Participant Observer Quotes & Sayings

Church leaders raised on rationalism lead ministries where the supernatural, the Vertical, is suppressed and where God Himself is at best an observer and certainly seldom, if ever, and obvious participant in church. — James MacDonald

Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. The measure of all things ... — Robert M. Pirsig

Time had ceased to feel linear. She looked up through the crisscrossing branches, thick with buds, into the night sky. The stars tugged at her gaze, trying to pull her up among them, or she was pulling them down to her. She was on the verge of some great discovery, she realized, but she had no idea what it was, what it related to, whether it even had anything to do with her at all. Was she a participant, or an observer? Did the world center around her, or could it carry on quite easily without her input? Looking up at those stars, feeling the embrace of their light as it enfolded her, she felt both small and large, as though everything mattered and nothing did. When someone crouched down beside her it took years for her to turn her head to see who it was. All she could make out was a dark shape, a vague outline of head and shoulders silhouetted against the stars, the rest of the body lost in the shadows of the rose bushes. — Charles De Lint

I am tired and drunk and still hungry. He is full of steak and Coca-Cola and, presumably, energy: enough energy to cross the road and walk up the steps inside the tower of the cathedral, which I have never entered. — Joanna Walsh

The cafeteria made him feel like an observer rather than a participant in the high school experience. — Alexandra Robbins

At times, he even admitted that he'd been more an observer of the world than a participant in it ... — Nicholas Sparks

The Savior was no ivory-tower observer, no behind-the-lines captain ... The Savior was a participant, a player, who not only understood our plight intellectually, but who felt our wounds because they became his wounds. — Tad R. Callister

Once you witness an injustice, you are no longer an observer but a participant." ~ June Callwood. — June Callwood

You are not an observer, you are a participant. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I am not much interested in discovering new territories to photograph. Instead, what I wish my pictures could do is lessen the distance one often feels when looking at landscape photographs ... The longer I work, the more important it is to me to make photographs that tell my story as a participant, and not just an observer of the land. — Mark Klett

If you're too close to events, you lose perspective. It is not easy to be fair with the facts and keep your own convictions out of the picture. It is almost impossible to be both a participant in the events and their observer, witness, interpreter. — Micha Bar-Am

Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter. In — Irvin D. Yalom

At Times, even he admitted that he'd been more an observer of the world than a participant in it, and in moments of painful honesty, he sometimes believed he was a failure in all what was important — Nicholas Sparks

I had always felt that I was an observer, never a participant; that I was watching from behind a thick glass wall as people went about the business of living
and did it with such ease, with a skill that they took for granted and that I had never known. — Tana French

What I mean by photographing as a participant rather than observer is that I'm not only involved directly with some of the activities that I photograph, such as mountain climbing, but even when I'm not I have the philosophy that my mind and body are part of the natural world. — Galen Rowell

I wasn't an activist then. I would become one eventually, but at that time I did not yet see myself as an organizer or a leader, I saw myself as a foot soldier in the movement and as an active participant - not a bystander or observer - in a particular and extraordinary moment in history. I think that all of my friends felt some degree of obligation to at least show up, be counted, and stand with our brothers and sisters and to be as fierce and fabulous and free as possible — Cleve Jones

Anthropology is never an exact science; the observer never experiences the same culture as the participant. But these are natural limitations inherent to the science. It is the artificial limitations that hamper us - and, through us, you. — Orson Scott Card

The name Maldoror, suggesting as it does evil, gold, horror, dawn, sadness etc., seems a curious hybrid, but on reading the work its full title, Les Chants de Maldoror par Le Comte de Lautreamont, seems to contain & imply the constant switches in narrative emphasis-the self as a game (je-jeu) & the author as observer, participant & invisible man-as well as being an inevitable & accurate condensation of, or hint at, the contents. — Alexis Lykiard

I am an observer of life, a non-participant who takes no sides. I am in the regimented society, but not of it. — Moondog

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. 'Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem.' This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: 'Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant.' — Ari Shapiro

It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt. — Sherwood Smith

I thought of myself as an outsider in a lot of ways as I was growing up. Not in a bad way; more as an observer. I often find myself thinking as an observer of science fiction rather than as a participant. — Karl Schroeder

I discipline my mind to see past distractions, to scrutinize deceptive tendencies and to pay careful attention to details whether I am conversing with others or I'm just a passive observer. — Carlos Wallace

I went as an observer, not a participant, for I do not think that I ever spoke. I wanted to understand the issues under discussion, evaluate the arguments, see the calibre of the men involved. — Nelson Mandela

The objective observer always has the advantage over a direct participant. — Vadim Zeland

'Participant' is the incontrovertible new concept given by quantum mechanics. It strikes down the 'observer' of classical theory, the man who stands safely behind the thick glass wall and watches what goes on without taking part. It can't be done, quantum mechanics says it ... May the universe in some sense be 'brought into being' by the participation of those who participate? — John Archibald Wheeler

Playboy: Have you ever taken LSD yourself?
McLUHAN: No, I never have. I'm an observer in these matters, not a participant. — Marshall McLuhan

An overemphasis upon imminence in preaching has banished transcendence and tended to a theology of God being technically present as an observer but effectively absent as a participant. When — James MacDonald

In microphysics the observer interferes with the experiment in a way that can't be measured and that therefore can't be eliminated. No natural laws can be formulated, saying "such-and-such will happen in every case." All the microphysicist can say is "such-and-such is, according to statistical probability, likely to happen." This naturally represents a tremendous problem for our classical physical thinking. It requires a consideration, in a scientific experiment, of the mental outlook of the participant-observer: It could this be said that scientists can no longer hope to describe any aspects or qualities of outer objects in a completely independent, "objective" manner. — M.L. Von Franz

You stop talking about things when you've worked them out. You're no longer an observer but a participant. You're too busy for this bullshit. — Caitlin Moran

She is emerging (she has no choice) / into a place / like sex or childbirth, / one thing to the observer, something very different to the participant. — Kathleen Ossip

When all you can do is watch things play out for someone, it is often just as painful for the observer as it is for the participant. — Torry Martin