Quotes About Perception

The truth, as the light, makes blind.

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

What do you see when you look and what do you hear when you read?

Aujourd'hui, je suis fou de mort, partout la mort, et ces roses sur ma table qui me parfument tandis que j'écris, affreusement vivant, ces roses sont des bouts de cadavres qu'on force à faire semblant de vivre trois jours de plus dans de l'eau et les gens achètent ces cadavres de fleurs et les jeunes filles s'en repaissent.

Un bébé titube avec des gestes d'ivrogne. Charmant, ce bébé, pas dangereux, pas jugeur de Juifs. Envie de l'embrasser. Non, trop blond, antisémite dans vingt ans.

Les autres mettent des semaines et des mois pour arriver à aimer, et à aimer peu, et il leur faut des entretiens et des goûts communs et des cristallisations. Moi, ce fut le temps d'un battement de paupières.

Ne pas devenir pauvre avec une âme de pauvre. La misère avilit. Le pauvre devient laid et prend l'autobus, se lave moins, sent la transpiration, compte ses sous, perd sa seigneurie et ne peut plus sincèrement mépriser. On ne méprise bien peu ce que l'on possède et domine. Goethe méprisait mieux que Rousseau.

une jeune interprète, idiote en quatre langues

Reality i merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

If God has created the world, his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us

Many of the things you can count, don't count. Many of the things you can't count, really count.

Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one

It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.

It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Why is it nobody understands me and everybody likes me?

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of all true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

When I study philosophical works I feel I am swallowing something which I don't have in my mouth.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.