Observation Quotes - Page 11

• You can learn a lot from children because they see things new every day. That's the beauty of what you want to achieve as an artist - seeing things in a different way. Kids are constantly saying things that are funny and surprising and their observations are just... you know, they're like little artists themselves.

  Tim Burton

  Children, Kids, Artist

  "Alice in Wonderland - Tim Burton interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Start small, make a promise and keep it. Then, make larger promises and keep them. Eventually, your honor will become greater than your moods or your circumstances, which includes your medical condition and other people's stereotypic observations. Once you overcome this comparison based mentality, your confidence will soar.

  Stephen Covey

  People, Honor, Promise

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• The observations that have developed over the years have given us perspective about where we fit in. We are newcomers, really recent arrivals on a planet that is four and a half billion years old.

  Sylvia Earle

  Years, Perspective, Half

  "Big Thinkers on Evolution". "NOVA" Interview, www.pbs.org. October 6, 2009.

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• the Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts both the space of time and the seasons which they delimit. It was observation of the course of the stars which led them to adopt this divisionIt is also the Egyptians who first bought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them

  Herodotus

  Stars, Years, Names

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• The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation you can make of it what you will

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Paper, Canvas, Empty

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• Jeff Selingo is one of the most respected observers of American higher education...Not all will agree with his observations, conclusions, predictions and recommendations, but all will gain from this thoughtful, well-written, provocative volume. I highly recommend it.

  David J. Skorton

  Thoughtful, Gains, Provocative

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• There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of much observation: these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the insinuatingly soft; and friendship with the glib-tongued: these are injurious.

  Confucius

  Friendship, Men, Air

  Confucius (2013). “Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean”, p.311, Courier Corporation

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• children are made of eyes and ears, and nothing, however minute, escapes their microscopic observation.

  Fanny Kemble

  Children, Eye, Ears

  Fanny Kemble (1863). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.22

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• It is a true observation of ancient writers, that as men are apt to be cast down by adversity, so they, are easily satiated with prosperity, and that joy and grief produce the same effects. For whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight they fight from ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Powerful, Grief, Ambition

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• Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.

  Willa Cather

  Art, Spring, Writing

  Willa Cather (1990). “Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters”, p.47, U of Nebraska Press

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• Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Opportunity, Presence Of Mind, Talent

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• The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Women, Reading, Book

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• Conversation is interesting in proportion to the originality of the central ideas which serve as pivots and the fitness of the little facts and observations which are contributed by the talkers.

  Philip Gilbert Hamerton

  Ideas, Interesting, Littles

  Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1873). “The Intellectual Life: With a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, etched by Leopold Flameng”, p.262

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• The refining influence is the study of art, which is the science of beauty; and I find that every man values every scrap of knowledge in art, every observation of his own in it, every hint he has caught from another. For the laws of beauty are the beauty of beauty, and give the mind the same or a higher joy than the sight of it gives the senses. The study of art is of high value to the growth of the intellect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Sight

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• A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

  Honore de Balzac

  Nature, Flower, Toads

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• There are at bottom but two possible religions--that which rises in the moral nature of man, and which takes shape in moral commandments, and that which grows out of the observation of the material energies which operate in the external universe.

  James Anthony Froude

  Men, Two, Religion

  James Anthony Froude (1872). “Short Studies on Great Subjects”, p.24

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• I was lying in bed this morning and saying to myself, 'the remarkable thing about Ethel is her stupendous self-satisfaction' when in came your letter to confirm this profound psychological observation. How delighted I was!

  Virginia Woolf

  Morning, Lying, Self

  Virginia Woolf (1975). “The Letters of Virginia Woolf: 1932-1935”

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• Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts.

  Washington Irving

  Reflection, Thinking, Style

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• Criticism is not construction, it is observation.

  George William Curtis

  Criticism, Construction

  George William Curtis (1858). “The Potiphar Papers”, p.13

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• It is a trite but true Observation, that Examples work more forcibly on the Mind than Precepts: and if this be just in what is odious and blameable, it is more strongly so in what is amiable and praiseworthy.

  Henry Fielding

  Book, Mind, Example

  Henry Fielding (1821). ““The” Novels Of Henry Fielding, Esq. Viz. 1. Joseph Andrews, 2. Tom Jones, 3. Amelia, And 4. Jonathan Wild ... To Ahich Is Prefixed A Memoir Of The Life Of The Author”, p.6

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• Let observation with observant view,
  Observe mankind from China to Peru.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Travel, Views, Peru

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• A maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely speculative; a "principle" carries knowledge within itself, and is prospective.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Principles, Matter, Facts

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• Should you happen to notice that another person is extremely tall or overweight, eats too much or declines convivial drinks, has red hair or goes about in a wheelchair, ought to get married or ought not to be pregnant -- see if you can refrain from bringing these astonishing observations to that person's attention.

  Judith Martin

  Hair, Attention, Red

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• It was wisely said, by a man of great observation, that there are as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them.

  Izaak Walton

  Men, Riches, Sides

  Izaak Walton (2013). “The Complete Angler”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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• Sin is a basilisk whose eyes are full of venom. If the eye of thy soul see her first, it reflects her own poison and kills her; if she see thy soul, unseen, or seen too late, with her poison, she kills thee: since therefore thou canst not escape thy sin, let not thy sin escape thy observation.

  Francis Quarles

  Eye, Soul, Firsts

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