think. The unseen beauty of nature. Like today.

You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear.

Study men, not historians.

Lee stepped over two bodies in gray and one in green, walked inside. The fellow whose head and torso he had seen from the street had fought from a window here. Bullets had chewed up the wall opposite that window; the picture that hung there was no longer recognizable. One of the bandsmen who guarded Lee looked around and said, "Take away the dead men and it ain't so very peculiar

Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength.

It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else.

The eye has knowledge the mind cannot share

Silence is golden, but sometimes invisibility is golder.

It must be remembered as the first principle of life that manifestation was destined for keener observation of life within and without.