Observation Quotes

He was distracted by a giggle, and turned to see a rare sight: a girl.

[...] any fool can make a discovery. Every baby has to discover more in the first years of its life than Roger Bacon ever discovered in his laboratory.

Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord; to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies.

The path of things is silent. Will they suffer a speaker to go with them?

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them - as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon.

The painter wanders and loiters contentedly from place to place, always on the lookout for some brilliant butterfly of a picture which can be caught and carried safely home.

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down; And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton tolling the bell at noon, Dreams not that great Napoleon Sto

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.

The bearings of this observation lays in the application of it.

We met Dr. Hall in such deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead.

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

When I see birches bend to left and right... I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints.

Listen to the sound of silence.

The more we come in contact with animals and observe their behaviour, the more we love them, for we see how great is their care of the young.

When I talk to a man, I can always tell what he's thinking by where he is looking. If he is looking at my eyes, he is looking for intelligence. If he is looking at my mouth, he is looking for wisdom. But if he is looking anywhere else except my chest he's looking for another man.

I spent an hour looking at pots and carpets in the museums the other day, until the desire to describe them became like the desire for the lusts of the flesh.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

The ego is not only the unobserved mind, the voice in the head which pretends to be you, but also the unobserved emotions that are the body's reaction to what the voice in the head is saying.

I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Learn to see - accustoming the eye to calm, to patience, to letting-things-come-to-it; learning to defer judgment, to encircle and encompass the question on all sides.

Why isn’t the word “phonetically” spelled with an “f”?

Thus, for those who are willing to go out into the field, to look and to listen, changing demographics is both a highly productive and a highly dependable innovation opportunity.

I was quiet but I was not blind.

The things I talk about and explain couldn't happen - yet, they don't seem impossible - you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane - and it's trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.

I like it when people come to see me again, but you end up playing to that person only. You know there's other people out there, but you also know that the person who came to see you again is there. You're like, "I hope he's happy again."

We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.

When in doubt, observe and ask questions. When certain, observe at length and ask many more questions.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?

Without your knowledge, the eyes and ears of many will see and watch you, as they have done already.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

I lived in an attached house. My father used to drive into the wrong driveway all the time. He'd say, Damn it, how do you tell one of these houses from another?

Every garden presents innumerable fascinating problems.

I miss the $2 bill, 'cause I can break a two. $20, no. $10, no. $5, maybe, $2? Oh yeah. What do you need, a one and another one?

I get all my ideas in Switzerland near the Forka Pass. There is a little town called Gletch, and two thousand feet up above Gletch there is a smaller hamlet called Über Gletch. I go there on the fourth of August every summer to get my cuckoo clock fixed. While the cuckoo is in the hospital, I wander around and talk to the people in the streets. They are very strange people, and I get my ideas from them.

She had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.

Don't look at the world with your hands in your pockets. To write about it you have to reach out and touch it.

Limousines used to be reserved for the ruling class, or, on special occasions, for the working class. Today, limousines are like taxicabs with the door handles still intact.

[My grandmother] is a typical white person.

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.

In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.

I would frankly be shocked if Donald Trump even knows how to use chopsticks or is even able to manipulate them with those tiny little fingers.

I saw a human pyramid once. It was very unnecessary.

Hast any philosophy in thee shepherd? .• • • • . . . He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

The trouble with Jim was he looked at the world and could not look away. And when you never look away all your life, by the time you are thirteen you have done twenty years taking in the laundry of the world.

Look closely into his aims, observe the means by which he pursues them, discover what brings him content - and can the man's real worth remain hidden from you?

A bird half wakened in the lunar noonSang halfway through its little inborn tune.

Baseball is the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror.

There was the same dazzling red glare. The sea gasped for air with each shallow, stifled wave that broke on the sand. ...with every blade of light that flashed off the sand, from a bleached shell or a peice of broken glass, my jaws tightened. I walked for a long time.

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

A lean cheek; which you have not: a blue eye, and sunken; which you have not: an unquestionable spirit; which you have not: a beard neglected; which you have not: — but I pardon you for that; for, simply, your having1 in beard is a younger brother's revenue: — Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unhanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation.

Ants are a curious race

I was in the supermarket the other day, and I met a lady in the aisle where they keep the generic brands. Her name was 'woman.

Swimming is not a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That's just common sense!

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

But why do I notice everything? She thought. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wanted to force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came.