Observers Quotes - Page 13

• A paradox is a seeming contradiction, always demanding a change on the side of the observer. If we look at almost all things honestly we see everything has a character of paradox to it. Everything, including ourselves.

  Richard Rohr

  Character, Looks, Sides

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• I learned how to direct by being in the trenches of movies. Getting to be a student from the inside looking out, and if you're a respectful observer you can sponge lots of information. That was my film school.

  Lake Bell

  School, Information, Students

  "Lake Bell enjoys juggling titles of actress, director". "Associated Press" Interview, www.azcentral.com. June 9, 2015.

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• The moment I am aware that I am aware, I am not aware. Awareness means the observer is not.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Mean, Moments, Awareness

  Seventh Public Discussion, Saanen, Switzerland, August 10, 1971.

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• The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the future of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments, or the future dangers of the United States, the observer is invariably led to this as a primary fact.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Black, Causes, Facts

  Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Reeve, Francis Bowen, Patrick Renshaw (1998). “Democracy in America”, p.140, Wordsworth Editions

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• A comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the admirable; but life every where furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.

  Henry Fielding

  May, Serious, Ridiculous

  Henry Fielding (1820). “The history of the adventures of Joseph Andrews, and his friend, Mr. Abraham Adams: Written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes ...”, p.3

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• Thinking isn't something you think about. It comes naturally. Thinking involves many things. It involves being an observer. It involves analyzing things, taking in what's around you in the world and finding how to make it inspire your work or turn it into a lesson to teach your children; it's paying attention to details. That's what thinking is: processing.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Children, Thinking, Inspire

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I often told the fanatics of realism that there is no such thing as realism in art: it only exists in the mind of the observer. Art is a symbol, a thing conjuring up reality in our mental image. That is why I don't see any contradiction between abstract and figurative art either.

  Antoni Tapies

  Art, Reality, Mind

  "Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 - 2003" by Antoni Tapies, Kunsthalle Emden, edited by Achim Sommer, Altana, (p. 25), 2004.

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• That's a mistake I think that a lot of Western observers make is to assume that Korean nationalism is hundreds if not thousands of years old. When in fact nationalism is incompatible with Korean Confucian tradition.

  Brian Reynolds Myers

  Mistake, Thinking, Years

  "North Korea racist, not communist, says author". Interview with Mark Colvin, www.abc.net.au. February 17, 2010.

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• Why chase after thoughts, which are superficial ripples of present awareness? Rather look directly into the naked, empty nature of thoughts; then there is no duality, no observer, and nothing observed. Simply rest in this transparent, nondual present awareness. Make yourself at home in the natural state of pure presence, just being, not doing anything in particular.

  Jamgon Kongtrul

  Home, Naked, Looks

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• In general the languages of most unpolished people have a great force and energy of expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner.

  Edmund Burke

  Expression, People, Energy

  Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.188

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• The birth of a new fact is always a wonderful thing to experience. It's dualistically called a "discovery" because of the presumption that it has an existence independent of anyone's awareness of it. When it comes along, it always has, at first, a low value. Then, depending on the value-looseness of the observer and the potential quality of the fact, its value increases, either slowly or rapidly, or the value wanes and the fact disappears.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Independent, Discovery, Quality

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• To those who feel that their values are THE values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," simply because such systems respond to a diversity of values. The more successfully such systems respond to diversity, the more "chaos" there will be, by definition, according to the standards of ANY specific set of values- other than diversity or freedom as values. Looked at another way, the more self-righteous observers there are, the more chaos (and "waste") will be seen.

  Thomas Sowell

  Self, Diversity, Black

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• Few poets have made a more interesting rhetoric out of just fooling around: turning things upside down, looking at them from under the sofa, considering them (and their observer) curiously enough to make the reader protest, "That were to consider it too curiously.

  Randall Jarrell

  Interesting, Upside Down, Poet

  "The Third Book of Criticism". Book by Randall Jarrell, "The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens" (p. 64), 1969.

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• The great events of history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists .

  John Maynard Keynes

  Atheist, Character, Escaping

  John Maynard Keynes (2016). “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”, p.15, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Precise, graceful, and generous, the poems in SuperLoop, seem to be born out of a deep, careful attention and a profound compassion. Sometimes the quiet observer, sometimes the kid in the center of the messed-up carnival, these poems are the fireflies you’ve missed all winter, the longed-for return of the bees. Unaffected and inherently hopeful, Callihan’s work is as merciful as it is moving.

  Ada Limon

  Moving, Kids, Firefly

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• In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Moving, Car, Gone

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

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• Hamlet is egotism as it appears to itself, and Don Quixote is egotism as it appears to the detached observer.

  Hugh Kingsmill

  Egotism, Detached

  Hugh Kingsmill (1949). “The progress of a biographer”

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• The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Historical, Doubt, Events

  Letter to J. Kunamoto, 1972.

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• Art begins when an observer's sensibilities engage with the understatements of a calculating craftsman.

  Sara Genn

  Art, Craftsman, Understatement

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• Some authors state that the last stage in this chain of measurements involves "consciousness," or the "intellectual inner life" of the observer, by virtue of the "principle of psycho-physical parallelism." Other authors introduce a wave function for the entire universe. In this book, I shall refrain from using concepts that I do not understand.

  Asher Peres

  Book, Intellectual, Lasts

  "Quantum theory: concepts and methods" by Asher Peres, Springer, (p. 26-27), 1995.

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• The philosophical anthropologist ... can know the wholeness of the person and through it the wholeness of man only when he does not leave his subjectivity out and does not remain an untouched observer.

  Martin Buber

  Philosophical, Men, Doe

  Martin Buber (2003). “Between Man and Man”, p.148, Routledge

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• Our initial sensory data are always "first derivatives," statements about differences which exist among external objects or statements about changes which occur either in them or in our relationship to them. Objects and circumstances which remain absolutely constant relative to the observer, unchanged either by his own movement or by external events, are in general difficult and perhaps always impossible to perceive. What we perceive easily is difference and change and difference is a relationship.

  Gregory Bateson

  Data, Differences, Events

  Jurgen Ruesch, Gregory Bateson (2006). “Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry”, p.173, Transaction Publishers

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• The general misunderstanding of a work of art is often due to the fact that the key to its spiritual content and technical means is missed. Unless the observer is trained to a certain degree in the artistic idiom, he is apt to search for things which have little to do with the aesthetic content of a picture. He is likely to look for pure representational values when the emphasis is really upon music-like relationships.

  Hans Hofmann

  Spiritual, Art, Mean

  "Search for the Real: And Other Essays". Book by Hans Hofmann. "Painting and Culture", p. 56, 1948.

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• We have preachers and savants who dilate endlessly on the sanctity of family and childhood but who tolerate a system in which a casual observer can correlate a child's social origin with its physical well-being.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Childhood, Social

  Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.117, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Be an observer of providence; for God is showing you ever, by the way in which He leads you, whither He means to lead. Study your trials, your talents, the world's wants, and stand ready to serve God now, in whatever He brings to your hand.

  Horace Bushnell

  God, Mean, Hands

  Horace Bushnell (1858). “Sermons for the new life”, p.22

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