Quotes About Perception

Our problem today is that we no longer believe in things but in symbols, hence our life has passed over into these symbols and their manipulation— only to find ourselves manipulated by the symbols we take so seriously, objectified in our objectifications.

As with the wei-wu-wei, "in changing it is at rest" (Heraclitus, frag. 84a). In place of the apparently solid I that does them, there would be an empty and immutably serene quality to them. The experience would be not of a succession of events (winter does not turn into spring) but just-this-one-effortless-thing (tathat?) and then another just-this-one-thing.

your head. Sally Kempton

is the basic problem the nature of this world itself, or our inability to accept it as it is? Or something else?

When religious groups in a conflict eliminate the personal element and perceive themselves as representatives of collectives, heir actions tend to become more "radical" and "merciless." (Ch.3, by Jaco Cilliers, p. 48)

Land and water are not really separate things, but they are separate words, and we perceive through words.

I will stipulate to having both French sea salt and a big bottle of extra virgin in my kitchen. And while the presence of both might go some small distance in pigeonholing me demographically, neither one of them makes me a good person. They are mute and useless indicators of the content of my character.

WHEN you are creeping through the literary underbrush hoping to bag a piece of humor with your net, nothing seems funny," Russell Baker wrote in a preface to an anthology of American humor that he compiled. "The thing works the other way around. Humor is funny when it sneaks up on you and takes you by surprise." Yes

Most of the people I knew were doing one thing but considered themselves to be something else: all the waitresses I knew were really actresses, all the Xeroxers in the Xerox place were really novelists, all the receptionists were artists.

she also tended to see strangers not as individuals but as representatives of types. It was as though people did not walk around in the world as themselves, but as examples of kinds of people, the majority of whom they had never met.

Jerseys were for people who were afraid to milk Holsteins and too ashamed to milk goats.

listen for the intention of what people say and ignore the words.

The more invested I am in my own ideas about reality, the more those experiences will feel like victimizations rather than the ups and downs of relating. Actually, I believe that the less I conceptualize things that way, the more likely it is that people will want to stay by me, because they will not feel burdened, consciously or unconsciously, by my projections, judgments, entitlements, or unrealistic expectations.

We hear with our ears; we listen with our intution and our heart.

Delusion happens when we see all that is from the viewpoint of the self. Enlightenment happens when we see ourselves from the viewpoint of the things in nature.

Time seemed to fly-- as happens, they say, when you are having fun. I guess sometimes clichés were actually coined for legitimate reasons.

Your brain craves patterns and searches for them endlessly. THOMAS B. CZERNER (2001)

we see the world as we are, not as the world is.

It appears that the perception of choice may be more important than diet and other factors for health. Choosing in some way to experience stress is less stressful than experiencing stress without a sense of choice or control.

Trying to change other people's thinking appears to be one of the hardest tasks in the world. While the easy answer may seem to be to give people feedback, real change happens when people see things they have not seen before. The best way to help someone see something new is to help quiet her mind so that she can have a moment of insight. As you have insights, you change your brain, and by changing your brain you change your whole world.

The idea that trials are a search for the truth is just a myth. Trials are a search for that which the jury will believe is the truth.

Most dogs, when you hold a leash up, go nuts and run to the door. Crash, on the other hand barely looks up from his spot on the couch. His expression is saying, What the hell are you doing with that thing?

You don't have to be a college graduate to murder someone." "Thank you for making the jury aware of that, Lieutenant. I'm sure they had no idea.

I suppose the best way to understand it is that when I first see a person, I see the face. But when I first see a dog, I see the dog.