Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And Cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
* * * * * *
At length the man perceives it die away.
And fade into the light of common day. [ Wordsworth ]

I know a mount, the gracious Sun perceives
First when he visits, last, too, when he leaves
The world; and, vainly favored, it repays
The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze
By no change of its large calm front of snow. [ Robert Browning ]

Whatsoever the mind perceives of itself, or is the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding, that I call an idea. [ Locke ]

Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an idea almost at the same moment. [ Amiel ]

It may be laid down as a general rule that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only a second place. [ Fielding ]

Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, the sailor perceives these decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day; and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all; and they give plenary and brief without listening to confession. [ Ruskin ]