Observing Quotes - Page 11

• The inducements of interest for observing [neutral] conduct . . . has been to endeavour to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption, to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

  George Washington

  Country, Giving, Consistency

  George Washington, Moncure D. Conway, Julius F. Sachse, Washington Irving, Joseph Meredith Toner (2017). “The Complete Works of George Washington: Military Journals, Rules of Civility, Writings on French and Indian War, Presidential Work, Inaugural Addresses, Messages to Congress, Letters & Biography”, p.1297, Madison & Adams

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• If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off. You take home all you've taken in, all that you've overheard, and you turn it into gold. (Or at least you try.)

  Anne Lamott

  Taken, Home, Listening

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.66, Anchor

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• By observing natural scientific discoveries through a perception deepened by meditation, we can develop a new awareness of reality. This awareness could become the bedrock of a spirituality that is not based on the dogmas of a given religion, but on insights into a higher and deeper meaning. I am referring to the ability to recognize, to read, and to understand the firsthand revelations.

  Albert Hofmann

  Reality, Discovery, Meditation

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• Awareness is that state of mind which takes in everything-the crows flying across the sky, the flowers on the trees, the people sitting in front, the colors they are wearing - being extensively aware, which needs watching, observing, taking in the shape of the leaf, the shape of the trunk, the shape of the head of another, what he is doing.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Flower, Color, Sky

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• A multitude of bees can tell the time of day, calculate the geometry of the sun's position, argue about the best location for the next swarm. Bees do a lot of close observing of other bees; maybe they know what follows stinging and do it anyway.

  Lewis Thomas

  Next, Location, Sun

  Lewis Thomas (1984). “Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony”, Bantam

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• I love documentaries, I like observing real people.

  Tracey Ullman

  Real, People, Documentaries

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• When K. looked at the castle, often it seemed to him as if he were observing someone who sat quietly there in front of him gazing, not lost in thought and so oblivious of everything, but free and untroubled, as if he were alone with nobody to observe him, and yet must notice that he was observed, and all the same remained with his calm not even slightly disturbed; and really - one did not know whether it was cause or effect - the gaze of the observer could not remain concentrated there, but slid away.

  Franz Kafka

  Castles, Gazing, Causes

  Franz Kafka, Willa Muir (1974). “The castle”

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• I don't pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you'd imagine. I'm interested in other people's experiences and inconsistencies, and, though I can't explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Wise, People, Use

  Louisa May Alcott (2016). “The 'Little Women' Trilogy (Illustrated)”, p.319, ShandonPress

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• I operate under the assumption that people don't notice the good in me. That's just how things always seem to play out. I get blamed, while con-artist kids like Venus, and Camille, and Gemma get believed. But the rescue lady noticed. In the background, just observing, she noticed.

  Wendelin Van Draanen

  Kids, Artist, Play

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• Observing someone without context amplifies the experience. The more we know, the less we are able to feel.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Amplify, Able, Feels

  Chuck Klosterman (2009). “Eating the Dinosaur”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

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• I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say.

  T. S. Eliot

  Long, Notes, Please

  T.S. Eliot (1950). “The Cocktail Party”

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• The man walked past me and stopped, observing the blood running down my neck. "Your injury. Let us tend to it." He looked out through the open doorway and silently gestured to someone out there. "Our world," he said, "is far more advanced than yours. For reasons you'll understand shortly." A thin, bony, naked woman entered the room, carrying two small, white kittens. She sat one of the fluffy cats in my lap and stuffed the other down my shirt. She turned and left. "There," said the large man. "The kittens will make your sad go away.

  David Wong

  Running, Cat, Past

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• Making reality real is art's responsibility. It is a practical assignment, then, a self-assignment: to achieve, by a cultivated sensitivity for observing life, a capacity for receiving impressions, a lonely, unremitting, unaided, unaidable vision, and transferring this vision without distortion to it onto the pages of a novel, where, if the reader is so persuaded, it will turn into the reader's illusion.

  Eudora Welty

  Lonely, Art, Real

  Eudora Welty (2011). “On Writing”, p.53, Modern Library

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• Writing is not a searching about in the daily experience for apt similes and pretty thoughts and images… It is not a conscious recording of the day’s experiences ‘freshly and with the appearance of reality’… The writer of imagination would find himself released from observing things for the purpose of writing them down later. He would be there to enjoy, to taste, to engage the free world, not a world which he carries like a bag of food, always fearful lest he drop something or someone get more than he.

  William Carlos Williams

  Writing, Reality, Imagination

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• It takes a while to master the art of hammock-lounging. At first I could only manage five minutes or so before I thought I ought to get out and go and help a child learn how to swim or something. But after observing the Mexicans' capability for staring into space for hours on end, I decided to put in some proper practice.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Art, Children, Practice

  "Easy does it" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. January 01, 2005.

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• I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I learned, from observing him, the satisfaction that comes from striving and seeing a dream fulfilled.

  Sigourney Weaver

  Dream, Father, Afterlife

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• Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Life, Race, Ability

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• Numerous US. Government documents exist which indicate that these objects are real and have been involved with observing Earth for several decades.

  Steven M. Greer

  Real, Government, Earth

  Steven M. Greer (1999). “Extraterrestrial Contact: The Evidence and Implications”, Crossing Point Incorporated

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• To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It's commenting or observing or twisting life.

  Steven Wright

  Reality, Comedy

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• The limelight is a tricky place, because you can't believe what's going on around you. You stop observing. You stop perceiving. You stop extending yourself, and you become isolated.

  Vera Farmiga

  Believe, Limelight, Tricky

  "A Film of One's Own". Interview with Lynn Hirschberg, www.nytimes.com. September 3, 2006.

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• I don't think that somebody who is observing or predicting behavior should also be participating in the 'experiment.'

  Nate Silver

  Thinking, Behavior, Should

  "NATE SILVER: As Tempting As It Would Be To 'Drop The Mic' And Leave A Winner, I'll Be Back In 2014 And 2016" by Walter Hickey, www.businessinsider.com. November 14, 2012.

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• My most persistent memory of stand - up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare - enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.

  Steve Martin

  Memories, Loss, Worry

  Steve Martin (2008). “Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• What Artistic and Scientific Experience Have in Common - Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking, and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaninful, then we are engaged in art. Common to both is the loving devotion to that which transcends personal concerns and volition.

  Albert Einstein

  Art, Mind, Wish

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• The Grand Duke [of Tuscany] ...after observing the Medicaean plants several times with me ... has now invited me to attach myself to him with the annual salary of one thousand florins, and with the title of Philosopher and Principal Mathematicial to His Highness; without the duties of office to perform, but with the most complete leisure; so that I can complete my Treatises.

  Galileo Galilei

  Science, Office, Dukes

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• I didn't go to acting school, but I've been observing my fellow man for 66 years now, and I would think that's the best school there is.

  Wilford Brimley

  School, Men, Thinking

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