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Observation Quotes
"Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't need to know how it works to get a shock on the fingers."
10
"The question is not what you look at, but what you see. It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair's breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance."
9
"Huh," said Percy. "Never seen Jason fly before. He looks like a blond superman."
8
"Optics, developing in us through study, teach us to see."
8
"I encountered among my comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from goodness, uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness."
8
"If you want to know a man, dig in his firepit...Basically, it meant that you could judge a lot about a man's life by what he thew away - or by what he was willing to burn in order to stay warm."
8
"I have been sitting watching that ever since I came back, the continuous variations of light and shadow."
7
"Everyone look around and see if you can spot the NARCS. They're the ones who look like hippies."
7
"Looking up at [the sky], I think about the October evening world, where 'people' must be going about their lives. Beneath that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things, preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think--if they think at all--that these things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do)."
7
"When you enter a room, a social situation, or a business meeting, be mindful of cues; read between the lines to better understand people and events. What do these things tell you?"
7
"The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself."
7
"All cases are unique and very similar to others."
7
"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."
7
"Without inquiring too deeply into the causes which make it possible to find subjects of gaiety always close at hand, the proof of that possibility can be found in the fact that persons of sensitive intelligence are capable of finding comic potentialities in everything and everybody, thereby demonstrating that if some people hold the belief that there is very little that is laughable in the world, the reason is that they lack the ability to find it."
7
"As dull as moon face, never seem to change."
7
"Even at a time like this, the street is bright enough and filled with people coming and going-people with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward."
6
"When you patiently examine the beautiful skin of the leopard after it's hard day's search for the meat it enjoys, you shall not only see the sweat that went into its search for the meat, but you shall also realize the scent of the sweat beneath the beautiful skin."
6
"I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able to make [it] out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture."
6
"One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment asking you that question. Toeach man his own knowledge. You could tell me the details of the patient's physical appearance- nothing there would escape you. If I wanted information about the papers on the desk, Mr. Raymond would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the fire, I must ask the man whose business is to observe such things. - Detective Hercule Poirot to Doctor Sheppard."
6
"From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."
6
"A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate."
6
"Outside the hospital, I squinted in the harsh morning sunlight. I could hear birds chirping in the tree, but even though I searched for them, they remained hidden from me."
6
"There is nothing left of him but curiosity and a pair of eyes."
6
"Human looks sure on face, while the earth lost in space."
6
"I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world."
5
"Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?"
5
"It was a curious day, slashed abruptly with fleeting, familiar impressions."
5
"When people stargazing, they stare at stars,and many other things which they've already presumed commonly and universally as stars."
5
"A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye."
4
"At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled."
4
"I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance."
4
"Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?"
4
"You have now learned to see That cats are much like you and me And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind."
4
"Snow's table manners are atrocious - it's like watching a wild dog eat. A wild dog you'd like to slip the tongue."
4
"You are not walking slow enough, when taking a walk, if you do not come across as bored or depressed (to the average sane person)."
4
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!"
4
"The arrogance of the human mind is too fragile, as well as the patience of the human character. It is because of that, they fail to see the power of mere observation and systematic analysis."
4
"As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty and sulked."
3
"It never ceases to amaze me: the things people care about."
3
"You write a story about loneliness, and you grab them all because everybody's an expert on that one."
3
"Her eyes betrayed no shock at the sights of the quay as they unfolded " not the sweating deckhands, the prostitutes crowding the ship, the hubbub of stalls, including one where three slaves were for sale, their ankles manacled. She might as well have been walking through a country garden as she moved inexorably away from the water."
3
"Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all."
3
"The house was clean, scrubbed and immaculate, curtains washed, windows polished, but all as a man does it - the ironed curtains did not hang quite straight and there were streaks on the windows and a square showed on the table when a book was moved."
3
"Society in its boundless ignorance ridicules the caterpillar but praises the butterfly."
3
"He reads much;He is a great observer and he looksQuite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sortAs if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spiritThat could be moved to smile at any thing.Such men as he be never at heart's easeWhiles they behold a greater than themselves,And therefore are they very dangerous."
3
"My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernisation since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity."
3
"Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking."
3
"Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun."
3
"Generally, there is a lot of truth value in stepping back, observing, then logically generalizing the extremes of what you see."
3
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