The hearing ear and the seeing eye. [ Bible ]
Only so much do I know as I have lived. [ Emerson ]
Each one sees what he carries in his heart. [ Goethe ]
Let Observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Observation - activity of both eyes and ears. [ Horace Mann ]
Criticism is not construction; it is observation. [ G. W. Curtis ]
Swift defined observation to be an old man's memory. [ James A. Garfield ]
Great things cannot have escaped former observation. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Keep your eyes and ears open, if you desire to get on in the world. [ Douglas Jerrold ]
How hast thou purchased this experience? By my penny of observation. [ William Shakespeare ]
He alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without being observed. [ Lavater ]
Objects imperfectly discerned take forms from the hope or fear of the beholder. [ Johnson ]
To learn by observation is traveling, people must also bring knowledge with them. [ Bayard Taylor ]
Truth is strengthened by observation and time, pretences by haste and uncertainty. [ Tacitus ]
Those who cannot themselves observe can at least acquire the observation of others. [ Beaconsfield ]
Observation more than books, experience rather than persons, are the prime educators. [ A. Bronson Alcott ]
That extremes beget extremes is an apothegm built on the most profound observation of the human mind. [ Colton ]
Studies teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. [ Bacon ]
The most cursory observation shows that a degree of reserve adds vastly to the latent force of character. [ Tuckerman ]
Science is simply commonsense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. [ Huxley ]
It was wisely said, by a man of great observation, that there are as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them. [ Izaak Walton ]
Some are brave men one day and cowards another, as great captains have often told me, from their own experience and observation. [ Sir W. Temple ]
Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent. [ Rousseau ]
When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indisputable, these are jewels of knowledge. [ Dr. Watts ]
We pass by common objects or persons without noticing them; but the keen eye detects and notes types everywhere and among all classes. [ Thackeray ]
It is a fine observation of Plato, in his Laws, that atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding. [ Wm. Fleming ]
Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. [ Johnson ]
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life, [ Marcus Aurelius ]
The eyes of a man are of no use without the observing power. Telescopes and microscopes are cunning contrivances, but they cannot see of themselves. [ Paxton Hood ]
What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more. [ Greville ]
Friendship has the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother. [ Earl of Clarendon ]
Physic is of little use to a temperate person, for a man's own observation on what he finds does him good, and what hurts him is the best physic to preserve health. [ Bacon ]
Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. [ Washington Irving ]
The tongue tells the thought of one man only, whereas the face expresses a thought of nature itself; so that every one is worth attentive observation, even though every one may not be worth talking to. [ Arthur Schopenhauer ]
In the whole course of our observation there is not so misrepresented and abused a personage as Death. The shortest life is long enough if it lead to a better, and the longest life is too short if it does not. [ Colton ]
Someone once observed, and the observation did him credit, whoever he was, that the dearest things in the world were neighbors' eyes, for they cost everybody more than anything else contributing to housekeeping. [ Albert Smith ]
Observation made in the cloister or in the desert will generally be as obscure as the one and as barren as the other; but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over-fearful of a little dust. [ Colton ]
At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling. [ Macaulay ]
He said - and his observation was just - that a man on whom heaven hath bestowed a beautiful wife should be as cautious of the men he brings home to his house as careful of observing the female friends with whom his spouse converses abroad. [ Cervantes ]
You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room - their motions, their looks and their words - and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer. [ Chesterfield ]
Without attempting a formal definition of the word, I am inclined to consider rhetoric, when reduced to a system in books, as a body of rules derived from experience and observation, extending to all communications by language, and designed to make it efficient. [ W. E. Channing ]
How little of our knowledge of mankind is derived from intentional accurate observation! Most of it has, unsought, found its way into the mind from the continual presentations of the objects to our unthinking view. It is a knowledge of sensation more than of reflection. [ John Foster ]
Observation or Observance? The act of noting is called observation; that of keeping or celebrating is called observance. The difference in the meaning of these words is clearly illustrated by such phrases as, the acute observation of the detective;
and the religious observance of the Sabbath.
[ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
To behold, is not necessary to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy which prevails. [ Humboldt ]
Experience: in that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either about external or sensible objects or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. [ John Locke ]
Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labor. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere in the habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those advantages which, like the bands of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art. in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts made by successive generations of men - the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid. [ Samuel Smiles ]
An observant man, in all his intercourse with society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person and thing the figure expressive of its value, and therefore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. This is to make something of experience. [ John Foster ]
It is particularly worth observation that the more we magnify, by the assistance of glasses, the works of nature, the more regular and beautiful they appear, while it is quite different in respect to those of art, for when they are examined through a microscope we are astonished to find them so rough, so coarse and uneven, although they have been done with all imaginable care, by the best workmen. [ Sterne ]
The refining influence is the study of art, which is the science of beauty; and I find that every man values every scrap of knowledge in art, every observation of his own in it, every hint he has caught from another. For the laws of beauty are the beauty of beauty, and give the mind the same or a higher joy than the sight of it gives the senses. The study of art is of high value to the growth of the intellect. [ Emerson ]