Observation Quotes - Page 37

• I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.

  A. E. Housman

  Philosophy, Historical, Personal History

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• As an engineer, I understood that the natural world operated according to fixed laws. Through my studies, I came to realize that there were, likewise, laws that govern human wellbeing. It seemed to me that these laws are fundamental not only to the wellbeing of societies, but also to the miniature societies of organizations. Indeed, that is what we found when we began to apply these principles systematically at Koch Industries. Through our observation of how they could create prosperity in an organization, I began to systematize my beliefs into Market-Based Management.

  Charles Koch

  Law, Organization, Principles

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• Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Chinese, World

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• Frederick Turner comes across in his poems as a man of impressively broad experience, intellectual brilliance, and originality. … He’s at his best when he unleashes his extraordinary powers of observation.

  Richard Tillinghast

  Men, Intellectual, Originality

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• Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.

  Edward Snowden

  Mean, Nsa

  "NSA spying is causing Americans to self-censor their Internet activity" by Gregory Ferenstein, venturebeat.com. May 8, 2014.

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• The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh. The effect that they make in space is as bound up with them as might be their colour or smell ... Therefore the painter must be as concerned with the air surrounding his subject as with the subject itself. It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out.

  Lucian Freud

  Air, Smell, Space

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• We [Panthers] have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppresed people in the society.

  Huey Newton

  Real, Reading, People

  "Read Black Panther Co-Founder Huey Newton’s 1970 Speech About Gay Rights" by Peter Knegt, www.indiewire.com. May 18, 2012.

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• There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation.

  Karl Popper

  Theory, Pure, Disinterested

  Karl Popper, M.A. Notturno (2014). “The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality”, p.8, Routledge

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• Certain periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation point where a clear light falls upon a world previously dark.

  Anne Sullivan Macy

  Fall, Dark, Light

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• See what a hidden life the life of a good Christian is, and how much it is concealed from the eye and observation of the world. The most important part of the business lies between God and our own souls, in the frame of our spirits and the working of our hearts, in our actions that no eye sees except the all-seeing God. Justly are the saints called God's hidden ones, and His secret is said to be with them. They have meat to eat and work to do that the world does not know of, as well as joys, griefs, and cares that a stranger does not share.

  Matthew Henry

  Christian, Lying, Grief

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• At the last dim horizon, we search among ghostly errors of observations for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. The urge is older than history. It is not satisfied and it will not be oppressed.

  Edwin Powell Hubble

  Errors, Horizon, Lasts

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• For it may safely be said, not that the habit of ready and correct observation will by itself make us useful nurses, but that without it we shall be useless with all our devotion.

  Florence Nightingale

  Nurse, Useless, May

  Florence Nightingale (1860). “Notes on Nursing: What it Is, and what it is Not”, p.160

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• We know nothing of the principle of health, the positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience. Nothing but observation and experience will teach us the ways to maintain or to bring back the state of health. It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs.

  Florence Nightingale

  Nursing, Medicine, Way

  "Florence Nightingale on Public Health Care: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale".

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• In nonviolent communication, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with empathy, allowing others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn our attention to solutions or requests for relief.

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Communication, Opportunity, Empathy

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• A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.

  George Berkeley

  Mind, Liberty, World

  George Berkeley, Alexander Campbell Fraser (1732). “The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., Formerly Bishop of Cloyne: Philosophical works, 1732-33: Alciphron. The theory of vision”, p.32

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• How did I come to be an artist ? Endless curiosity, observation, research - and a great amount of joy in the thing

  George Grosz

  Artist, Joy, Curiosity

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• The most important thing for me is the direct observation of nature in its light-filled existence.

  August Macke

  Light, Important, Existence

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• The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

  Henri Matisse

  Spring, Artist, Lightning

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• Art is a creation of a higher order than a copy of nature which is governed by chance.... By the elimination of all muddy colors, by the exclusive use of optical mixture of pure colors, by a methodical divisionism and a strict observation of the scientific theory of colors, the neo-impressionists insures a maximum of luminosity, of color intensity, and of harmony- a result that has never yet been obtained.

  Paul Signac

  Art, Order, Color

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• Direct observation of the luminous essence of nature is for me indispensable

  Robert Delaunay

  Essence, Indispensable, Luminous

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• It has been observed that a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant will see farther than the giant himself; and the moderns, standing as they do on the vantage ground of former discoveries and uniting all the fruits of the experience of their forefathers, with their own actual observation, may be admitted to enjoy a more enlarged and comprehensive view of things than the ancients themselves.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Knowledge, Dwarves, Discovery

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.203

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• The bearings of this observation lays in the application of it.

  Charles Dickens

  Statistics, Application, Lays

  'Dombey and Son' (1848) ch. 23 (Bunsby)

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• A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: it must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

  Stephen Hawking

  Class, Two, Arbitrary

  "A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes". Book by Stephen Hawking, 1988.

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• The manner in which things exist and take place, constitutes what is called the nature of things; and a careful observation of the nature of things is the sole foundation of all truth.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Nature, Truth, Foundation

  Jean Baptiste Say (1827). “A treatise on political economy: or, The production, distribution and consumption of wealth”, p.21

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• The training is a set of interpersonal interactions that lead to emotional and intellectual experiences that provide a circumstance and an intrument for self awareness, self observation and reflection on the circumstances of the subject trainee, both in his individual life and as a social being.

  Humberto Maturana

  Life, Emotional, Reflection

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