Observation Quotes - Page 34

• Not observation of a duty but liberty itself is the pledge that assures fidelity.

  Ellen Key

  Liberty, Fidelity, Duty

  Ellen Key (1911). “The Morality of Woman: And Other Essays”

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• [W]hen the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.

  Karl Mannheim

  Discipline, Hens, Defense

  Karl Mannheim (1936). “Ideology and utopia: an introduction to the sociology of knowledge”

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• I've always felt you don't have to be completely detached, emotionally uninvolved to make precise observations. There's nothing wrong with feeling great empathy for your subjects.

  Jane Goodall

  Animal, Empathy, Feelings

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• My own view, which does not rely solely on religious faith or even on an original idea, but rather on ordinary common sense, is that establishing binding ethical principles is possible when we take as our starting point the observation that we all desire happiness and wish to avoid suffering.

  Dalai Lama

  Religious, Ethical Principles, Views

  The Dalai Lama, Alexander Norman (2010). “Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium”, p.22, Hachette UK

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• Talents of the novelist: ... observation of character, analysis of emotion, people's feelings, personal relations.

  Virginia Woolf

  Character, People, Feelings

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• After a lifetime of affectionate regard for dogs and many years of close observation and reflection, I have reached the conclusion that dogs feel more than I do (I am not prepared to speak for other people). They feel more, and they feel more purely and more intensely.

  Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

  Friendship, Dog, Reflection

  Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1998). “Dogs Never Lie about Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs”, Broadway Books

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• Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.

  Geoff Dyer

  War, Writing, Expression

  "Ten rules for writing fiction" by Geoff Dyer, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

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• Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. If your work consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren't going to come and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Mussolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious pliability of language. "It is an old observation," he writes, "that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric." Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to consider: "Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules."

  Stephen King

  Writing, Police, Add

  Stephen King (2002). “On Writing”, p.113, Simon and Schuster

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• By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analyzing the observations that I had made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics. Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.

  M. C. Escher

  Teaching, Math, Artist

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• Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt.

  Walker Evans

  Photography, Art, Leaving

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• Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation

  Max Euwe

  Thinking, Tactics, Playing Chess

  "Sales - What A Concept!: A Guidebook for Sales Process Performance Improvement" by Henry C. (Sandy) Waters III, p. 11, 2011.

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• The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.

  Stephen Spender

  Memories, Creativity, Self

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• Any allegation of runaway capitalism has to be tempered by the observation that today we have the largest public sectors and the highest taxes the world has ever known.

  Johan Norberg

  Philosophy, Political, World

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• Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself - Climate is beyond our power to control...Earth doesn't care about governments or their legislation. You can't find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone's permission or explaining itself.

  Robert B. Laughlin

  Government, Heal Itself, Weather

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• It is one thing to impose drastic measures and harsh economic penalties when an environmental problem is clear-cut and severe....It is foolish to do so when the problem is largely hypothetical and not substantiated by observations....we do not currently have any convincing evidence or observations of significant climate change from other than natural causes.

  Frederick Seitz

  Cutting, Convincing Evidence, Environmental

  "2008 Climate Debate" by William F. Jasper, www.thenewamerican.com. March 31, 2008.

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• As a geologist, I love Earth observations, but it is ridiculous to tie this objective to a 'consensus' that humans are causing global warming when human experience, geologic data and history, and current cooling can argue otherwise. 'Consensus,' as many have said, merely represents the absence of definitive science. You know as well as I, the 'global warming scare' is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making.

  Harrison Schmitt

  Ties, Government, Data

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• When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories.

  Freeman Dyson

  Climate, Gaps, Global Warming

  Freeman J. Dyson, Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future (2006). “Heretical thoughts about science and society”

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• Science is composed of laws which were originally based on a small, carefully selected set of observations, often not very accurately measured originally; but the laws have later been found to apply over much wider ranges of observations and much more accurately than the original data justified.

  Richard Hamming

  Science, Law, Data

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• Observation capitalizes inspiration.

  Alex Faickney Osborn

  Inspiration, Seeing

  Alex Faickney Osborn (1953). “Applied imagination: principles and procedures of creative thinking”, New York

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• The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Ideas, Drawing, Names

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1796). “A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects”, p.114

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• That the Hindus, absorbed in the ideal, lacked in realistic observation is evident from this. Take painting and sculpture. What do you see in the Hindu paintings? All sorts of grotesque and unnatural figures. What do you see in a Hindu temple? A Chaturbhanga Narayana or some such thing. But take into consideration any Italian picture or Grecian statue-what a study of nature you find in them! A gentleman for twenty years sat burning a candle in his hand, in order to paint a lady carrying a candle in her hand.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Italian, Hands, Order

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• We must express the view, based on our empirical observations, that a substantial number of journalists are ignorant, lazy, opinionated, and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and often alcoholism, and even more so with arrogant and abrasive youngsters who substitute 'commitment' for insight. The product of their impassioned intervention in public affairs is more often confusion than lucidity.

  Conrad Black

  Commitment, Numbers, Views

  "A Brief to the Special Senate Committee on the Mass Media from the Sherbrooke Record". 1969.

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• The founders of this nation understood that private morality is the fount from whence sound public policy springs. Replying to Washington's first inaugural address, the Senate stated: "We feel, sir, the force and acknowledge the justness of the observation that the foundation of our national policy should be lain in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles it is in vain to look for public virtue."

  Thomas G. West

  Spring, Foundation, Sound

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• Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Reading, Reflection, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.281, Cambridge University Press

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• There is perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Yield, Doe

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1831). “The Federalist on the New Constitution”, p.35

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