Mind Perceptions Quotes & Sayings

Can you revise your perceptions to see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering, instead of good and bad? To see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering is Buddha-mind, and will lead us away from righteousness and anger. Get in touch with your own Buddha-mind, and you will uncover a healing force of compassion. — Sharon Salzberg

Teenagers expressing this on a daily basis in the middle of the streets - you can't help but believe we are in the mind state of taking our losses and changing people's perceptions of us and our community. We are strong. Our families are tired of being hurt. — Kendrick Lamar

Your choices have psychological consequences. The way you choose to deal with reality, truth, facts - your choice to honor or dishonor your own perceptions - registers in your mind, for good or for bad, and either confirms and strengthens your self-esteem or undermines and weakens it. — Nathaniel Branden

Emotional baggage, which is carried over from the past, colors our perceptions. Likewise, past conclusions and beliefs, based on reasoning that may or may not have been accurate, also tint our perception of reality. Retaining our capacity for reason is common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.
Emotional reactions can be unreasonable, and reason can be flawed. It's difficult to have deep confidence in either one, especially when they're often at war with each other. But the universal mind exists in the instant, in a moment beyond time, and it sees the universe as it literally is. It's the universe perceiving itself. It is, moreover, something we can have absolute confidence in, and with that confidence, we can maintain a genuinely positive attitude. — H.E. Davey

As Hume expressed it. The mind is 'a kind of theater, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, slide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.' Hume pointed out that we have no underlying 'personal identity' beneath or behind these perceptions and feelings which come and go. It is just like the images on a movie screen. They change so rapidly we do not register that the film is made up of single pictures. In reality the pictures are not connected. The film is a collection of instants — Jostein Gaarder

Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions. Notice what you notice. Observe what's vivid. Catch yourself thinking. Vividness is self-selecting. And remember the future. — Allen Ginsberg

The planetary emergency unfolding around us is, first and foremost ... a crisis of thought, values, perceptions, ideas and judgments. In other words, it is a crisis of mind, which makes it a crisis of those institutions which purport to improve minds. — David W. Orr

To strengthen the connection between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind is to gain access to a map and compass to help you move towards your dream. To gain access to the subconscious mind is to gain the ability to see and create the future, the ability to shift the present, and the ability to alter your own perceptions of the past. — Kevin Michel

Knowledge does not mean mastering a great quantity of different information, but understanding the nature of mind. This knowledge can penetrate each one of our thoughts and illuminate each one of our perceptions. — Matthieu Ricard

We rode in silence, I think all of us wondering what was behind the flowery wallpaper our perceptions had always pasted on the unknown. All the things the mind won't allow us to see, to protect our sanity, or our soul, or maybe just to keep the shit out of our pants. — David Wong

Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to be aware and alert in the present moment, the mind flings us into tawdry and tiresome elaborations of past and future. This craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere, permeates the body, feeling, perceptions, will - consciousness itself. It is like the background radiation from the big bang of birth, the aftershock of having erupted into existence. — Stephen Batchelor

In dreams the images in the mind, in the subconscious, merge with and obliterate the perceptions from the astral senses, in a similar way that in daily life the subconscious causes the external world to be perceived with the colorations of thoughts, feelings, images, and emotions; in other words, we daydream or get lost in thoughts. — Belsebuub

What binds Buddhism, Sufism, and Quaker practices together is a belief in our interconnectedness; profound respect for others; being guided by a greater good beyond material possessions, status, and image; valuing silence and stillness of the mind; acceptance of differences; developing inner awareness of one's perceptions and motivation; commitment to service; and seeking guidance from within. — Charlotte Kasl

Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it's not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear, it's not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time. — Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Doubt is a disease that infects the mind creating a mistrust of peoples motives and ones own perceptions. Doubt has the ability to call into questions everything you ever believed about someone and reinforce the darkest suspicions of our inner circle. — Emily Thorne

If Isabelle Reagan can take a guy like me and turn him into someone worthy of respect then it's mind blowing to think what she can do for the rest of the world. What we could do for it together. We might be able to change it. — Melyssa Winchester

We can conceive a thinking being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose the mind to be reduced even below the life of anoyster. Suppose it to have only one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider it in that situation. Do you conceive any thing but merely that perception? Have you any notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other perceptions can never give you that notion. — David Hume

The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiriting new insights, associations, and perceptions, sometimes even epiphanies. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer's work. It gives the author confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. "All great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain," said Emerson. "They knew that the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them. — Nicholas Carr

One has a more practical survival level, that's the mind function. The heart function obviously has an internal level that has to do with the quality of developing perceptions, feelings, the self. And the spirit level has to do with the pondering part of our lives. — Caroline Myss

Thoughts are a powerful thing, but most of us wield them haphazardly. By the time we are young adults our minds and personalities are shaped to a great degree. Our thinking becomes habit and routine, like a river, and our thoughts must follow wherever the ravine takes us. As our negative thinking takes over our mind like strangling vines, the years continue to pass and we lose our goals and dreams. We form perceptions of reality and assume that everyone else thinks and sees the world as we do. They do not. An interesting fact is that your perception of reality is almost always wrong. The good and bad news is that our lives are most affected by the way we think things are, not the way they actually are. Be careful what you think about, it absolutely will shape your life. — Adam Shepherd

What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity. — David Hume

I don't have an audience in mind when I write. I'm writing mainly for myself. After a long devotion to playwriting I have a good inner ear. I know pretty well how a thing is going to sound on the stage, and how it will play. I write to satisfy this inner ear and its perceptions. That's the audience I write for. — Tennessee Williams

What we call society is the sum total of human thinking and feeling. It is a reflection of our attitudes. When we change them, we change society. We are only a change of mind away from real freedom, the freedom to express our God-given uniqueness and celebrate the diversity of gifts, perceptions and inspiration that exist within the collective human psyche. The creative force is within us all and desperate to express itself. — David Icke

Life can sometimes feel like being trapped in the midst of a chaotic storm, swirling with darkness and debris, and no perceivable way out. But there is a way out. Seeking out the stillness of one's mind, challenging limiting perceptions and unloading the burdens of the past can allow a person to break free from the darkness and find a path to peace, joy and light. No one has to stay in the storm. Anyone can leave, if they choose. Hypnosis can help a person uncover the way to freedom. Once the path is revealed, all one needs to do is take it. And when they do, everything will seem possible. — Dawn Wheeler

Everything is a state of mind. Astral travel is the ability to wander through different states of mind and develop psychic perceptions. — Frederick Lenz

The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. — Francis Bacon

Porter Rockwell was that most terrible instrument that can be handled by fanaticism; a powerful physical nature welded to a mind of very narrow perceptions, intense convictions, and changeless tenacity. In his build he was a gladiator; in his humor a Yankee lumberman; in his memory a Bourbon; in his vengeance an Indian. A strange mixture, only to be found on the American continent — Fitz Hugh Ludlow

Transformation is the result of big shifts in perceptions and responses. The process can be uncomfortable, since the mind is reluctant to notice itself, to take responsibility for its stories, and to change. When the mind is in acute resistance, the emotional body pays a price. — Miguel Ruiz

I will only say generally, that in proportion as any given body is more fitted than others for doing many actions or receiving many impressions at once, so also is the mind, of which it is the object, more fitted than others for forming many simultaneous perceptions; and the more the actions of the body depend on itself alone, and the fewer other bodies concur with it in action, the more fitted is the mind of which it is the object for distinct comprehension. We may thus recognize the superiority of one mind over others, and may further see the cause, why we have only a very confused knowledge of our body, and also many kindred questions, which I will, in the following propositions, deduce from what has been advanced. — Baruch Spinoza

Mrs. Heath wanted to sprinkle their minds with grass seed and watch the blades spike up through the earth, flat and predictable as a golf course. She wanted dependable students, well fed but not necessarily nourished. But he was not in that category. Admittedly, he could not count on his perceptions of letters and words, and he was not always accurate. He misused words most when he liked their sound. A sentence had a kind of music, and the word sounded right. The definitions were never as interesting as the sound they made coming out of your mouth. He rolled their flavors around on his tongue, tasting every nook and cranny, but he could not be trusted to deliver the right answer and she would never give him better than a C, no matter what genius work he produced. The way he saw it, his mind was a big unruly field of wildflowers. One day he would shower the world with blossoms. — Elizabeth Brundage

Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me, I will abandon laziness for which life has no time, Enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing, reflection and contemplation, and meditation, Making perceptions and mind the path, and realize the "three kayas": the enlightened mind;4 Now that I have once attained a human body, There is no time on the path for the mind to wander. — Sogyal Rinpoche

The only reality you can be sure about is in your own perceptions. If the universe exists, it exists inside your own mind and the minds of others. — Al Ries

I could now see her the way she actually is and not in the distorted way my mind presented her to me when I was trying to find a reason to reject her and move on — Jack Weyland

In three months Ron read more than he had in his entire previous life. He felt his mind widen, his perceptions become more acute, for each book was a prism refracting the infinitely varied truths of experience. Some were telescopes; some microscopes. — Edward Bunker

When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement. The artists, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, "a lover's quarrel with the world." In pursuing his perceptions of reality he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. — John F. Kennedy

I don't dabble and spend much mind or time dealing with, I don't know, people's perceptions of me. I truly don't. — Matthew McConaughey

Deprivation or overstimulation, combined with fear and peer pressure, are the conversion tools of many religions. A loud Pentecostal service, an Evangelical revival, a fear-mongering sermon by an imam or a dark campfire service during a week of church camp are all designed to overwhelm the senses, confuse the mind and alter perceptions of reality. — Darrel Ray

Beauty Is In The Mind of The Beholder. — Amit Abraham

Happiness is a state of mind. The key to happiness is being able to disconnect your life from your perceptions. If you saw things as they really were, you would be happy automatically. — Frederick Lenz

In all our perceptions, from vision to hearing, to the pictures we build of people's character, our unconscious mind starts from whatever objective data is available to us - usually spotty - and helps to shape and construct the more complete picture we consciously perceive. — Leonard Mlodinow

Everyone's faith comes from the perceptions of the mind. O Arjuna, the ego-personality is the living embodiment of faith. Your faith is your identity. — Deepak Chopra

After all, color in itself has no color - it's simply a construction of the mind: a sensation, like the Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly and the smell of honeysuckle. — Jasper Fforde

We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Everything we see and feel is "an effect of God's power," said Berkeley. For God is "intimately present in our consciousness, causing to exist for us the profusion of ideas and perceptions that we are constantly subject to." The whole world around us and our whole life exist in God. He is the one cause of everything that exist. We exist only in the mind of God.
So "to be or not to be" is not the whole question. The question is also who we are. Are we really human beings of flesh and blood? Does our world consist of real things, or are we encircled by the mind? — Jostein Gaarder

Perceptions, our ways of thinking, and our behavior. It is a question of bringing about a complete reversal of mental habits by reducing emotions in a gradual process of study, reflection, and meditation - in other words, familiarization. That is how we refine the mind and purify it through a training that actualizes its potential. We learn to master the stream of our consciousness, to control the emotional obscurations, without letting ourselves be dominated by them. That is the path toward realization of the absolute nature. Our practice integrates all the aspects and all the various levels of the Buddha's teaching. — Dalai Lama XIV

The most dire of all of life's grueling deceptions wedge themselves in in our minds between truth and perceptions. — Wes Fesler

Ought one to surrender to authority even if one believed that that authority was wrong? If the answer was yes, then I knew that I would always be wrong, because I could never do it. Then how could one live in a world in which one's mind and perceptions meant nothing and authority and tradition meant everything? There were no answers. — Richard Wright

Tarot brings us out of ourselves. It moves our perceptions outwards and onto the cards. Rather than living with the possibility imagined in our mind's eye, the possibility is spread on the table before us. — Sasha Graham

He was all too aware of how one's perceptions can start lining up to support a particular conclusion. Once a pattern begins to take shape, however erroneous it might be, the mind unconsciously favors any data points that support it and discounts any that don't. — John Verdon

It is true that our everyday view of the world is not quite naively realistic, but that is what it would like to be. Common-sense is naively realistic wherever it does not think that there is some positive reason why it should cease to be so. And this is so in the vast majority of its perceptions. When we see a tree we think that it is really green and really waving about in precisely the same way as it appears to be. We do not think of our object of perception being 'like' the real tree, we think that what we perceive is the tree, and that it is just the same at a given moment whether it be perceived or not, except that what we perceive may be only a part of the real tree. — Charlie Dunbar Broad

When one begins to concentrate, the dropping of a pin will seem like a thunderbolt going through the brain. As the organs get finer, the perceptions get finer. These are the stages through which we have to pass, and all those who persevere will succeed. Give up all argumentation and other distractions. Is there anything in dry intellectual jargon? It only throws the mind off its balance and disturbs it. Things of subtler planes have to be realised. Will talking do that? So give up all vain talk. Read only those books which have been written by persons who have had realisation. — Swami Vivekananda

THE MISCONCEPTION: You rationally analyze all factors before making a choice or determining value. THE TRUTH: Your first perception lingers in your mind, affecting later perceptions and decisions. — David McRaney

In ordinary speech the words perception and sensation tend to be used interchangeably, but the psychologist distinguishes. Sensations are the items of consciousness
a color, a weight, a texture
that we tend to think of as simple and single. Perceptions are complex affairs that embrace sensation together with other, associated or revived contents of the mind, including emotions. — Jacques Barzun

Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins — Susanna Kaysen

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. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The soul integrates the will and mind and body. Sin disintegrates them. In sin, my appetite for lust or anger or superiority dominates my will. My will, which was made to rule my body, becomes enslaved to what my body wants. When I flatter other people, I learn to use my mouth and my face to conceal my true thoughts and intentions. This always requires energy: I am disintegrating my body from my mind. I hate, but I can't admit it even to myself, so I must distort my perception of reality to rationalize my hatred: I disintegrate my thoughts from the reality. Sin ultimately makes long-term gratitude or friendship or meaning impossible. Sin eventually destroys my capacity even for enjoyment, let alone meaning. It distorts my perceptions, alienates my relationships, inflames my desires, and enslaves my will. This is what it means to lose your soul. — John Ortberg

Clothing, hair, shoes, accessories: these were props, visual cues, that people used to filter information and make instant assessments out of random connections, to categorize and assign value to those who populated their world. And layered beneath the props for sight came those for smell, and hearing, and more, that sense of intangibility that allowed people to read nuance and body language and interpret what the other senses didn't grasp directly; cues that together formed a picture that matched perceptions based on expectations and that, when adjusted one way or the other, filtered past the gatekeepers of the mind, allowing Munroe to become whatever she needed to be. — Taylor Stevens

Education is a chemical reaction between knowledge and the mind; the byproducts are new thoughts, new ideas, new perceptions, and new feelings. — Debasish Mridha

The bond between a book reader and a book writer has always been a symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiring new insights, associations, and perceptions, sometimes, even epiphanies. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer's work. It gives the author the confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. — Nicholas Carr

To honor the self is to be willing to think independently, to live by our own mind, and to have the courage of our own perceptions. — Nathaniel Branden

We create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in. The man who believes that the resources of the world are infinite, for example, or that if something is good for you then the more of it the better, will not be able to see his errors, because he will not look for evidence of them. For a man to change the basic beliefs that determine his perception - his epistemological premises - he must first become aware that reality is not necessarily as he believes it to be. Sometimes the dissonance between reality and false beliefs reaches a point when it becomes impossible to avoid the awareness that the world no longer makes sense. Only then is it possible for the mind to consider radically different ideas and perceptions. — Gregory Bateson

Philosophers who have denied that there are any innate ideas probably meant only that all ideas were copies of our impressions. [W]hat is meant by 'innate'? If 'innate' is equivalent to 'natural', then all the perceptions and ideas of the mind must be granted to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in opposition to what is uncommon, what is artificial, or what is miraculous. If innate means 'contemporary with our birth', the dispute seems to be frivolous - there is no point in enquiring when thinking begins, whether before, at, or after our birth. — David Hume

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them. — Edward De Bono

My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God's word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes - many times - my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens - and it happens every day in some measure - I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth. — John Piper

Underneath the world of sense perceptions and the world of mind activity, there is the vastness of being. There's a vast spaciousness. There's a vast stillness and there's a little ripple activity on the surface, which isn't separate, just like the ripples are not separate from the ocean. — Eckhart Tolle

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind. — Thich Nhat Hanh

When you continuously know and sense yourself as the space of consciousness rather than what appears in consciousness - sense perceptions, thoughts, emotions - then it can be said that you are enlightened ... except that you wouldn't think or speak of yourself as 'enlightened', because that would instantly create another mind-based conceptual identity and so it would be the end of 'your' enlightenment. — Eckhart Tolle

Recalibration of the mind means clearing our perceptions and recovering our capacity for pure observation. — Ilchi Lee

When a man makes a poem, makes it, mind you, he takes words as he finds them interrelated about him and composes them - without distortion which would mar their exact significances - into an intense expression of his perceptions and ardors that they may constitute a revelation in the speech that he uses. It isn't what he says that counts as a work of art, it's what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity. — William Carlos Williams

So it is with the mind, Nandini. Allow it to be in balance. Avoid extremes: the middle way is better. Neither force the mind too hard into concentration nor let it wander aimlessly. Meditation is to pay attention, to be aware of your breathing, your posture, your feelings, your perceptions, your thoughts, and all that passes through your mind and the mind itself; whatever is going on within you and between you and the universe. Meditation is not just sitting for an hour here or an hour there; meditation is a way of life. It is practiced all the time. There is no separation between meditation and everyday living. When you have ceased to be bound by the past or by the future, when you are fully present in the here and now, then it is meditation. — Satish Kumar

First, rely on the spirit and meaning of the teachings, not on the words;
Second, rely on the teachings, not on the personality of the teacher;
Third, rely on real wisdom, not superficial interpretation;
And fourth, rely on the essence of your pure Wisdom Mind, not on judgmental perceptions. — Gautama Buddha

We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he makes them, if he is worth reading, because he has in mind something besides his perceptions about art in itself he has in mind the demands that he makes upon life. — Lionel Trilling

Insights and perceptions pass through the mind like fleet fireflies. Lit for an instant, then gone back into the dark. — Leonard Bishop

By honing the sentences you used to describe the world, you changed the inflection of your mind, which changed your perceptions. — George Saunders

The mind is a kind of theater, where several perceptions successively make their appearence; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. — David Hume

As he observed her in musing silence, a novel thought occurred to him. It slipped through his mind so subtly that it seemed to mingle like smoke with his physical perceptions, with the way the dim light through the stained-glass window fell across her hair in little iridescent rainbows, and the scent of old tobacco and dust lingered in the room. He wondered - absurdly - if this was what she had come for - simply to sit in the stillness and be alive and share it with him.
Something inside, something tiny he hadn't even known was there, seemed to unfold, to spread tentative petals open like a desert flower sensing rain.
She turned and looked up at him, her great unblinking eyes full of forest wisdom. He thought foolishly: Let me stay here. I need this. — Laura Kinsale

You are in charge, though." Ananda looked at him calmly. "In the perceptions of outsiders, perhaps. But here? I'm the oldest. I have the most experience. My thoughts carry some weight. When our minds are apart I have certain authority. But when we are connected ... the group mind contains me. I'm just one part of it. The decisions it makes are wiser and more just than the ones I can make alone. The insights it can glean and the truths it can reveal are deeper than those I can glimpse alone. I respect that. I am a piece of this, not its master. — Ramez Naam