Observation Quotes

What I like, or one of the things I like, about motoring is the sense it gives one of lighting accidentally, like a voyager who touches another planet with the tip of his toe, upon scenes which would have gone on, have always gone on, will go on, unrecorded, save for this chance glimpse. Then it seems to me I am allowed to see the heart of the world uncovered for a moment.

There is a natural hootchy-kootchy motion to a goldfish.

The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blur with the manuscript.

It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company--for he did all the talking.

It seems to me that every phenomenon, every fact, itself is the really interesting object. Whoever explains it, or connects it with other events, usually only amuses himself or makes sport of us, as, for instance, the naturalist or historian. But a single action or event is interesting, not because it is explainable, but because it is true.

In Holland, everyone is an expert in painting and in tulips.

The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies. I'll show you my collection some day.Good.They want to know what I do with my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won't tell them what. I've got them running. And sometimes, I tell them, I like to put my head back, like this, and let the rain fall in my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever tried it?

I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.

You can tell a lot just by looking at it.

Many a good man I have seen go under.

Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.

I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, but now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips.

Look at the limes in this drink, how they float. That's good news. Next time I'm on a boat, and it capsizes, I will reach for a lime. I'm saved by the buoyancy of citrus.

I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.

Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.

Have you noticed when you wear a hat for a long time it feels like it's not there anymore? And then when you take it off it feels like it's still there?

Everywhere I go I smell fresh paint.

Every day or two, I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.

Why is it called 'after dark' when it really is 'after light'?

I used to take on trust a man's deeds after having listened to his words. Now having listened to a man's words I go on to observe his deeds.

In Hawaii they say, "aloha." That's a nice one, It means both "hello" and "good-bye" Which just goes to show, if you spend enough time in the sun you don't know whether you're coming or going.

Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best.

How heron comes It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk heron comes to the pond and stands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyes full of attention, his wings pure light

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.

Divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth.

She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.

To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It's commenting or observing or twisting life.

Cats are the wildest of the tame and the tamest of the wild

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.

I think a rotisserie is like a really morbid ferris wheel for chickens. It’s a strange piece of machinery . . . We will take the chicken, kill it, impale it, and then rotate it. And I’ll be damned if I’m not hungry! Because spinning chicken carcasses make my mouth water! I like dizzy chicken. With a side of potatoes of some sort.

I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.

Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.

Watchin' and listenin' is the thing at present; not talking.

Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

People learn more from observation that they do from conversation.

I once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden, tucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either by a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.

The fishermen say that the "thundering of the pond" scares the fishes and prevents their biting.

In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke their tender limbs.

I find no change of consequence in grown people, I do not miss the dead. It does not surprise me to hear that this friend or that friend died at such and such a time, because I fully expected that sort of news. But somehow I had made no calculation on the infants. It never occurred to me that infants grow up...These unexpected changes, from infancy to youth, and from youth to maturity, are by far the most startling things I meet with.

Careful observers may foretell the hour(By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r.While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'erHer frolics, and pursues her tail no more.

You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking;— if the first, I should be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.

Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness; now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow. Some green she thinks so good for our eyes that, like blue, she never banishes it entirely from our eyes, but has created evergreens.

Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn't hiss or boo me.

A woman can have a smile, and a woman can have a large backside, but I have been to the mountain and I am here to tell you that when a woman has both of those things she is not to be trusted.

They are not men, they are not women, they are Americans.

Waves of hands, hesitations at street corners, someone dropping a cigarette into the gutter-all are stories. But which is the true story? That I do not know. Hence I keep my phrases hung like clothes in a cupboard, waiting for some one to wear them. Thus waiting, thus speculating, making this note and then an· other I do not cling to life. I shall be brushed like a bee from a sunflower. My philosophy, always accumulating, welling up moment by moment, runs like quicksilver a dozen ways at once.

We have all seen these circus elephants complete with tusks, ivory in their head and thick skins, who move around the circus ring and grab the tail of the elephant ahead of them.

Large, musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:And now from having ridden out desireThey lie closed over in the wind and clingWhere wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.

Golf is a wonderful exercise. You can stand on your feet for hours, watching somebody else putt.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

The best thing we're put here for's to see; The strongest thing that's given us to see with's a telescope. Someone in every town, seems to me, owes it to the town to keep one.

What is now the foliage moving?Air is still, and hush'd the breeze,Sultriness, this fullness loving,Through the thicket, from the trees.Now the eye at once gleams brightly,See! the infant band with mirthMoves and dances nimbly, lightly,As the morning gave it birth,Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.

I never seen snakes on a plane

I have a dining room done in different shades of white, with white cushions embroidered in yellow silk: the effect is absolutely delightful and the room beautiful.

A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.

Every thoughtful pin on pinterest has beauty. But not everyone can see.

No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.

I find that a duck's opinion of me is influenced by whether or not I have bread. A duck loves bread, but he does not have the capability to buy a loaf. That's the biggest joke on the duck ever. If I worked at a convenience store, and a duck came in and stole a loaf of bread, I would let him go. I'd say, "Come back tomorrow, bring your friends!" When I think of a duck's friends, I think of other ducks. But he could have, say, a beaver in tow.