top of page
.png){kind=small}
Perception Quotes
"You would say you don't see it: at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-by, what you express with that organ, I am quick at interpreting its language)."
46
"The illusion of choice is the greatest magic trick ever performed."
45
"I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa."
45
"He could see the tall, peeling yellow building at the periphery of his range of vision. But something about it struck him as strange. A shimmer, an unsteadiness, as if the building faded forward into stability and then retreated into insubstantial uncertainty. An oscillation, each phase lasting a few seconds and then blurring off into its opposite, a fairly regular variability as if an organic pulsation underlay the structure. As if, he thought, it's alive."
45
"If you are not happy with your life, it is most probably because you have eagle eyes to see the negative parts of your life and almost blind to the beautiful side!"
45
"It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not."
44
"Take a sound from whatever source, a note on a violin, a scream, a moan, a creaking door, and there is always this symmetry between the sound basis, which is complex and has numerous characteristics which emerge through a process of comparison within our perception."
44
"Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception."
44
"Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them?"
44
"You believe what your eyes want to believe!"
44
"Then the clarifying thing happens, and what you need to do, what you must do, is not a question, not demand more revelation than what is given, be quiet in the face of it, quiet and grateful that it has been given to you to see this, to be for even a short time aware of the extraordinary layered depths and profound beauty of the world to which we mostly blind ourselves."
44
"I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks."
44
"You must consider, when reading this treatise, that mental perception, because connected with matter, is subject to conditions similar to those to which physical perception is subject."
44
"It's as if they actually think that what other people think of them somehow doesn't matter. I mean, I know we're all supposed to believe that, but obviously, none of us actually do. And nor should we, because it does! It does matter! And the people who genuinely believe it doesn't tend to be the very people who ought to care most what other people think of them, because what the other people are thinking is, 'No, actually, I don't think the Chinese are "up to something,"' or, 'You should use mouthwash,' or, 'Your mania for the collective socialization of agriculture will surely cause the deaths of millions,' or, 'Forty cats is too many cats."
44
"There's this perception sometimes around here that I'm this Hollywood guy."
43
"We do not actually know other people, we only know our judgements."
43
"He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything?"
43
"It's a queer business, making oneself blind."
43
"Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone."
42
"An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft."
42
"The world is best viewed through the lens of your heart."
42
"From the pavement, I could see the window of Albertine's room, that window, formerly quite black, at night, when she was not staying in the house, which the electric light inside, dissected by the slats of the shutters, striped from top to bottom with parallel bars of gold."
42
"It's not evil, Rand. I know something evil when I smell it. This isn't evil, it's just incredibly stupid."
41
"The Truth must dazzle gradually. Or every man be blind."
41
"One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun."
41
"Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic."
40
"The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception."
40
"These are the influences that everybody has. Some individuals might stand out because of one thing or another, but whether one's perception as a child of what was important or not is accurate, I don't know."
40
"We in the west are seen as godless, as greedy and as uncaring about the suffering of those in the developing world."
40
"What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency."
40
"Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age."
40
"The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition."
40
"What we touch with our fingers is false. What we feel through our perceptions is real. What we see through our eyes is an illusion, but what we see through our heart is real."
40
"What would beauty be if the whole world were blind?"
40
"Moderation sees itself as beautiful, it is unaware that in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and sober and consequently ugly-looking."
40
"A famous person to themselves, they don't get up in the morning and think, I'm famous. I'm not famous to me. Famous is a perception."
40
"The last words he said to me when I bade him good-night were:Tell Amy it's no good coming after me. Anyhow, I shall change my hotel, so she wouldn't be able to find me.'My own impression is that she's well rid of you,' I said.My dear fellow, I only hope you'll be able to make her see it. But women are very unintelligent."
40
"No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye."
39
"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception."
39
"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."
39
"She knew it wasn't real. She knew the holograph wouldn't hurt. But she also knew that fire was dangerous, and illusions were dangerous, and being tricked into believing things that weren't real was often the most dangerous thing of all."
39
"A gloss is a total system of perception and language."
39
"Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions."
39
"I'm sorry I didn't go to jail for six months, then I know you could come to see me anytime you wanted to."
39
bottom of page