Observation Quotes - Page 12

• It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.

  Edmund Burke

  Reality, Skills, Way

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• The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous.

  John Ruskin

  Taken, Trying, Matter

  John Ruskin (1850). “Modern Painters: pt. 4. Of many things”, p.299

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• An amazing observation: it is precisely for feelings that one needs time, not for thought. ... Feelings, obviously, are more demanding than thought.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Feelings, Needs, Time Of Need

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• The eyes of a man in the jaundice make yellow observations on everything; and the soul tinctured with any passion diffuses a false color over the appearance of things.

  Isaac Watts

  Passion, Eye, Men

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• Certainly I do not wish that instead of these masters I had read baby books, written down to children, and with such ignorant dullness that they blunt the sense and corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do wish that I had read no books at all till later - that I had lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should not through books antedate their actual experiences.

  Margaret Fuller

  Baby, Children, Book

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• He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.

  John Stuart Mill

  Self, Decision, Apes

  John Stuart Mill (1865). “On Liberty”, p.34

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• Being satisfied, from observation and experience, as well as from medical testimony, that ardent spirit as a drink is not only needless but hurtful; and that the entire disuse of it would tend to promote the health, the virtue, and the happiness of the community, we hereby express our convention that should the citizens of the United States, and especially ALL YOUNG MEN, discontinue entirely the use of it, they would not only promote their own personal benefit, but the good of our country and the world.

  Andrew Jackson

  Country, Men, Community

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• It is a common observation that those who dwell continually upon their expectations are apt to become oblivious to the requirements of their actual situation.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Acceptance, Expectations, Requirements

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1958). “Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)”, p.19, Courier Corporation

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• Averages ... seduce us away from minute observation.

  Florence Nightingale

  Science, Average, Data

  Florence Nightingale (1859). “Notes on Nursing: What it Is, and what it is Not”, p.69

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• if you don't keep and guard and mature your force, and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago. ... you must write to the human heart, the great consciousness that all humanity goes to make up. Otherwise what might be strength in a writer is only crudeness, and what might be insight is only observation; sentimemnt falls to sentimentality - you can write about life, but never write life itself.

  Sarah Orne Jewett

  Fall, Writing, Heart

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• Very often there is too little information in photographs to deduce how they were made and even what they represent. We rely on context and supplemental information to confirm our observations, not simply the documents themselves.

  John Paul Caponigro

  Littles, Information, Photographer

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• Fight fire with fire. If you must have bores, always put them together or at the same table ... bores have an effervescent chemical reaction on one another at a party. They invariably have a marvelous time trading banalities in the absence of competition. Clichés roll trippingly off the tongue like sparkling epigrams and trite observations acquire depth sinking into receptive minds.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Party, Fighting, Fire

  Elsa Maxwell (1955). “I married the world”

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• observation of realities has never, to put it mildly, been one of the strengths of economic development theory.

  Jane Jacobs

  Reality, Development, Economics

  Jane Jacobs (2016). “Cities and the Wealth of Nations”, p.10, Vintage

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• The human mind feels restless and dissatisfied under the anxieties of ignorance. It longs for the repose of conviction; and to gain this repose it will often rather precipitate its conclusions than wait for the tardy lights of observation and experiment. There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system,--a prejudice of the understanding which disposes it to include all the phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities,--an indolence which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Ignorance, Light, Simplicity

  Thomas Chalmers (1836). “Works”, p.314

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• It's been my observation, after years in the [insurance] business, that a certain percent of the population simply can't resist the urge to cheat.

  Sue Grafton

  Years, Population, Dishonesty

  Sue Grafton (2010). “"H" is for Homicide”, p.13, Macmillan

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• One cannot really know an other without intimacy. Detached, objective observations alone leave a surface upon which it is too easy to project one's own image or fantasies. In intimacy, one respectfully interacts with the other, invites the penetration of the other, enters into a common effort, and then the strange and distinct contours of self and other become more apparent.

  Deena Metzger

  Self, Effort, Strange

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• Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother.

  Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

  Friendship, Mother, Skills

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• Write about just one thing, I have said, and there is wisdom in this advice...And yet, there is wisdom also in William Sloanes contrary observation: Almost all effective writing above the level of the soup can turns out to be about quite a lot of things fused or laced or linked together.

  Lucy Calkins

  Writing, Advice, Together

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• There's certainly a portion of my brain that is always tuned to making wry observations about the world, but that portion of my brain was alive and well before Twitter.

  Roxane Gay

  Brain, Alive, World

  Source: logger.believermag.com

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• I think when you practice photography or observation, you're on high alert. You polish up your antenna and stick up your head, and you're out there. You're receptive, appreciative of details. It heightens reality. You're trying to step into your alertness.

  Debra Granik

  Photography, Reality, Thinking

  "Debra Granik on "poverty porn," self-worth, and her new film, Stray Dog". Interview with Sam Fragoso, film.avclub.com. July 11, 2015.

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• It is my observation that 98% of the people are spending 98% of their time focusing on the 98% of things that don't matter. Stopping meditation is one of the easiest, quickest and most powerful forms of meditation. It is virtually effortless and its power relative to the effort is remarkable.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Powerful, People, Effort

  Source: www.trulyalive.net

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• What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Grief, Connections, Favors

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• Examining love is like examining a stocking: if you hold it up to the light and stretch it to search for snags, any snags there are may well run and ruin the stocking. In fact, if I may fashion Coudert's law from Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, it is this: Love is not only changed by observation; it is changed for the worse.

  Jo Coudert

  Running, Fashion, Love Is

  Jo Coudert (2003). “Advice from a Failure”, p.156, iUniverse

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• Individuality in opinion, or, what is more, in thinking, is simply one with thinking at all; for he who thinks thereby looks at the thing or the fact itself and takes its measure by observation directly, not content with the measures of others.

  James Vila Blake

  Thinking, Individuality, Looks

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• The assumption that individuals act objectively in accordance with purely mathematical dictates to maximize their gain or utility cannot be sustained by empirical observation.

  Richard Arnold Epstein

  Gains, Assumption, Individual

  "The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic". Book by Richard Arnold Epstein, 1977.

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