Quotes about Perception

When I read the book, the biography famous, And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? (As if any man really knew aught my life, Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here.)

If you see a good deal remarkable in me I see just as much remarkable in you. Why what have you thought of yourself? Is it you then that thought yourself less?

Only if we completely acknowledge that what man requires today is God's life: the quickening of the spirit: will we then perceive how vain is any work performed by ourselves.

To Know the Dark To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

You don't need to be told some things. You can sometimes tell more by a man's silence and the set of his head than by what he says.

The language that reveals also obscures.

They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself. What they didn't see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest.

All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be. And in the eyes of the powers that be all these invisible places do not add up to a visible place. They add up to words and numbers.

He wasn't much of a listener, not a great payer of attention to things outside his head.

You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it.

People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.

Most people enter a library and don't hear a thing. Eerie silence. I stand between the shelves and hear ten thousand conversations occurring all at once. Each ushering an invitation. The noise is raucous.