Popular Perception Quotes & Sayings

Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness, one of the first synoptic articles to come out of his collaboration with Christof Koch at Caltech. I felt very privileged to see this manuscript, in particular their carefully laid-out argument that an ideal way of entering this seemingly inaccessible subject would be through exploring disorders of visual perception. Crick and Koch's paper was aimed at neuroscientists and covered a vast range in a few pages; it was sometimes dense and highly technical. But I knew that Crick could also write in a very accessible and witty and personable way; this was especially evident in his two earlier books, Life Itself and Of Molecules and Men. So I now entertained hopes that he might give a more popular and accessible form to his neurobiological theory of consciousness, enriched with clinical and everyday examples. — Oliver Sacks

You don't really see sleepwalking in films that often. It's weird; I feel like in popular culture we have the perception of sitcom, arms-in-front-of-your-body sleepwalking, and then maybe Olive Oil and Popeye when she sleepwalks through the construction site. But it's all very cartoonish, in some cases literally. — Mike Birbiglia

Akward, like when a mad aunt starts up about Jesus at the dinner table. As Septimus showed him to the door, the sergeant replaced his hat and said quietly, "A cruel piece of mischief-making, looks like. I reckon it's about time to bury the hatchet against Fritz. All a filthy business, but there's no need for pranks like this. I'd keep it under your hat, the note. Don't want to encourage copycats." He shook hands with Septimus and made his way up the long, gum-lined drive. Back in his study, Septimus put a hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Come on, girlie, chin up. Mustn't let this get the better of you. — M.L. Stedman

The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant
Once there was a race between a rabbit and an eggplant. Now, the eggplant, as you know, is a member of the vegetable kingdom, and the rabbit is a very fast animal.
Everybody bet lots of money on the eggplant, thinking that if a vegetable challenges a live animal with four legs to a race, then it must be that the vegetable knows something.
People expected the eggplant to win the race by some clever trick of philosophy. The race was started, and there was a lot of cheering. The rabbit streaked out of sight.
The eggplant just sat there at the starting line. Everybody knew that in some surprising way the eggplant would wind up winning the race.
Nothing of the sort happened. Eventually, the rabbit crossed the finish line and the eggplant hadn't moved an inch.
The spectators ate the eggplant.
Moral: Never bet on an eggplant. — Daniel Pinkwater

I generally like grey roles. My interpretation of drama is different from the popular perception. Acting, for me, is not about overplaying, it is about concealing. I like flawed characters that people relate to. I would never do a romcom. — Emraan Hashmi

She drew back from his embrace so she could look into his eyes, her own swimming with tears. The uncertainty in her face nearly killed him. She had no idea how lovable she was. How precious and brave and special. — Sarah Mayberry

Life even at its tiniest molecule is impermanent, transient, unsure and fickle. We try to make it worthwhile not by adding value to it but by improving our social perception, seeking validation in our interactional circles. Life cannot be valued for in the end, rich or poor, smart or dumb, popular or hermit, we are nothing but dust, vapor, blurry memories that eventually are soon forgotten. — Crystal Evans

His eyes flared dangerously. Did the lass think to share such intimacies with him and then rescind them? Och, nay, Dageus MacKeltar didn't go backward. She would find that out soon enough. — Karen Marie Moning

The popular prophets have underestimated how strange the truth can be. The human brain, that 'perfect instrument,' that 'fabulous electronic dance,' can be our open sesame to an infinitely richer life than we have believed possible. The fluent, liberating, creative, healing attributes of the altered states can be incorporated into consciousness. We are just beginning to realize that we can truly open the doors of perception and creep out of the cavern. — Marilyn Ferguson

During the sixteen years I served as the secretary to the First Presidency, I attended hundreds of meetings where President Hunter was in attendance. In the course of these meetings, President Hunter's voice was heard less frequently than almost any other. That is quite amazing when one considers the popular perception of lawyers as being verbose, but it is not to suggest that he sat mute in these meetings. He was always actively involved; however, he did not feel the need to be heard on every subject under discussion. When he did speak, what he said was thoughtful and analytical. — Francis M. Gibbons

It's a point of pride whenever you can point to the ways in which you're avoiding your progenitor's defective character. I'm not like him becomes your mantra, — Jonathan Tropper

What prophecy actually is is not that you actually know that the bomb will fall in 1942. It's that you know and feel something that somebody knows and feels in a hundred years. And maybe articulate it in a hint - a concrete way that they can pick up on in a hundred years. — Allen Ginsberg

As chef Mehdi Chellaoui says, "I use lemon like I use salt." Mario Batali would agree: if something is missing, it's probably acid. — Timothy Ferriss

If we wish for our country to have an exponentially brighter future, one of the things we need to change is the popular perception some kids have towards school. School is not a prison, it is not a night club, it is not a fight club; school is for learning, learning is the thing that begins the process of separating us from the animals. — Joshua Neik

You're just the special one. He loved your mother. She was his world and when she died you became his world. That's just the way it is, and I'm damn happy he gives a shit when it comes to you, Mase told her. — Abbi Glines

Lord Maccon asked meekly, shifting against her in a manner that ensured she realized the nibbling had affected his outsides just as much as her insides. Alexia was partly shocked, partly intrigued by the idea that as he was naked, she might actually get to see what he looked like. She had seen sketches of the nude male, of course, for purely technical purposes. She was given to wonder if werewolves were anatomically bigger in certain areas. — Gail Carriger

I said once that lies have no rights against truth. I was wrong. In daily life, it's the truth that's disenfranchised. What fits the popular narrative, what makes an observer happy with the consistency of events, is what is believed. — Adrian Lamo

It's a popular fact that 90 percent of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong ... It is used. One of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary, to turn the unusual into the usual. Otherwise, human beings, faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing a stupid grin, saying "Wow," a lot. Part of the brain exists to stop this from happening. — Terry Pratchett

A popular perception that political news is boring is no minor issue; for when news fails to harness the curiosity and attention of a mass audience through its presentational techniques, a society becomes dangerously unable to grapple with its own dilemmas and therefore to marshal the popular will to change and improve itself. — Alain De Botton

Our biggest challenge is to eliminate the popular perception that economists don't have anything useful to say. — Mark Zandi

The Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has fully digested his last. He is constantly agitating for government action. And in furtherance of that purpose, the Statist speaks in the tongue of the demagogue, concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions and build popular momentum for the divestiture of liberty and property from its rightful possessors. — Mark Levin

I wanted to reinvent horror comics. I felt like it was my mission to open people's eyes to the fact that horror comics could be so much more than the popular perception of them. — Stephen R. Bissette

Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life. — Billy Joel

Now, the popular perception certainly is that violence is greater today-but that's mostly propaganda: that's just a part of the whole effort to make people frightened, so that they'll abandon their rights. — Noam Chomsky

The Holy Spirit gives liberty to the Christian, direction to the worker, discernment to the teacher, power to the Word, and fruit to faithful service. He reveals the things of Christ. — Billy Graham

It can be easy to buy into anything. I would lose focus if I went with that attitude of wanting to be famous. — Tristan MacManus

It is quite reasonable to subscribe both to the old saw that no good girl was ever ruined by a book and to the perception that it is not good for children to be constantly exposed to the sexual violence in our popular culture. Protecting children seems to me logically, legally, and rather easily differentiated from censorship ... — Molly Ivins

We are partners with our children because we are just like them, dearly loved sinners. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

If on one day we find the fast-spreading recognition of popular rights accompanied by a silent, growing perception of the rights of women, we also find it accompanied by a tendency towards a system of non-coercive education
that is, towards a practical illustration of the rights of children. — Herbert Spencer

The widely mis-interpreted 1998 'meltdown' of East Asia was a financial symptom of the renewed reality: In fact, it was the first round the world recession again to begin in East Asia and spread from there to the West, instead of vice versa. That marked the beginnings of the return back 360 degrees around the world of the world economic center to Asia where it had always been before those two eighty-year period of temporary Western ascendance. The stock market crash in Hong Kong and the devaluation of the Thai baht and the Indonesian rupia took only 80 seconds to make themselves felt in the London City and on New York's Wall Street. How much of a cultural lag do we still need for popular perception and social theory to catch up with global reality? — Andre Gunder Frank

While the sciences are hugely important, let us not leave behind a child's imagination. — Kevin Spacey

Above all, never think you're not good enough. Never think that. In life people will take you at your own reckoning. — Isaac Asimov