Quotes About Perception

Nature has no outline. Imagination has" (Blake).

Therefore, the importance of reducing time in travel: by arriving as quickly as possible we need not feel as though we had left at all, that neither space nor time can affect us-as though they belong to us, and not we to them.

This does not mean that I can not see what you see. On the contrary, it is because I cannot see what you see that I can see at all. The discovery that you are the unrepeatable center of your own vision is simultaneous with the discovery that I am the center of my own.

One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field; its location is always relative to the view. To move toward a horizon is simply to have a new horizon.

If to look is to look at what is contained within its limitations, to see is to see the limitations themselves. Each new school of painting is new not because ti now contains subject matter ignored in earlier work, but because it sees the limitations previous artists imposed on their subject matter but could not see themselves. The earlier artists worked within the outlines they imagined; the later reworked their imaginations.

Finite speakers come to speech with their voices already trained and rehearsed. They must know what they are doing with the language before they can speak it. Infinite speakers must wait to see what is done with their language by the listeners before they can know what they have said. Infinite speech does not expect the hearer to see what is already known to the speaker, but to share a vision the speaker could not have had without the response of the listener.

If to look is to look at what is contained within its limitations, to see is to see the limitations themselves. Each new school of painting is new not because it now contains subject matter ignored in earlier work, but because it sees the limitations previous artists imposed on their subject matter but could not see themselves.

Kids grow up in troubled homes thinking that they have the power to change their parents. Over time, they realize that they are mistaken.

Did you know that wasn't me, the other Max?" I asked. "Yeah." "When?" "Right away." "How?" I persisted. "We look identical. She even had identical scars and scratches. She was wearing my clothes. How could you tell us apart?" He turned to me and grinned, making my world brighter. "She offered to cook breakfast.

Man, you weigh a freaking ton," he told me. "What've you been eating, rocks?" "Why, is your head missing some?" I croaked. His mouth almost quirked in a smile, and that's when I knew how upset he'd been

people like stories because they are good, not because they are true.

Formal schooling tends to demand that humans use their memories the way computers do, rather than the way humans do. This, too, can make people seem stupid.

In England, literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of education.

I didn't argue. "What time was it when you saw them?" Mike glanced at Bobby. "About, um, eight-thirty." "You must be part owl," I said. "Because it's hard to see in the dark.

I don't think of people as queer or straight," the Doc said. "Not when you're as old as I. And I don't think God does either." "I didn't know you believed in God, Doc," Vance said.

All you need do, Bernie,"she gulped her toast soaked in coffee, "is present the truth as fiction.

Half [of] us approve of other people's daughters having children out of wedlock, but hardly any of us approve of that for our daughters. [We] don't wish to be 'judgmental,' unless [we are judging] something we care about, [like] the well-being of the people we cherish

The eyes of the owner can see what no one else can see.

If a public figure is willing to accept things as they are, he will avoid being loved or hated very much, and he will die in his bed of old age--if he hasn't had the decency to put an earlier end to his life by committing suicide.

What makes ejaculating on the outside degrading... while ejaculating inside... sacred? Do guys learn to come on a woman from porn or from premature ejaculation? [...] For that matter, masturbating guys ejaculate on their own bodies all the time, and not one says, 'Oh God, I just degraded myself.

No hay razón para pensar que si el mundo es redondo todos deben saberlo. De igual manera, no hay razón para pensar que si hay verdades morales todos deben conocerlas.

People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.

I want to be, if I can, as sure of the world--the real world--around me as is possible. Now, you can only attain that to a certain degree, but I want the greatest degree of control.

When we dislike someone, or feel threatened by someone, the natural tendency is to focus on something we dislike about the person, something that irritates us. Unfortunately, when we do this--instead of seeing the deeper beauty of the person and giving them energy--we take energy away and actually do them harm. All they know is that they suddenly feel less beautiful and less confident, and it is because we sapped their energy.