"The question is not what you look..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
The question is not what you look at – but how you look & whether you see.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.”
“There is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness.”
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
More on Perception
“We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.”
“I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.”
“The lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a likeness to hermother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.”
More on Observation
“Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?”
“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”
“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.”