Observation Quotes - Page 19

• People learn more from observation that they do from conversation.

  Will Rogers

  People, Conversation

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• Thus even supposedly unadulterated facts of observation already are interfused with all sorts of conceptual pictures, model concepts, theories or whatever expression you choose. The choice is not whether to remain in the field of data or to theorize; the choice is only between models that are more or less abstract, generalized, near or more remote from direct observation, more or less suitable to represent observed phenomena.

  Ludwig von Bertalanffy

  Expression, Data, Choices

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• Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.

  Heinz von Foerster

  Objectivity, Made, Delusion

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• An aphorism is an extreme synthesis of thesis and antithesis, theory and practice, it's a mixture of intuition and observation, hypothesis and illusions of certainty and probability, history and stupidity.

  William C. Brown

  Practice, Stupidity, Intuition

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• Life is the path. Can the path be seen? Observe the path and you are far from it. Without observation how can one know they are on the path? The path cannot be seen, nor can it not be unseen. Perception is delusion; abstraction is nonsensical. Your path is freedom. Name it and it vanishes.

  Eric S. Nylund

  Names, Perception, Unseen

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• Look ... first and foremost, I'm a scientist. That means it's my responsibility to make observations and gather evidence before forming a hypothesis, not vice versa.

  Allen Steele

  Mean, Responsibility, Vices

  Allen Steele (2011). “Hex”, p.138, Penguin

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• A hypothesis is empirical or scientific only if it can be tested by experience. A hypothesis or theory which cannot be, at least in principle, falsified by empirical observations and experiments does not belong to the realm of science.

  Francisco J. Ayala

  Principles, Doe, Theory

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• ....there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.

  James Burgh

  Army, Differences, People

  James Burgh (1774). “Political Disquisitions: Or, An Enquiry Into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses”, p.476

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• Film is so much about that intensity of focus that there always needs to be some tension and some forward motion. The novel goes into a series of lovely observations about the world, but you've got to find the story.

  Lenny Abrahamson

  Focus, Lovely, Needs

  Source: collider.com

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• Observation, reason, and experiment make up what we call the scientific method.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Scientific Method, Reason, Experiments

  Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (2013). “The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol. 1 for tablets”, Basic Books

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• The observer cannot be left out of the description of the observation.

  John Archibald Wheeler

  Description, Left, Observers

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• Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and continuous observations. By persistent, I mean not only continuous work, but also not giving up your opinion at the bidding of such and such a person.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Art, Giving Up, Mean

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• Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Understanding, Common

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• The human experience can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all decisions are of the past, all decisions are about the future. The image of the future, therefore, is the key to all choice-oriented behavior. The character and quality of the images of the future which prevail in a society is therefore the most important clue to its overall dynamics.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Character, Past, Keys

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• Satellite photography in the 1970's gave rise to the long-range weather forecast, a month at a time. This in turn gave rise to the observation that the long-range weather forecast was wrong most of the time. In turn, this gave rise to the dropping of the long-range weather forecast and to the admission that really accurate forecasting could only cover the next day or two, and not always then.

  Miles Kington

  Photography, Weather, Two

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• When it was suggested to Pasteur that many of his great achievements depended on luck, he replied - I'm sure with more than a little irritation - 'In the field of observation in science, fortune only favours the prepared mind.' It is not by chance that it is always the great scientists who have the luck.

  Lewis Wolpert

  Irritation, Achievement, Mind

  Lewis Wolpert (2014). “The Unnatural Nature of Science”, p.79, Faber & Faber

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• [Mathematics] unceasingly calls forth the faculties of observation and comparison; one of its principal weapons is induction: it has frequent recourse to trial and verification; and it affords a boundless scope for the exercise of the highest efforts of imagination and invention.

  James Joseph Sylvester

  Exercise, Imagination, Effort

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• The tool which serves as intermediary between theory and practice, between thought and observation, is mathematics; it is mathematics which builds the linking bridges and gives the ever more reliable forms.

  David Hilbert

  Practice, Bridges, Giving

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• Observation always involves theory.

  Edwin Powell Hubble

  Theory

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• I was taken to the hospital for observation. I stayed several days, didn't observe anything, and I left.

  George Carlin

  Taken, Left, Hospitals

  George Carlin (2007). “The Best of Brain Droppings”, p.82, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• You learn to do your best writing on story rather than off story. Very often at the beginning of their careers, writers including me do their best dialogue writing off story - the best lines, the best observations - but they haven't got enough to do with the plot to stay in.

  Victor Levin

  Writing, Careers, Plot

  Source: collider.com

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• It is a very true and expressive phrase, "He looked daggers at me," for the first pattern and prototype of all daggers must have been a glance of the eye.... It is wonderful how we get about the streets without being wounded by these delicate and glancing weapons, a man can so nimbly whip out his rapier, or without being noticed carry it unsheathed. Yet it is rare that one gets seriously looked at.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Eye, Men, Society

  Henry David Thoreau (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers”

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• In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

  Galileo Galilei

  Running, Men, Long

  "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems". Book by Galileo Galilei (p. 322), 1632.

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• An observation, strictly, is only a sensation. Nobody means that we should reject everything but sensations. But as soon as we go beyond sensations we are making inferences.

  Harold Jeffreys

  Mean, Inference, Should

  Harold Jeffreys (1998). “The Theory of Probability”, p.412, OUP Oxford

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• The faith of scientists in the power and truth of mathematics is so implicit that their work has gradually become less and less observation, and more and more calculation.... But the facts which are accepted by virtue of these tests are not actually observed at all.

  Susanne Katherina Langer

  Tests, Facts, Virtue

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