Quotes About Perception

Maleness is [...] a limited and subjective position rather than the standard from which ribs are removed

A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.

Those two were never friends. But Grace Goodhue was right about Calvin Coolidge, her mother was wrong. It was love at first sight. She, however, probably saw him first. Not only was her social experience wider than his, her emotional intelligence was keener. So when her lover and her mother clashed, she followed her lover.

You're a true poet: but, my dear, If you would hold the public ear, Remember to be not too clear. Be strange, be verbally intense; Words matter ten times more than sense; In clear streams, under sunny skies, The fish you angle for won't rise; In turbid water, cloudy weather, They'll rush to you by shoals together.

Bare twigs in April enhance our pleasure; We know the good time is yet to come.... Bare twigs in Autumn are signs for sadness; We feel the good time is well-nigh past.

One who can see without seeming to see-- That's an observer as good as three.

One of the first and most important things for a critic to learn is how to sleep undetected at the theatre.

People fail to realize the technical conditions of drama, and think that, in the case of so simple a matter as playwriting, everyone is as good a judge as his neighbor. With regard to music and painting, you will hear people modestly confess that they have no expert knowledge, though "they know what they like." With regard to drama, they are troubled with no such diffidence. They not only know what they like, but they know what you ought to like, and more especially what you ought to despise.

Speaking of provincial playhouses, I said they were usually sandwiched between two public-houses, from which they were distinguishable mainly by their flaunting posters and some hideous flare of gas. As for London theatres, I said they were at best like swagger restaurants.

If everything I perceive is based on what I already know, how will I ever perceive anything new? If I never perceive anything new, how will I change? How will I grow?

On reading these and the other irritants Seneca lists, one is struck by how little human nature has changed in the past two millennia.

what upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things."3 Seneca shared this view—"It is not how the wrong is done that matters, but how it is taken

Henry David Thoreau, for example, doesn't directly mention Stoicism or any of the great Stoics in Walden, his masterpiece, but to those who know what to look for, the Stoic influence is present. In his Journal, Thoreau is more forthcoming. He writes, for example, that "Zeno the Stoic stood in precisely the same relation to the world that I do now.

It is not how the wrong is done that matters, but how it is taken"4—as did Marcus Aurelius: "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

SENECA OFFERS lots of specific advice on how to prevent anger. We should, he says, fight our tendency to believe the worst about others and our tendency to jump to conclusions about their motivations. We need to keep in mind that just because things don't turn out the way we want them to, it doesn't follow that someone has done us an injustice.

This might sound a bit silly, but to someone who has not lost his capacity for joy, the world is a wonderful place. To such a person, glasses are amazing; to everyone else, a glass is just a glass, and it is half empty to boot.

Psychologist Daniel M. Wegner has gone so far as to argue that conscious will is an illusion—that despite appearances, what causes my finger to rise is not my consciously willing that it rise but something else.

depth. It is not, however, events either past or present which make us feel the way we feel, but our interpretation of those events. Our feelings

Most of us are as comfortable with our misbeliefs as we are with an old pair of house slippers: well-worn, familiar, and always waiting for us, despite the fact that they have out-lived their usefulness.

In the book of Proverbs in the Bible, it reads, As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers

My diminished girth, in tailor phraseology, was hardly conceivable even by my own friends, or my respected medical adviser, until I put on my former clothing, over what I now wear, which is a thoroughly convincing proof of the remarkable change.

It is a great evil to look upon mankind with too clear vision. You seem to be living among wild beasts, and you become a wild beast yourself. (""The Story of Prince Alasi and the Princess Firouzkah")

If she knew me as I really am she would despise me, and certainly not aid or abet my evil designs. To veil their vices from the sight of the good is the only resource of those who are not blind and know themselves to be vicious.' Thus was I confirmed in habits of hypocrisy; and these, for a time, worked only too effectually to my advantage.