Observation Quotes - Page 18

• Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Flower, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.19, 谷月社

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• Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks the wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Science, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.57, Penguin

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• The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation,--a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God,--he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Nature, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.71, Harvard University Press

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• In all common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view what is out duty, what is the honest part. This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is often the best. In these cases, doubt and deliberation is itself dishonesty; as it was in Balaam upon the second message.

  Joseph Butler

  Views, Doubt, Firsts

  Joseph Butler (1839). “The Whole Works of Joseph Butler ...”

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• I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.

  Harriet Ann Jacobs

  Daughter, Father, Son

  Harriet Ann Jacobs (1861). “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, p.81

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• In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, and even then he was little molested until his copy was turned in at the desk; today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire, and the reduction of his observations to prose is commonly farmed out to literary castrati who never leave the office, and hence never feel the wind of the world in their faces or see anything with their own eyes.

  H. L. Mencken

  Eye, Wind, Office

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• At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Country, Class, Grace

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• Nothing is so capable of diminishing self-love as the observation that we disapprove at one time what we approve at another.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Self, One Time, Capable

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• For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.

  Arthur Eddington

  Truth, Learning, Appeals

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Philosophy of Physical Science: Tarner Lectures (1938)”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

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• The human condition can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all experiences are of the past, all decisions are about the future. It is the great task of human knowledge to bridge this gap and to find those patterns in the past which can be projected into the future as realistic images.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Past, Bridges, Decision

  Foreword of "The image of the future" by Fred Polak, (p. V), 1972.

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• I don't feel myself that I Know it all, but I have enough conceit to be successful. That observation was made by a businessman in his 30s who was making notable headway, although his path bristled with difficulties. Business places no premiums on shrinking violets. Employers prefer men who have self-assurance, forcefulness, go-aheadness, men who know their jobs and know that they know it.

  B. C. Forbes

  Jobs, Pride, Successful

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• It is a curious truth - and yet a truth forced upon us by daily observation - that it is not the women who have suffered most who are the unhappy women. A state of permanent unhappiness - not the morbid, half-cherished melancholy of youth, which generally wears off with wiser years, but that settled, incurable discontent and dissatisfaction with all things and all people, which we see in some women, is, with very rare exceptions, at once the index and the exponent of a thoroughly selfish character.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Selfish, Character, Years

  "A Woman's Thoughts About Women" by Dinah Maria Murlock Craik, (Ch. 10), 1858.

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• To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.

  A.J. Ayer

  Numbers, Finite Number, May

  "Language, Truth, and Logic" by A.J. Ayer, (p. 20), 1936.

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• Those who, either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reach, have from that time not only ceased to advance, and improve in their performances, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal, till they are reduced to beggary, and left without resources.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Men, Vanity, Gone

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• There are few defects in our nature so glaring as not to be veiled from observation by politeness and good-breeding.

  Stanisław I Leszczyński

  Breeding, Politeness, Defects

  François duc de La Rochefoucauld, Stanisław I Leszczyński (King of Poland) (1851). “Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims of Francis, Duc de la Rochefoucauld”, p.179

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• Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and observations and fruitful of further experiments and observations.

  James Bryant Conant

  Science, Degrees, Problem

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• Invention despoils observations, insinuation invalidates memory. A stewpot of bad habits, all of it - so that imaginative writers wind up, by and large, a shifty crew, sunk in distortion, misrepresentation, illusion, imposture, fakery.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Memories, Wind, Illusion

  Cynthia Ozick (1996). “Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character: And Other Essays on Writing”

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• By means of personal experimentation and observation, we can discover certain simple and universal truths. The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically then, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but also the body. What we actually do builds up to affect the subconscious mind and in turn affects the conscious mind and all reactions.

  H. E Davey

  Moving, Yoga, Mean

  "Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation". Book by H. E. Davey, 2001.

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• My observation of the Universe convinces me that there are beings of intelligence and power of a far higher quality than anything we can conceive of as human; that they are not necessarily based on the cerebral and nervous structures that we know, and that the one and only chance for mankind to advance as a whole is for individuals to make contact with such beings.

  Aleister Crowley

  Quality, Chance, Nervous

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• I have no idea why, and this is others' observations of me - I tend to be in the realm of these very complicated personalities. I guess I enjoy corralling that.

  Susan Downey

  Ideas, Personality, Complicated

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Let observation with extended observation observe extensively.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Travel

  "Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir By His Son, Volume II". Book by Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson (p. 73), 1897.

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• The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled "a contemplative man's recreation," introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist's observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Good Luck, Men, Fishing

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.459, Simon and Schuster

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• It is not a question of observation which propels mankind forward as if toward a looking glass of great magnitude; it is an instance of aggrandized reflection that insinuates the human psyche to the inhuman.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Reflection, Glasses, Mankind

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• Observe, and in that observation there is neither the "observer" nor the "observed" - there is only observation taking place.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Observers

  Fifth Public Talk Saanen, July 26, 1970.

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• Once you know that every moment and every person and every situation has something to teach you, you're a student all day. You know it's the depth of your observation that is the issue - not how much the world has to show you.

  Marianne Williamson

  Issues, Depth, World

  Source: www.douglasgillies.com

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