top of page
.png){kind=small}
Perception Quotes
"Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end."
19
"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."
19
"Moderation sees itself as beautiful, it is unaware that in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and sober and consequently ugly-looking."
19
"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)."
19
"Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age."
18
"A particularly fine head on a man usually means that he is stupid; particularly deep philosophers are usually shallow thinkers; in literature, talents not much above the average are usually regarded by their contemporaries as geniuses."
18
"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!"
18
"It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not."
17
"We in the west are seen as godless, as greedy and as uncaring about the suffering of those in the developing world."
17
"I don't know about you, but I can tell when someone's lying. They can't look you in the eye - they look you in the bridge of your nose."
17
"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."
17
"Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye."
17
"I am in the Aleph, the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time. I'm at a window, looking out at the world and its secret places, poetry lost in time and words left hanging in space...sentences that are perfectly understood, even when left unspoken. Feelings that simultaneously exalt and suffocate."
17
"Every person sees the world through lenses of his or her own design-individual goggles that alter focus and perspective as desired. For those who wish the world to be dark and ugly and unapproachable, it is. But for those who wish it to be beautiful, it is a garden playground blooming with bright, happy colors."
16
"No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye."
16
"The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception."
16
"Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."
16
"What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency."
16
"Well, there would be no sound if we shout on the background."
16
"The puzzle that is created by seeing the 'relative' is called worldly life (sansaar)! It would never be this way had one seen the 'Real'."
16
"What would beauty be if the whole world were blind?"
16
"Disappointment focuses on 'what is not,' and completely misses the far greater reality of 'what now is."
16
"The world is best viewed through the lens of your heart."
16
"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."
16
"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?"
16
"The thing of which the act of perception is the perception is experienced as something not mental."
15
"It's not evil, Rand. I know something evil when I smell it. This isn't evil, it's just incredibly stupid."
15
"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."
15
"Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution."
15
"The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing."
15
"The illusion of choice is the greatest magic trick ever performed."
15
"Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone."
15
"When one says, I won't judge you for that, what they're really saying is, I am judging you for that. Think about it. If you walk into my house and I tell you, "I won't judge you for wearing those pants," what am I really saying?"
15
"The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing."
15
"You believe what your eyes want to believe!"
15
"There are quantities of human faces, but there are many more faces, for each person has several."
15
"We were just standing there, and her eyes were so interesting. Not in the usual way of being interesting, like being extremely blue or extremely big or flanked by obscenely long lashes or anything."
15
"One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun."
15
"I know too that we Americans like to think of ourselves as cleaner than clean, a healthy nation who would never take anything when a recent poll suggested that 65 per cent of the population would risk dying in 10 years if they would be guaranteed Olympic gold."
15
"Beauty is all very well at first sight but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?"
15
"Always the cat remains a little beyond the limits we try to set for him in our blind folly."
15
"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."
14
"Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites."
14
"To perceive means to immobilize... we seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself."
14
"Oddly my name has been no professional help at all! It seems to have made no difference. I admire him hugely, both for his benevolence and his enormous psychological perception."
14
"Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy."
14
bottom of page