Quotes About Perception

The sun never knew how wonderful it was," the architect Louis Kahn said, "until it fell on the wall of a building

So benumbed are we nowadays by electric lights that we have become utterly insensitive to the evils of excessive illumination

A igual blancura, la de un papel de Occidente difiere por naturaleza de la de un hosho7 o un papel blanco de China. Los rayos luminosos parecen rebotar en la superficie del papel occidental, mientras que la del hosho o del papel de China, similar a la aterciopelada superficie de la primera nieve, los absorbe con suavidad. Además, nuestros papeles, agradables al tacto, se pliegan y arrugan sin ruido. Su contacto es suave y ligeramente húmedo como el de la hoja de un árbol.

He has no intention of being misled by her. On the contrary, he laughs to himself that he's deceiving her.

deseaba tomar una esposa y vivir como un hombre normal... no para engañar a otros, sino para engañarse a sí mismo, convencerse de que no era diferente en modo alguno de otros hombres.

My head was a stage wrapped in a curtain of black velvet, and on the stage stood a single actress, named Naomi.

Again, and yet again, I looked back at the actor's hands, comparing them with my own; and there was no difference between them. Yet strangely the hands of the man on the stage were indescribably beautiful, while those on my knees were but ordinary hands.

Era mortificante pensar que otro hombre había descubierto ese exótico aspecto de su belleza que a mí se me había pasado por alto. Supongo que los maridos no son tan observadores, porque miran a sus esposas de una manera invariable.

Pero eso que generalmente se llama bello no es más que una sublimación de las realidades de la vida, y así fue como nuestros antepasados, obligados a residir, lo quisieran o no, en viviendas oscuras, descubrieron un día lo bello en el seno de la sombra y no tardaron en utilizar la sombra para obtener efectos estéticos. El elogio de la sombra

Wir sind der Meinung, Schönheit sei nicht in den Objekten selber zu suchen, sondern im Helldunkel, im Schattenspiel, das sich zwischen Objekten entfaltet.

Und wer unbedingt diese Unansehnlichkeit betrachten will, der wird zugleich jegliche vorhandene Schönheit zunichte machen, gerade wie wenn er ein Licht von hundert Kerzenstärken auf die Wandnische eines Teeraums richtete.

Während die Abendländer den Schmutz radikal aufzudecken und zu entfernen trachten, konservieren ihn die Ostasiaten sorgfältig und ästhetisieren ihn, so wie er ist - könnte man, wenn man wollte, beschönigend sagen; aber wie auch immer, es ist unser Schicksal, dass wir nun einmal Dinge mit Spuren von Menschenhänden, Lampenruß, Wind und Regen lieben oder auch daran erinnernde Farbtönungen und Lichtwirkungen.

Our earth is round, and, among other things, that means that you and I can hold completely different points of view and both be right. The difference of our positions will show stars in your window I cannot even imagine. Your sky may burn with light, while mine, at the same moment, spreads beautiful to darkness. Still we must choose how we separately corner the circling universe of our experience. Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter.

Making a lot of noise was considered essential for a good wedding, as keeping quiet would have been seen as suggesting that there was something shameful about the event.

When boys played "guerrilla warfare," which was their version of cowboys and Indians, the enemy side would have thorns glued onto their noses and say "hello" all the time.

Kind-hearted observers found her full of pathos, and the less generous despised her.

Those touched-up images were not what her mirrors had been telling her for some time.

Often a hungry person will wolf down unpalatable food; but as his stomach swells, he'll suddenly notice how bad the food is and fell nauseated.

It is hard for one who has not had a similar experience to imagine the terror that still gripped Taeko and Mrs. Tamaki and Hiroshi, so intense a terror that afterwards it seemed almost funny.

Such is our way of thinking - we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.

Pero cuando, sustituidas éstas (las lámparas eléctricas con pantalla de papel) por los candelabros, de luz todavía más tenue, se observan las bandejas y boles bajo el parpadeo de la trémula llama, se descubre cómo el brillo de todos esos objetos lacados, hondo y espeso como las aguas de un estanque, va revistiéndose de un encanto completamente diferente al que había mostrado hasta entonces.

Motherfuckers will read a book that's one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we're taking over.

I think all women believe adultery is a betrayal of themselves as women, while many men, in my experience, think of it as an endorsement of their true natures.

A dream only becomes one when you wake up.