“Two men looked out from prison bars,One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”
“Two men look out through the same bars. One sees the mud and the other the stars.”
“Two men look at the same bars: One sees mud and one sees the stars.”
“Two people look out through the same window - one sees the mud, the other sees the stars.”
“If one who looked from a tower for a new star, watching for years the same part of the sky, suddenly saw it (quite by chance while thinking of other things), and knew it for the star for which he had hoped, how many millions of men would never care?”
“What do we see by [our enlightened age] which our ancestors saw not, and which at the same time is worth seeing? We see a hundred men hanged, where they saw one. We see five hundred transported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the workhouse, where they saw one. . . . We see children perishing in manufactories, where they saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, where they saw castles. We see masters, where they saw representatives. In short, they saw true men, where we see false knaves. They saw Milton, and we see Mr. Sackbut.”