Quotes About Perception

The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it.

Words cannot embody; they can only describe.

A man came up the far side of the street, walking neither slow nor fast ,not turning his head, as he paused, and quite surely not noticing them; they watched him until he was out of sight, and Rufus felt, and was sure that his father felt, that though there was no harm in the man and he had as good a right as they did to be there, minding his own business, their journey was interrupted from the moment they first saw him until they saw him out of sight.

Once, too, when he had said hello to some much older girls, one of them cried out in the strange, sticky voice he had heard grown women use, "Ooh, just look at the darlin little boy!" He had felt embarrassed but pleasantly flattered for a moment; then he heard several boys squealing the same words, but insincerely, in fact with a hatred and scorn which appalled him, and he had wished that he could not be seen.

And because they were always there, and always seemed to be on his side, they could always keep him sufficiently deceived to come back for more than anyone in his right senses would come back for.

I understand, Catherine," he said. What does he mean that he understands, Catherine wondered. Something I failed to hear, no doubt, she thought, though their words had been so few that she could not imagine what. But she quickly decided not to exasperate him ;by a question; she was sure of his kind intention, and deeply touched by it.

That——that butterfly has got more of God in him than Jackson will ever see for the rest of eternity.

We just each believe what we're able

That horrid little man!" "What's wrong with him?" his father asked, not because he didn't know what she would say, but so she would say it.

and every time, he was still more acutely aware of their eyes on him and of the thoughts behind their eyes

He did not know what "she's worth the saving" meant, and it was one of the things he always took care not to ask, because although it sounded so gentle he was also sure that somewhere inside it there was something terrible to be afraid of exactly because it sounded so gently, and he would become very much afraid instead of only a little afraid if he asked and learned what it meant.

The man said somehow he was sure he was—dead—the minute he saw him. He doesn't know how. Just some special kind of stillness.

For in the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and central and simply, without either dissection into science, or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself as a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all of consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiation of what is.

I like people thinking I'm an asshole. Being an asshole is my life's vocation; I'm a goddamned asshole professional.

Politeness is the enemy of both Art and Criticism. It tries to color true perception, dilute strong emotion, and replace genuine compassion. To pursue bad manners is childish, to pursue good ones is emasculation.

he still thought I was accusing him or calling him to account. He said, "People *do* grow. You may not think much of *me*, but my children will be great!" I said , "They will be black and blind or passing for white and self-blinded. Those are the only choices.

You can hear a lot of things if you put your ear to the ground at eventide.

Womenfolk just tend to get lost, he'd always say; it's just a weakness they've got.

you come to understand that history might be, as Thomas Carlyle put it, "a distillation of rumor," or, as Napoleon said, "a set of lies generally agreed upon

A man is literally what he thinks

The outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.

A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so shall he be

Do I look like the flower type of guy?