Quotes About Perception

The little everyday neglect of imagining other people well can add up to a lifetime of flawed, perverted vision, an expenditure of soul in a waste of emotionalism.

Apocalyptic shows us what we're not seeing. It can't be composed or spoken by the powers that be, because they are the sustainers of "the way things are" whose operation justifies itself by crowning itself as "the way things ought to be" and whose greatest virtue is in being "realistic." Thinking through what we mean by "realistic" is where apocalyptic begins.

It is one of the fundamental mysteries of nature, this dichotomy between what is given and what we, with our minds, create. We owe our very existence as a species to our ability to delineate patterns. We can even see patterns where none exist – the faces in a sun-lit curtain, the Greek heroes and monsters among the stars. What else might the human mind be recognizing that is not really there? And what, in any case, do we mean by "real"?

The expression 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics' was popularised by Mark Twain and attributed by him, in his autobiography, to the nineteenth-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

Statistics can easily fool us if used incorrectly, or if we fail to take in the whole picture of what's going on. The situation is even worse when data are presented in a way that's deliberately misleading – as often happens in advertising and politics. Without resorting to outright lies, there are plenty of ways to distort data to create a false impression.

Truth and beauty are closely related but not the same. You're never sure that you have the truth. All you're doing is striving towards better and better truths and the light that guides you is beauty.

Give a member of Congress a junket and a mimeograph machine and he thinks he is secretary of state.

used to put movies down by saying that they were 'deep on the surface' --meaning that there was nothing underneath.

We do not experience time flowing, or passing. What we experience are differences between our present perceptions and our present memories of past perceptions. We interpret those differences, correctly, as evidence that the universe changes with time. We also interpret them, incorrectly, as evidence that our consciousness, or the present, or something, moves through time.

Whenever we observe anything – a scientific instrument or a galaxy or a human being – what we are actually seeing is a single-universe perspective on a larger object that extends some way into other universes. In

It is a classic example of the deceptiveness of the senses: the Earth looks and feels as though it is at rest beneath our feet, even though it is really rotating. As for the celestial sphere, despite being visible in broad daylight (as the sky), it does not exist at all.

As the ancient philosopher Heraclitus remarked, 'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.

Solipsism, the theory that only one mind exists and that what appears to be external reality is only a dream taking place in that mind, cannot be logically disproved.

You can eat a Burger for $5 or a Kobe Steak for $100. They both fill you up. The real difference is the experience.

For the French, talent excuses much, genius excuses all, and prudishness is inexcusable.

once the existence of facts was denied then everything was a lie.

Her sanity was perhaps an unwarranted assumption.

The things other people said or did would always give room to take offense, if you were of a mind to take offense. Therefore the fault wasn't in the other people.

I had a fear that I'd be typecast, but I don't really have that fear anymore.

People think celebrities don't have to worry about human things like sickness and death and rent. It's like you've traveled to this Land of Celebrity, this other country. They want you to tell about what you saw.

Women's fashion is a subtle form of bondage. It's men's way of binding them. We put them in these tight, high-heeled shoes, we make them wear these tight clothes and we say they look sexy. But they're actually tied up.

Pooling people in race silos is akin to zoologists grouping raccoons, tigers, and okapis on the basis that they are all stripey." 8

Editors and agents have an uncanny ability to zero in on the very thing you knew—but didn't want to admit—was wrong with your proposal or manuscript.

I struggle with the fact that who I am has often been hidden behind stories that I tell myself derived from my perceptions of others' thoughts, statements, actions, or indifference.