33 Quotes On Observations

In a world that’s constantly evolving and shifting, the power of observation allows us to pause, reflect, and gain deeper insights into the everyday intricacies of life. Observations are our gateways to understanding human nature, the environment around us, and the subtle nuances that define our experiences. These moments of noticing reveal truths, ignite creativity, and prompt introspection. We’ve gathered a collection of 33 thought-provoking quotes on observations that capture perspectives from diverse minds and time periods. Whether you're seeking inspiration or a fresh lens through which to view the world, these quotes will enrich your perspective, inviting you to see more than what meets the eye.

1. “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” - T.S. Eliot

2. “A man may take to drink because he feels himself a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks.” - George Orwell

3. “A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world."[Speech upon being awarded the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade), Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]” - Susan Sontag

4. “To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.” - Paul Valery

5. “It's funny how, in this journey of life, even though we may begin at different times and places, our paths cross with others so that we may share our love, compassion, observations, and hope. This is a design of God that I appreciate and cherish.” - Steve Maraboli

6. “Even when the east excited me most, even when I was keenly aware of its superiority to the broad, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which only spared children and the very old-even then it had always for me a quality of distortion. ” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

7. “Funny how nobody talks on the tubes, isn't it? I rarely catch the tube myself, or lifts. Confined spaces, everybody shuts down. Why is that? Perhaps we think everybody on the tube is a potential psychopath or a drunk,so we close down and pretend to read a book or something.” - John Hannah

8. “There is no such thing as magic, supernatural, miracle; only something that's still beyond logic of the observer.” - Toba Beta

9. “However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?” - Honoré de Balzac

10. “You can't do clear observation if you ain't in the field.You can't be a pure observer if you're now in the field.” - Toba Beta

11. “I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world.” - Haruki Murakami

12. “A public outcry usually masks a private obsession.” - Eric Schlosser

13. “We do not need to attend classroom training programmes for everything. Observation opens the windows of knowledge around us” - Sukant Ratnakar

14. “Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up? Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn't notice.” - Julie Andrews Edwards

15. “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

16. “I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled 'complex,' that's just a roundabout way of saying you're not observant enough to understand it.” - A. Lee Martinez

17. “Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm? Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.” - David Markson

18. “Adults tend to repress their pleasure. Sad to say, I think we become adults only through disappointment, grief, and lies. So of course gradually we become tough, less sensitive.” - Jean-Louis Gassee

19. “If you want to really know something you have to observe or experience it in person; if you claim to know something on the basis of hearsay, or on happening to see it in a book, you'll be a laughingstock to those who really know.” - Jonathan D. Spence

20. “It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.” - Agatha Christie

21. “There seem to be two main types of people in the world, crosswords and sudokus.” - Rebecca McKinsey

22. “You have no tail!" said Brightspot. her own whipped suddenly forward; she stared, first at it, then at Wilson."How do you manage?” - Janet Kagan

23. “The whole concatenation of wild and artificial things, the natural ecosystem as modified by people over the centuries, the build environment layered over layers, the eerie mix of sounds and smells and glimpses neither natural nor crafted- all of it is free for the taking, for the taking in. Take it, take it in, take in more every weekend, every day, and quickly it becomes the theater that intrigues, relaxes, fascinates, seduces, and above all expands any mind focused on it. Outside lies utterly ordinary space open to any casual explorer willing to find the extraordinary. Outside lies unprogrammed awareness that at times becomes directed serendipity. Outside lies magic.” - John Stilgoe

24. “He never reckoned much to schooling and that. He said you could learn most what was worth knowing from keeping your eyes and ears peeled. Best way of learning, he always said, was doing.” - Michael Morpurgo

25. “And he wondered, suddenly, what sort of divide it created between them, that he knew pieces of her that she had never shared with him - facts and stories and moments and memories to which she had no idea he was privy. He had collected them for so long, denying to himself that this acquisition was anything more than casual amusement, when in fact it was zealous, and jelaous besides; diwowning as accidental the fact that he never forgot a single remark she made, or that others made about her, and that he approved of these other people, or disdained them, according to their treatment of her. Such a lopsided intimacy existed between him and her. Inevitably, it created a chasm whose depth neither of them could know until they tried to chart it. Would this chasm prove impossible to bridge?” - Meredith Duran

26. “It has been said that man at ten is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal.” - Okakura Kakuzo 1862-1913

27. “It's only because I've lived with brothers that I realize, after a moment, that he's not looking outside but rather inside, wrestling with something inside himself. And there's nothing for it but to wait.” - Maggie Stiefvater

28. “Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.” - Gustave Courbet

29. “Thus, by science I mean, first of all, a worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and a methodology aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of the natural and social world. This methodology is characterized, above all else, by the critical spirit: namely, the commitment to the incessant testing of assertions through observations and/or experiments — the more stringent the tests, the better — and to revising or discarding those theories that fail the test. One corollary of the critical spirit is fallibilism: namely, the understanding that all our empirical knowledge is tentative, incomplete and open to revision in the light of new evidence or cogent new arguments (though, of course, the most well-established aspects of scientific knowledge are unlikely to be discarded entirely).. . . I stress that my use of the term 'science' is not limited to the natural sciences, but includes investigations aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of factual matters relating to any aspect of the world by using rational empirical methods analogous to those employed in the natural sciences. (Please note the limitation to questions of fact. I intentionally exclude from my purview questions of ethics, aesthetics, ultimate purpose, and so forth.) Thus, 'science' (as I use the term) is routinely practiced not only by physicists, chemists and biologists, but also by historians, detectives, plumbers and indeed all human beings in (some aspects of) our daily lives. (Of course, the fact that we all practice science from time to time does not mean that we all practice it equally well, or that we practice it equally well in all areas of our lives.)” - Alan Sokal

30. “Generally, there is a lot of truth value in stepping back, observing, then logically generalizing the extremes of what you see.” - Criss Jami

31. “G. I. Gurdieff, "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson"So-and-so-and-so-must-be; do-not-do-what-must-not-be. Mullah's favorite saying. p. 598” - Gurdieff

32. “[David] Maraniss sees [Barack] Obama as a man with "a moviegoer's or writer's sensibility, where he is both participating and observing himself participating, and views much of the political process as ridiculous or surreal, even as he is deep into it.” - Jane Mayer

33. “I always notice flowers.” - Andy Warhol