Quotes about Perception

I think that when people hear the president [George W. Bush] speak, frankly, they think he's really stupid. But what people don't realize is that there's a genius behind that stupidity, and that genius is Harlan McCraney.

Shame is an ornament to the young; a disgrace to the old.

Time is not composed of indivisible nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles.

Generally, about all perception, we can say that a sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet ring without the iron or gold.

To those who cite the disreputable sorts of pleasure one may fairly reply that these are not really pleasant. For we ought not, because they are pleasant to the wrongly disposed, to think they are generally pleasant, or to any but these; just as things that are wholesome or sweet or bitter to the sick, are not so to all, and as things are not really white that seem so to those suffering from opthalmia.

But tangible differ from visible and sonorous impressions, in that the latter are perceived by the medium acting in some way upon us, while the former are perceived, not by, but together with, the medium, like a man who is struck through his shield--for it is not the shield which, having been struck, strikes him, but the shield and he are simultaneously struck together.

The soul never thinks without a picture.

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.

Almost anything can be funny if said the right way - but it has to be said the right way.