Quotes About Perception

Many have referred to [Lewis] Carroll's rhymes as nonsense, but in my childhood world — Los Angeles in the '50s — they made perfect sense.

Perhaps the reason she was so unhappy was because she thought unhappy thoughts.

If you see a white man running, you think "He must be late for a meeting." When you see a black man running, you think, "I'm calling the cops. Hey, somebody stop his black ass!"

The first principle of practical Stoicism is this: we don't react to events; we react to our judgments about them, and the judgments are up to us.

seeing how small our affairs look in the larger scheme of things, the Stoic means to induce a felt sense of humility and attraction to virtue. The method can be called intuitive because it isn't a matter of argument. It's more a question of showing and pointing, and expecting perceptions and adjustments to follow directly from a new point of view.

Men are disturbed not by the things that happen but by their opinions about those things.

Whenever someone does you a wrong or speaks ill of you, remember that he is doing what he thinks is proper. He can't possibly be guided by what appears right to you, but only by what appears right to him. So if he sees things wrongly, he is the one who is hurt, because he is the one who has been deceived. . . . Starting from this reasoning, you will be mild toward whoever insults you. Say each time, "So it seemed to him." Epictetus, Enchiridion

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority. Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873)

Like a bowl of water, so is the soul; like the light falling on the water, so are the impressions the soul receives. When the water is disturbed, the light also seems to be disturbed; yet it is not disturbed. Epictetus, Discourses 3.4.20

All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

He explained what he saw in her eyes, which was not sadness or disappointment but understanding. Sympathy, he said, and wit. At some level sympathy implied knowledge and knowledge had a melancholy aspect. He believed that was universally true, no exceptions. When you knew too much you felt a natural distress but that was something quite different from fundamental personal sadness, sadness as a trait, like blue eyes. Her distress was not temperamental but intellectual.

You could never know what transpired beneath another's skin.

When I was a child I said I don't want to be a woman. Why?! Because it's too painful to be a woman!" "Let us try and change what it means to be a woman.

It appears that so-called common sense is a most uncommon commodity nowadays.

My notion of a wife at 40 is that a man should be able to change her, like a bank note, for two 20s.

beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something—and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.

A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something—and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.

Great questioners "keep looking"—at a situation or a problem, at the ways people around them behave, at their own behaviors. They study the small details; and they look for not only what's there but what's missing. They step back, view things sideways, squint if necessary.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.

I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minuted to ruin it. If you think about that you'll do things differently.