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Observation Quotes

Browse 1489 quotes about Observation.

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Observation Quotes

“How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to express, which yet infuse so much pleasure into life. A lovely child, a handsome youth, a beautiful girl, a heroic man, a maternal woman, a venerable old man, charm us, though strangers, and we cannot say so, or look at them but for a moment.”

MenLooksChildrenMomentsBeautifulGirlPleasureStreetsYouthEthicsFemaleFellowsMalesStrangerAttractionLovelyPassingPassingsObservationCharmOld ManHeroicHandsomeBeautiful Girl
Book:A Year with Emerson: A Daybook
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“The qualities that made for success in a fighter-pilot seemed to be just those sturdy qualities that made for success in other professions; observation, initiative, determination, courage, including the courage to run away. In course of time it appeared that men who had a private axe to grind beyond the public axe of the King's enemies were especially successful.”

MenMadeRunningCoursesQualityEnemySuccessfulKingsDeterminationIncludingProfessionObservationFighterRunning AwayPilotsInitiativeGrindSturdyFighter Pilot
Book:The Sky Suspended: A Fighter Pilot's Story
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“Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.”

MenWorldYearsWellsMayPersonsHas BeensRealityLanguageImaginationAnimalTalkingKnownTeacherWonderfulShareOrdinaryMereInsightObservationLengthOccupationWell KnownFoeHeirsThere Comes A TimeParrotsOrdinary Person
Book:Joseph Conrad: The Complete Novels [Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, etc.] (Book House)
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“I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing -- it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.”

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Author:Mary Wortley Montagu
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“Looking out of my window this lovely spring morning I see an azalea in full bloom. No, no! I do not see that; though that is the only way I can describe what I see. That is a proposition, a sentence, a fact; but what I perceive is not proposition, sentence, fact, but only an image which I make intelligible in part by means of a statement of fact. This statement is abstract; but what I see is concrete.”

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Author:Charles Sanders Peirce
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“The stumbling way in which even the ablest of the scientists in every generation have had to fight through thickets of erroneous observations, misleading generalizations, inadequate formulation, and unconscious prejudice is rarely appreciated by those who obtain their scientific knowledge from textbooks.”

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Author:James Bryant Conant
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“When we enter the landscape to learn something, we are obligated, I think, to pay attention rather than constantly to pose questions. To approach the land as we would a person, by opening an intelligent conversation. And to stay in one place, to make of that one, long observation a fully dilated experience. We will always be rewarded if we give the land credit for more than we imagine, and if we imagine it as being more complex even than language. In these ways we begin, I think, to find a home, to sense how to fit a place.”

IfsThinkingWayGivingPersonsLongHomeLanguageNaturePayAttentionImagineLandFitConversationApproachIntelligentComplexesCreditOpeningObservationLandscapePay AttentionIntelligent Conversation
Author:Barry Lopez
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“The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may optionally apply to my own life, depends, in addition to the sense that it is argumentatively defensible, on the sense that someone like me, and someone I like, whose voice is audible and who is at least notionally in the same room with me, does or can possibly hold it to be compellingly true.”

MayDoeForceVoiceMy OwnRoomsDependsStatementsLike MeObservationSympathyMy Own LifeImpartHordeProminence
Book:U and I: A True Story
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“The incomprehensibleness of women is an old theory, but what is that to the curious wondering observation with which wives, mothers, and sisters watch the other unreasoning animal in those moments when he has snatched the reins out of their hands, and is not to be spoken to! . It is best to let him come to, and feel his own helplessness.”

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Author:Margaret Oliphant
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“We are told that the first part of the process is to select the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants, which is not at all unlikely, but I cannot speak to the fact from my own observation.”

FirstsFactsSpeakProcessMy OwnPlantSeedsObservationSmallestUnlikelySelect
Book:Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China: Including a Visit to the Tea, Silk, and Cotton Countries; with an Account of the Agriculture and Horticulture of the Chinese, New Plants, Etc
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“For the Members of the Assembly having before their eyes so many fatal Instances of the errors and falshoods, in which the greatest part of mankind has so long wandred, because they rely'd upon the strength of humane Reason alone, have begun anew to correct all Hypotheses by sense, as Seamen do their dead Reckonings by Cœlestial Observations; and to this purpose it has been their principal indeavour to enlarge and strengthen the Senses by Medicine, and by such outward Instruments as are proper for their particular works.”

LongHas BeensReasonEyeSciencePurposeMankindParticularMembersInstrumentsMedicineErrorsSensesInstanceObservationRelyPrincipalHypothesisHumaneAssemblyReckoningSeamen
Author:Robert Hooke
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“Science is not, as so many seem to think, something apart, which has to do with telescopes, retorts, and test-tubes, and especially with nasty smells, but it is a way of searching out by observation, trial and classification; whether the phenomena investigated be the outcome of human activities, or of the more direct workings of nature's laws. Its methods admit of nothing untidy or slip-shod; its keynote is accuracy and its goal is truth.”

ThinkingWayHumansSeemsLawScienceGoalActivityDirectTestsMethodSmellTrialsObservationOutcomesSlipsNastyAccuracyTubesTelescopesScientific MethodHuman ActivityClassificationRetorts
Author:Archibald Garrod
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“Observation and theory get on best when they are mixed together, both helping one another in the pursuit of truth. It is a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in a theory until it has been confirmed by observation. I hope I shall not shock the experimental physicists too much if I add that it is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they have been confirmed by theory.”

IfsHas BeensHelpingTogetherScienceResultsToo MuchTheoryAddPursuitObservationShockPhysicist
Author:Arthur Eddington
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