Quotes & Sayings About Observing

Well, sir, it is precisely my notion that one sees and learns most of all by observing our younger generations. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Observing that, from this height, the city which had been so dark as he walked through it seemed to be on fire. — James Baldwin

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.'
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

If, while observing the boundless universe, the writer is able to scrutinise his own self as well as others, the resulting incisiveness of his observations will far surpass objective descriptions of reality. — Gao Xingjian

One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, A child has beaten me in plainness of living. — Diogenes

Watch everything she does. You can tell what a woman wants and needs by simply observing her. Even when you two are out spending time together, chillaxing at home, or getting ready for date night. The little things as I said mean a lot to a woman, so with that being stated; start by remembering things like her birthdays, anniversaries, or special events that's significant to you both. Those things may be small to you, but means the world to her. — Will Ag Martel

What's exciting about theatre is observing human behaviour. You're constantly making judgments about body language, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual. — Hattie Morahan

The best preparation for acting is life - observing life and people and observing yourself. All that becomes your library. So when you have to research a part, a scene or an emotion, you go into the library and get what you need. — Kate Capshaw

Nearly twenty years before, Hudson Taylor had written in an editorial: "All God's giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them." As he looked at himself, Hudson Taylor saw nothing but weakness; but as generations of Christians have studied Taylor's life, they have become acquainted with a man who dared to believe the Word of God and, by faith, carried the gospel to inland China - and saw God work wonders! "Want of trust is at the root of almost all our sins and all our weaknesses," he wrote in that same editorial, "and how shall we escape it but by looking to Him and observing His faithfulness. The man who holds God's faithfulness will not be foolhardy or reckless, but he will be ready for every emergency. — Warren W. Wiersbe

One's lover is one's partner in observing and understanding the world. Marriage is a place where joint narratives are composed. If the lover is a liar then all your joint observations are unreliable. You will have to start all over again. — Philippa Gregory

It was, just as Kinski had predicted, suicide. He should never have done it. It is widely held by those who knew him, and Kinski himself, that he never recovered from Woyzeck. But what was the ultimate result? If you are the viewer of this film, Kinski's portrayal shocks your feelings out of the vault of intellectualizing or passive observing. He forces you to feel with him, to align yourself with your buried emotions. He outs your sensitivity. Is this not something Christ-like? It is, for my money. Kinski is the pure cure for the 21st-century disease - the numbness unto droning. — Cintra Wilson

There are friendships to one who lives in society; thus our present grief arises from having friendships; observing the evils resulting from friendship, let one walk alone like a rhinoceros. — Gautama Buddha

You can learn so much just by observing. — Jessica Williams

The possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of the child as natural phenomena and experimental reactions transforms the school itself in action into a kind of scientific laboratory for the psychogenetic study of man. — Maria Montessori

WHAT MAKES A GOOD LISTENER? 1. Not interrupting. 2. Showing that you empathize: not criticizing, arguing, or patronizing. 3. Establishing a physical sense of closeness without invading personal space. 4. Observing body language and letting yours show you are not distracted but attentive. 5. Offering your own self-disclosures, but not too many, or too soon. 6. Understanding the context of the other person's life. 7. Listening from all four levels: body, mind, heart, and soul. — Deepak Chopra

The most ordinary conditions for observing sailing birds are then the wind and sea are both aft. — Lawrence Hargrave

Somebody is observing my writings, I know that.
That's one reason why I keep reading and writing. — Toba Beta

Yeah. She's still just observing though. She's too useless to even carry plates at the moment, so please just think of her as some Russian ornament."
Tom laughed at the owner's blunt response, and asked another question.
"Chief, how do I say something like, 'you're beautiful', in Russian?"
" ... 'Vi ocharovatelny'."
"Err ... Bee, acherabatennen."
However, hearing this, the Caucasian woman looked confused at Tom, and spoke to the owner behind the counter.
" ... What is this man saying? It is unintelligible. I question its relation to the Japanese language."
With a bitter smile, the owner turned his head towards the woman, and spoke to her.
"'Vi ocharovatelny'."
" ... Why do you suddenly speak these social compliments? Please concisely explain your reasoning."
"That's what that young man over there just tried to say to you."
"In which language, exactly?"
Listening to their conversation, — Ryohgo Narita

Give up thinking as though not giving it up. Observe techniques as though not observing. — Bruce Lee

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. — Edwin Paxton Hood

I find it quite intriguing that the one observing me as different, immediately assumes that there's something wrong with me, but never, not even for one instant, questions the possibility of the opposite. It's truly amazing that the ones with more certainties, the most arrogant and the most selfish, are indeed the most stupid inside society. They are so dumb and ignorant that they can't see a writer in front of their nose. And the more the writer types, talks and thinks, the more they think that this separation, this difference, grants them some form of superiority. Indeed, the light pushes demons into hell. The brighter your light, the faster you differentiate others. The way of the light was never meant for the weak, which are a majority. And this majority will always ignore the light, as demons fearing and hating angels. And so, it's interesting that without artists God would not have a way to reach the world. And yet, without the ignorant, Satan wouldn't have a way to stop God. — Robin Sacredfire

Now, though, there was a second part, an artifact of his recent illness, as if his melancholy had, in a universe adjacent to this one, claimed his life. As if he was his own ghost, standing slightly behind himself, observing. — Garth Risk Hallberg

the process of learning a theory depends upon the study of applications, including practice problem-solving both with a pencil and paper and with instruments in the laboratory. If, for example, the student of Newtonian dynamics ever discovers the meaning of terms like 'force,' 'mass,' 'space,' and 'time,' he does so less from the incomplete though sometimes helpful definitions in his text than by observing and participating in the application of these concepts to problem-solution. That — Thomas S. Kuhn

Out of sight is out of mind. The closer your hives are to your residence the better. Beginners need colonies nearby so they can visit them often. Casual visits are important even if you don't open the hives. You can learn much simply by observing the entrance. — Richard E. Bonney

My midwife partners and I at the The Farm learned by observation and experience that the presence of even one person who is not exquisitely attuned to the mother's feelings can stop some women's labors. All women are sensitive. Some women are extraordinarily so. We learned this truth by observing many labors stop or slow down when someone entered the birth room who was not intimate with the laboring mother's feelings. If that person then left the room, labor usually returned to its former pace or intensity. — Ina May Gaskin

Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It's produced by humans who can't stand looking at other humans. And that's why the industry is full of otaku! — Hayao Miyazaki

Do you know of the uncertainty principle, Marjorie?" "I am educated," she snorted, very much annoyed with him. "Then you know that with very small things, we cannot both know where they are and what they are doing. The act of observing them always changes what they are doing. Perhaps God does not look at us individually because to do so would interrupt our work, interfere with our free will ... . — Sheri S. Tepper

There was never anything to be gained from observing what humans said to one another
language was just there to hide their thoughts. — Terry Pratchett

you've learned to align your consciousness with your inner Watcher and perch there, observing your physical and emotional feelings. Just one step remains in your contemplation training - the step that's most profoundly healing and most difficult for a person raised in the rationalist tradition. You must learn to watch any or all of your thoughts without believing them. This is a skill that allows you to break away from any psychological conditioning that predisposes you to weight gain. — Martha N. Beck

Do I still love this woman? he asked himself. He was in the habit of observing himself so closely that the answer came as a surprise to him: I do. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

But already his mind was racing ahead to his next encounter with humans. There was, he knew, a small encampment of Bedouin nearby. He'd spied their sheep-flocks and their fires from a distance, their men traveling on horseback, but until now he'd avoided them. He wondered, how did their lives differ from those of the caravan-men? Perhaps, instead of finding another caravan to follow, he would turn his wanderings toward their encampment. But should he remain content with observing them from a distance, when a much more intimate option lay available to him? — Helene Wecker

Observing any human being from infancy, seeing someone come into existence, like a new flower in bud, each petal first tightly furled around another, and then the natural loosening and unfurling, the opening into a bloom, the life of that bloom, must be something wonderful to behold; to see experience collect in the eyes, around the corners of the mouth, the weighing down of the brow, the heaviness in heart and soul, the thick gathering around the waist, the breasts, the slowing down of footsteps not from old age but only with the caution of life-all this is something so wonderful to observe, so wonderful to behold; the pleasure for the observer, the beholder, is an invisible current between the two, observed and observer, beheld and beholder, and I believe that no life is complete, no life is really whole, without this invisible current, which is in many ways a definition of love. — Jamaica Kincaid

I don't think that somebody who is observing or predicting behavior should also be participating in the 'experiment.' — Nate Silver

All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. Now, — Charles Dickens

We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. — Aristotle.

Your eyes may mislead you sometimes. So don't be serious in observing, listen to your heart at times when you are confused. — Giridhar Alwar

Eyuran," I addressed his Node. "What was in this one?"

He came closer and studied the huge case, which was easily twice the height of an adult Danna and had body slots for some kind of gear.

"I don't know for sure. I haven't seen this before. It resembles a gearbot sarx, but those are usually larger. Must be a new, compact model." Observing the empty sarx, a wave of bad feelings came over me.

"I also saw some of the weapon crates with broken locks."

"If someone is operating a gearbot, a bunch of guns will be the least of our worries. A hull repairer can't even begin to compete with the power of an assault exomachine." He looked around and frowned. "By the way, the whole hull repairer rack is empty. Counting the one you took out, we should have seven more roaming somewhere on the ship. — Jeno Marz

Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends. — Barbara Pym

Empiricism assumes that objects can be understood independendy of observing subjects. Truth is therefore assumed to lie in a world external to the observer whose job is to record and faithfully reflect the attributes of objects. This logical empiricism is a pragmatic version of that scientific method which goes under the name of 'logical positivism', and is founded in a particular and very strict view of language and meaning. — David Harvey

Many are observing Ferguson and witnessing the anger, demonstrations, looting and vandalism and calling for quiet. But quiet isn't enough. The absence of noise isn't the presence of justice - and we must demand justice in Ferguson and the other 'Fergusons' around America. — Jesse Jackson

Human beings have evolved to be extremely good at identifying other individual humans. The race's survival depends on it. A guard lets the wrong person through the gate, and a whole settlement is wiped out. There are a million ways to tell two human beings apart. Not just appearance, either. Gait, odor, pheromones, speech patterns, dialect, nervous habits... even the way people breathe. Even parents of identical twins have little difficulty telling them apart, despite the fact that they are genetically identical and were raised in exactly the same environment, because of tiny differences in appearance and behavior that accrue as the result of differing experiences. The ability of one human to recognize another by appearance is especially acute when it comes to heterosexual males observing nubile females. There is nothing on Earth men pay more attention to than the appearance of sexually attractive young women. — Robert Kroese

It takes a while to master the art of hammock-lounging. At first I could only manage five minutes or so before I thought I ought to get out and go and help a child learn how to swim or something. But after observing the Mexicans' capability for staring into space for hours on end, I decided to put in some proper practice. — Tom Hodgkinson

Seinfeld has his way of telling jokes - and I'm not comparing myself to Seinfeld, his genius is observing the small details of everyday life and finding humor in it. — Nick Kroll

While observing some people with their dogs, it is often a question of who is training whom. It is not uncommon to see an owner with their arms extended, holding on for dear life, while their dog runs wild. Unfortunately, I was becoming one of those owners. — Elizabeth Parker

With or without realizing it, every successful person has created behaviors - systems for greeting people, networking, and making telephone calls to aid them in their pursuits. By observing the traits of successful people, you can create your own system for success. — Ryan Blair

I learned to basically pull my own weight, just do my own thing. I spent a lot of time alone and I loved it. It was actually really great because to the present day I love spending time alone. I go bicycling alone, go climbing alone and I just love being with myself and observing myself and learning something. — Sebastian Thrun

I've always found that I personally love to observe things, and I'm good at observing things. — Jamie Johnson

The faculties of our souls are improved and made useful to us just after the same manner as our bodies are. Would you have a man write or paint, dance or fence well, or
perform any other manual operation dexterously and with ease, let him have ever so much vigour and activity, suppleness and address naturally, yet no body expects this from him unless he has been used to it, and has employed time and pains in fashioning and forming his hand or outward parts to these motions. Just so it is in the mind; would you have a man reason well, you must use him to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connection of ideas and following them in train. — John Locke

For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are of the same height and class and shape of head. — John Le Carre

But, lady, as women, what wisdom may be ours if not the philosophies of the kitchen? Lupercio Leonardo spoke well when he said: 'how well one may philosophize when preparing dinner.' And I often say, when observing these trivial details: had Aristotle prepared vituals [sic], he would have written more. — Juana Ines De La Cruz

Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. — Albert Einstein

The examination combines the techniques of an observing hierarchy and those of a normalizing judgement. It is a normalizing gaze, a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish. It establishes over individuals a visibility through which one differentiates them and judges them. That is why, in all the mechanisms of discipline, the examination is highly ritualized. In it are combined the ceremony of power and the form of the experiment, the deployment of force and the establishment of truth. At the heart of the procedures of discipline, it manifests the subjection of those who are perceived as objects and the objectification of those who are subjected. The superimposition of the power relations and knowledge relations assumes in the examination all its visible brilliance. — Michel Foucault

Our job now, those of us simply observing today, shocked by this awful news, our job is to love people. When it hurts. When it's awkward. When it's uncool and embarrassing. Our job is to stand together, to carry the burdens of one another, and to meet one another in our questions. — Jamie Tworkowski

Some of life's greatest wisdom comes from observing the lives of very lost people. — Shannon L. Alder

none can shake off a sense of having free will. The best we can do is to reason that we are determined based on observing the common law of causality among things in the world and applying this law to ourselves. But we cannot feel ourselves as determined. (One philosopher has said, and possibly more have thought to themselves: "Can one really believe in determinism without going insane?") Being determined in thought and deed is not experientially noticeable, only abstractly deducible. It would be impossible for someone to say "I am nothing but a human puppet. — Thomas Ligotti

Perhaps for many Japanese, autobiographical fiction writing is life. We are a people expected to complement, to harmonize, to anticipate one another's needs. All without a single spoken clue.

And the reason is that he's in training to be a writer. Observing detail, understanding irony, interpreting motivation. Hiro knows that acts are symbolic. The hard sour fruit offered too soon in its season carries a message. He has made an error in the timing of his visit. He has inconvenienced that family.

This is the Japanese way. Cogitating on inner meaning. Revealing ourselves and perceiving others through carefully crafted scenes.

Writing our endless I-stories. — Lydia Minatoya

Do not try to understand love, rather, stand in love and observe what happens around you. — Nityananda Das

I just walk around, observing the subject from various angles until the picture elements arrange themselves into a composition that pleases my eye. — Andre Kertesz

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live. — Tara Brach

You can tell a lot about a country by observing how much better they treat themselves than foreigners at the point of entry. — Michael Lewis

The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern. — Willa Cather

The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why. — G.K. Chesterton

Observing is not the same as experiencing.' Li Wei gestures angrily at my stump. 'You sit there and judge others from a safe distance every day. You assume because you watch us, you understand us. But you don't. — Richelle Mead

Let us suppose that such a person began by observing those Christian activities which are, in a sense, directed towards this present world. He would find that this religion had, as a mere matter of historical fact, been the agent which preserved such secular civilization as survived the fall of the Roman Empire; that to it Europe owes the salvation, in those perilous ages, of civilized agriculture, architecture, laws, and literacy itself. He would find that this same religion has always been healing the sick and caring for the poor; that it has, more than any other, blessed marriage; and that arts and philosophy tend to flourish in its neighborhood. In a word, it is always either doing, or at least repenting with shame for not having done, all the things which secular humanitarianism enjoins. If our enquirer stopped at this point he would have no difficulty in classifying Christianity - giving it its place on a map of the 'great religions. — C.S. Lewis

From my experience and observing a lot of other people that often times that only happens - a transformational experience or shedding of the skin - happens when we are at the end of our road and there is pain involved. We have to change or we continue to live in that almost intolerable pain. — Ray McKinnon

Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004. On February 5, we were feeling pretty confident, even from observing the first few hours of usage. Students used it like crazy. They'd sign up then spend the next 3-4 hours on it. Then we'd go to lecture hall and see it on every computer screen there. — Dustin Moskovitz

The magnet's name the observing Grecians drew. From the magnetic region where it grew. — William Gilbert

These healers ... my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories ... But their facts are patent and startling; and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity. — William James

I love documentaries, I like observing real people. — Tracey Ullman

Miss Marple always sees everything. Gardening is as good as a smoke screen, and the habit of observing birds through powerful glasses can always be turned to account. — Agatha Christie

Observing and understanding are two different things. — Mary E. Pearson

There are really only three important things to remember in life: To care, to share, and to be fair. This is not a new idea at all, and yet, observing how most people live their lives, you might think it was. — Frederick Lenz

Author Stephen Brown notes that a veterinarian can learn a lot about a dog owner he has never met just by observing the dog. What does the world learn about God by watching us his followers — Philip Yancey

You are a low-class streetwalker past her prime." Azriel spoke dispassionately, as if he were observing her as a scientist might. And he wasn't done. "Your soul is black, your prospects non-existent because you've killed them all, and your life expectancy continues to decrease with every john you manage to con to make free use of your body. I am also willing to bet you carry more than one nasty surprise for any fool dumb enough to suck you. You repulse me. — Shara Azod

It is hard to see how one could begin to develop a quantum-theoretical description of brain action when one might well have to regard the brain as "observing itself" all the time! — Roger Penrose

You said they were friends, Mr Worthington. Sometimes third parties become intermediaries in these affairs.' On the word affair, he looked up and found himself staring directly into Peter Worthington's honest, abject eyes: and for a moment the two masks slipped simultaneously. Was Smiley observing? Or was he being observed? — John Le Carre

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger. Like a fireman, we have to pour water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. "Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I know that I must put all my energy into caring for my anger." So we avoid thinking about the other person, and we refrain from doing or saying anything as long as our anger persists. If we put all our mind into observing our anger, we will avoid doing any damage that we may regret later. — Nhat Hanh

Only by observing this condition would the results of our work be regarded as fully conclusive and as having elucidated the normal course of the phenomena. — Ivan Pavlov

I'm trying to justify it somehow, he thought, meaning it not in the moral sense but rather in the mathematical one. Buildings are built by observing certain natural laws; natural laws may be expressed by equations; equations must be justified. Where was the justification in what had happened less than half an hour ago? — Stephen King

Theere is an imperative to be in a process, the energy & consciousness of life means for us to be constantly observing, learning & becoming. — Jay Woodman

Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him, believed he deserved to be; - in Marianne he was consoled for every past affliction; - her regard and her society restored his mind to animation, and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby. — Jane Austen

The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs. — Charles Caleb Colton

There is no such thing as observing a mean in excess or deficiency, nor as exceeding or falling short in observance of a mean. — Aristotle.

It takes an honest look to observe our selves without judgment, and then to do something about it. Observing without judgment is the practice of yoga. Doing something about it is the stuff that makes up your life. — Tara Stiles

In some exquisite critical hints on "Eurythmy," Goethe remarks, "that the best composition in pictures is that which, observing the most delicate laws of harmony, so arranges the objects that they by their position tell their own story." And the rule thus applied to composition in painting applies no less to composition in literature. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. — Herman Melville

Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other, and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so — Lord Chesterfield

The inducements of interest for observing [neutral] conduct ... has been to endeavour to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption, to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes. — George Washington

I love reading people. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do. — Rihanna

Was it possible to do both, to contribute to the world while merely observing it? To be content in the moment, but plan for the future? Could you follow your heart without losing all common sense? — Holly Robinson

Meanwhile, back in the torture room, the cardinal is now being forced to bleed into a chalice and consecrate his own blood, not to God, but to Satan. They also cut off his big toe, and he is made to hold it up like a Host and say, "This is my body," the keenwitted Angelo observing that it's the first time he's told anything like the truth in fifty years of systematic lying. — Thomas Pynchon

Those who want their rights respected under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading the way that leads back to the jungle. — Calvin Coolidge

Austin Phelps makes this point in a chapter in his volume on prayer. He tells of Ethelfrith, the pagan Saxon king of Northumbria, who had invaded Wales and was about to give battle. The Welsh were Christians, and as Ethelfrith was observing the army of his opponents spread out before him, he noticed a host of unarmed men. When he asked who they were, he was told that they were the Christian monks of Bangor, praying for the success of their army. Ethelfrith immediately realized the seriousness of the situation. "Attack them first," he ordered. — Timothy J. Keller

...beyond observing that some law of logic should fix the number of coincidences, in a given domain, after which they cease to be coincidences, and form, instead, the living organism of a new truth ("Tell me," says Osberg's little glitana to the Moors, El Motela and Ramera, "what is the precise minimum of hairs on a body that allows one to call it 'hairy'?") — Vladimir Nabokov

One gets into a strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and noticing things in a normal way. — Fritz Kreisler

The lectures you deliver
may be wise and true,
But I'd rather get my lessons
by observing what you do.
I may not understand
the high advise you like to give,
But there's no misunderstanding
how you act and how you live. — Edgar Guest

When you are out observing on the gemba, do something to help them. If you do, people will come to expect that you can help them and will look forward to seeing you again on the gemba. — Taiichi Ohno

Whether we like it or not, quantification in history is here to stay for reasons which the quantifiers themselves might not actively approve. We are becoming a numerate society: almost instinctively there seems now to be a greater degree of truth in evidence expressed numerically than in any literary evidence, no matter how shaky the statistical evidence, or acute the observing eye. — J. H. Plumb