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Perception Quotes

Browse 3279 quotes about Perception.

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Perception Quotes

“It is the business of thought to define things, to find the boundaries; thought, indeed, is a ceaseless process of definition. It is the business of Art to give things shape. Anyone who takes no delight in the firm outline of an object, or in its essential character, has no artistic sense. He cannot even be nourished by Art. Like Ephraim, he feeds upon the East wind, which has no boundaries.”

GivingArtCharacterProcessObjectsWindShapesEssentialsPerceptionDefinitionsDelightEastBoundariesArtisticFirmOutlinesNo Boundaries
Author:Vance Palmer
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“Nature, the sun itself, produces color effects... instantaneously. The impression of these evanescent visions is what we make desperate attempts to catch and fix by any means at hand. At such moments I am unconscious of materials, of style, of rules, of everything that intervenes between my perception and the object or idea perceived.”

MeanIdeasMomentsHandsVisionSunEffectsStyleObjectsProduceColorMaterialsPerceptionImpressionDesperateUnconscious
Author:Joaquin Sorolla
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“As you are aware, no perceptions obtained by the senses are merely sensations impressed on our nervous systems. A peculiar intellectual activity is required to pass from a nervous sensation to the conception of an external object, which the sensation has aroused. The sensations of our nerves of sense are mere symbols indicating certain external objects, and it is usually only after considerable practice that we acquire the power of drawing correct conclusions from our sensations respecting the corresponding objects.”

CertainPracticeObjectsActivityPerceptionIntellectualMereDrawingSensesConclusionNervousSymbolsAcquireSensationsNervesConceptionPeculiarImpressedNervous SystemCorresponding
Author:Hermann von Helmholtz
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“The whole story of the universe is implicit in any part of it. The meditative eye can look through any single object and see, as through a window, the entire cosmos. Make the smell of roast duck in an old kitchen diaphanous and you will have a glimpse of everything, from the spiral nebulae to Mozart's music and the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. The artistic problem is to produce diaphanousness in spots, selecting the spots so as to reveal only the most humanly significant of distant vistas behind the near familiar object.”

LooksArtWholeStoriesProblemEyeArtistUniverseBehindsObjectsProducePerceptionWindowSmellSignificantFamiliarSpotsArtisticKitchenCosmosDucksGlimpseSpiralsImplicitVistasSt Francis Of Assisi
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed.”

PastObjectsPerceptionMirrorsOriginalsAffectionFaithfulColourDullComparisonCopiesSentimentsOur ThoughtsOur Past
Book:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature
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“Men are not philosophers, but are rather very foolish children, who, by reason of their partiality, see everything in the most absurd manner, and are the victims at all times of the nearest object. There is even no philosopher who is a philosopher at all times. Our experience, our perception is conditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession, that is, with every truth a certain falsehood.”

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Book:The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“For many ages it has been allowed by sensible men, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu: That is, There is nothing in the understanding which was not first perceived by some of the senses. All the knowledge which we naturally have is originally derived from our senses. And therefore those who want any sense cannot have the least knowledge or idea of the objects of that sense; as they that never had sight have not the least knowledge or conception of light or colours.”

MenWantFirstsHas BeensIdeasLightAgeUnderstandingObjectsPerceptionSightSensesColourConceptionSensiblePrius
Book:The Works of the Late Reverend John Wesley, A.M.: From the Latest London Edition with the Last Corrections of the Author, Comprehending Also Numerous Translations, Notes, and an Original Preface, Etc
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“No waving of enchanted wands but heightened perception. No magic objects, but a transformed and enhanced reality. No spells or chants, but the raw power of the human will to enact supernatural change upon the universal fabric. This is the kind of "magic" that fills Lords of Rainbow - elemental, organic, humanistic - an extension of reality.”

HumansKindRealityLordMagicObjectsPerceptionUniversalSpellsTransformedRainbowFabricExtensionsEnchantedWandsElementalsHumanisticHuman Will
Author:Vera Nazarian
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“The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception... If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, One poet would be enough... But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.”

PeopleIfsWorldNeedsEnoughWholeWould BeDiesMillionsObjectsPoetGoes OnPerceptionAbsolutesCuriosityContraryLife And DeathNew ThingsNot AloneOld ThingsUnisonPerception Of Others
Author:Wallace Stevens
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“Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.”

MindStillsSoulPoorVisionObjectsChangedPerceptionDistanceSpreadObscureAlasVastnessUnattainableLanguish
Book:The Sorrows of Young Werther (English German Edition, illustrated): Die Leiden des jungen Werther (Englisch Deutsch Ausgabe illustriert)
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“To unfold the secret laws and relations of those high faculties of thought by which all beyond the merely perceptive knowledge of the world and of ourselves is attained or matured, is a object which does not stand in need of commendation to a rational mind.”

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Book:An Investigation of the Laws of Thought: On which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities
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“I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain in relief; they assumed unusual dimensions; and colors became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed. When the eyes were closed, colored pictures flashed past in a quickly changing kaleidoscope. After a few hours, the not unpleasant inebriation, which had been experienced whilst I was fully conscious, disappeared. What had caused this condition?”

WorldSelfDreamEyePastHoursConditionsObjectsChangedColorPerceptionConsciousGainsDimensionsReliefUnusualPsychedelicGlowingPsychedelic ExperienceSelf PerceptionKaleidoscopeInebriation
Book:Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, Their Plant Sources and History
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“The facts which our senses present to us are socially performed in two ways: through the historical character of the object perceived and through the historical character of the perceiving organ. Both are not simply natural; they are shaped by human activity, and yet the individual perceives himself as receptive and passive in the act of perception.”

WayHumansTwoCharacterFactsIndividualNaturalObjectsActivityPerceptionHistoricalSensesPerceiveOrgansPassiveTwo WaysReceptiveHuman Activity
Book:Critical Theory: Selected Essays
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“Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occurring complexes of sense impression (partly in conjunction with sense impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense experiences of others), and we attribute to them a meaning the meaning of the bodily object.”

CertainObjectsPerceptionComplexesImpressionAttributesMultitudesConjunctions
Book:A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein
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“A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation”

PersonsGoalReligiousDoubtObjectsPerceptionCapableFoundationRationalNo DoubtSignificanceScience And ReligionScience ReligionReligious Person
Book:Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
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“The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh. The effect that they make in space is as bound up with them as might be their colour or smell ... Therefore the painter must be as concerned with the air surrounding his subject as with the subject itself. It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out.”

GivingPersonsFeelingsMightGivenWishSpaceAirSubjectsEffectsObjectsPaintingPerceptionConcernedBoundsSmellFleshPainterObservationAtmosphereColourRegisterAuras
Author:Lucian Freud
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“Objects and their functions no longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself, the hell of forms and figures devoid of human emotion and detached from the reality of my unreal environment. I was an instrument in a virtual world that constantly renewed its own meaningless image in a living world that was itself perceived outside of nature. And since the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this paradisiacal awareness freed me from the reality external to myself. The fire and the rose, as it were, became one.”

WorldHumansRealityFormEmotionHellEnvironmentFireAwarenessFiguresObjectsPerceptionFunctionInstrumentsRoseAppearanceSignificanceMeaninglessLimitlessUnrealDetachedVirtual RealityHuman EmotionsVirtual World
Book:I'm a born liar: a Fellini lexicon
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“Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of ‘Green?’ How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye?”

KnowsMenDoeMadeLightEyeLawNamesImagineFieldsObjectsColorAdventurePerspectiveBabyPerceptionLogicGreenGrassRainbowCrawling
Book:Philip Taaffe: composite nature : a conversation with Stan Brakhage
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“Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature, this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.”

MenWellsChildrenCharacterFeelingsParentTeacherObjectsTastePerceptionAimSentimentsFormationHarmoniousCurbPropensityDormantParents And Teachers
Book:Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed
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“Memory is therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember.”

StatesPastRememberMemoriesAnimalObjectsPerceptionExpectationsAffectionPerceiveConceptionOrgansLapses
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)
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