There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to the observer doth thy history
Fully unfold. [ William Shakespeare ]

He alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without being observed. [ Lavater ]

The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature. [ Ruskin ]

There is in every human countenance either a history or a prophecy, which must sadden, or at least soften, every reflecting observer. [ Coleridge ]

A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity. [ Pope ]

There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other. [ Butler ]

Whatever is pure is also simple. It does not keep the eye on itself. The observer forgets the window in the landscape it displays. A fine style gives the view of fancy - its figures, its trees, or its palaces, - without a spot. [ Willmott ]

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 ]

When the great Kepler had at length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed: Whether my discoveries will be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is a matter that concerns them more than me. I may well be contented to wait one century for a reader, when God Himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an observer like myself. [ Macaulay ]