Observers Quotes:

Photographs are detonators. They explode in us. We are the gaze as well as the gazed-at. The observer and the observed.

- Edmundo Desnoes

topic: Photograph, Wells, Observers

Everyone has a watched life. Everyone is both the observer and the observed.

- Akiane Kramarik

topic: Observers

Observe, and in that observation there is neither the "observer" nor the "observed" - there is only observation taking place.

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

source: Fifth Public Talk Saanen, July 26, 1970.

topic: Observation, Observers

Is it possible to observe without the observer?

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

source: Jiddu Krishnamurti (1991). “The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti”, p.356, Krishnamurti Foundation of America

topic: Observers

The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

topic: Joints, Knows, Observers

We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense this is aparticipatory universe.

- John Archibald Wheeler

topic: Strange, Observers, Universe

We are often confident even when we are wrong, and an objective observer is more likely to detect our errors than we are.

- Daniel Kahneman

source: Daniel Kahneman (2011). “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, p.7, Macmillan

topic: Errors, Observers, Objectives

The observer of beauty always receives a passion to share the beauty with others.

- Timothy Keller

topic: Passion, Share, Observers

Jealousy is a keen observer, but looks for all the wrong signs.

- H. L. Mencken

topic: Jealousy, Looks, Observers

By observing your addictive behaviors, you observe your conditioning. When you observe your conditioning, you're free of it, because you are not your conditioning; you are the observer of your conditioning.

- Deepak Chopra

topic: Behavior, Conditioning, Observers

Which came first - the observer or the particle?

- Vanna Bonta

source: "Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel". Book by Vanna Bonta, June 1995.

topic: Firsts, Particles, Observers

I go inside my head and become that other me, the one I don't tell anybody about. The observer... I live in terror that one day I won't get to be Dani again.

- Karen Marie Moning

source: Karen Marie Moning (2012). “Iced: Fever Series”, p.351, Delacorte Press

topic: One Day, Terror, Observers

I’ve always been quiet, more of an observer.

- Isabel Lucas

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Quiet, Observers

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

- Nicholas Sparks

source: Nicholas Sparks (2009). “The Last Song”, p.15, Hachette UK

topic: World, Participants, Observers

Being a good observer is a great tool to have as a writer, just taking the world in.

- Lauren Conrad

topic: Tools, World, Observers

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1954). “The Power of Emerson's Wisdom”

topic: Learning, States, Learners, Observers

Passion, I've found, is not so attractive to the observer as to the participants ...

- Susan Dunlap

source: Susan Dunlap (1993). “Death and Taxes”, Dell Publishing Company

topic: Passion, Attractive, Found, Observers

There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things.

- Giordano Bruno

source: "Cause, Principle, and Unity". Book by Giordano Bruno, 1584.

topic: Space, Atheism, Body, Observers

Everything is the same spirit watching itself through the eyes of different observers.

- Deepak Chopra

topic: Eye, Different, Spirit, Observers

About myself - no. I'm unimportant, an observer, a wandering animal.

- Christina Stead

topic: Art, Animal, Wander, Observers

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

- Adam Smith

source: Walter Mosley (2009). “This Year You Write Your Novel”, p.7, Hachette UK

topic: Men, Watches, Firsts, Observers

Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.

- Eckhart Tolle

source: Eckhart Tolle (2001). “Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from the Power of Now”, p.81, New World Library

topic: Pain, Emotional, Thinking, Emotional Pain, Power Of Now

I am a committed observer. I like staying in the background and seeing what's going on.

- Valerie Trierweiler

topic: Committed, Backgrounds, Observers

There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers.

- John Steinbeck

topic: Football, Two, People, Notre Dame, Sweets And Desserts

We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.

- Maria Montessori

topic: Philosophy, Mean, Medicine, Montessori, Observers

All great expression, which on a superficial survey seems so easy as well as so simple, furnishes after a while, to the faithful observer, its own standard by which to appreciate it.

- Margaret Fuller

source: Margaret Fuller, Arthur Buckminster Fuller (1874). “Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman”, p.4

topic: Simple, Greatness, Expression, Observers

The soul is the observer who interprets and makes choices in a confluence of relationships. These relationships provide the background, setting, characters, and events that shape the stories of our lives.

- Deepak Chopra

source: Deepak Chopra (2007). “The Essential Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: The Essence of Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence”, p.51, Harmony

topic: Character, Choices, Soul, Confluence, Observers

We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.

- Tom Brown, Jr.

topic: Nature, Native American, Owl, Indomitable, Indomitable Spirit

Part of us is always the observer, and no matter what, it observes. It watches us. It does not care if we are happy or unhappy, if we are sick or well, if we live or die. It’s only job is to sit there on our shoulder and pass judgment on whether we are worthwhile human beings.

- Richard Bach

topic: Jobs, Sick, Unhappy, Observers

Once you become aware of your own body and its movements, you will be surprised that you are not your body. This is something of a basic principle, that if you can watch something then you are not it. You are the watcher, not the watched. You are the observer, not the observed. How can you be both?

- Rajneesh

topic: Principles, Watches, Movement, Observers

No, I don't think you're ever an objective observer. By making a frame you're being selective, then you edit the pictures you want published and you're being selective again. You develop a point of view that you want to express. You try to go into a situation with an open mind, but then you form an opinion, and you express it in your photographs.

- Mary Ellen Mark

source: Interview with Constance Sullivan, www.americansuburbx.com. 1990.

topic: Thinking, Views, Mind, Observers, Selective

PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

- Ambrose Bierce

source: Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.93, Courier Corporation

topic: Hope, Philosophy, Pessimism, Scarecrow, Disheartening

Synchronistic phenomena prove the simultaneous occurrence of meaningful equivalences in heterogenous, causally unrelated processes; in other words, they prove that a content perceived by an observer can, at the same time, be represented by an outside event, without any causal connection. From this it follows either that the psyche cannot be localized in time, or that space is relative to the psyche.

- Carl Jung

source: Carl Gustav Jung, Roderick Main (1997). “Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal”, Psychology Press

topic: Meaningful, Space, Independence, Simultaneous, Observers

Without an observer at a twenty three degree angle to the light being reflected off a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a twenty three degree angle to the universe. There is some new thing created at the contact of photon and retina, some space created between rock and mind.

- Kim Stanley

topic: Clouds, Light, Rocks, Photons, Droplets

People generally fall into one of three groups: the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens. Every person is either a creator of fact or a creature of circumstance. He either puts color into his environment, or, like a chameleon, takes color from his environment.

- Myles Munroe

topic: Relationship, Fall, Color, Passivity, Observers

To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.

- Louis L'Amour

topic: Political, Democracy, Doe, Observers

...separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible.

- Werner Heisenberg

topic: Separation, Observation, Phenomenon, Observers

I don't feel like basketball is the only way to make a living.

- Derek Fisher

topic: Basketball, Way, Feels, Observers

Everything I learned and didn't do in New York I would put into place here in the London West Hollywood. It's fascinating, when you look at the critics' reviews, and we had a great one in the New York Observer and all that, and then the New York Times came and it was a devastation; two stars out of four. They said that I played safe because it wasn't fireworks. Then they judged the persona over the substance that was on the plate.

- Gordon Ramsay

source: Source: www.crushable.com

topic: New York, Stars, Two, West Hollywood, They Said

The eighteenth-century view of the garden was that it should lead the observer to the enjoyment of the aesthetic sentiments of regularity and order, proportion, colour and utility, and, furthermore, be capable of arousing feelings of grandeur, gaiety, sadness, wildness, domesticity, surprise and secrecy.

- Penelope Hobhouse

topic: Sadness, Garden, Views, Gaiety, Domesticity

Actors are observers. They're trying to have an understanding of human sensibility. And how do you have that accurate observation if you regard yourself as someone of great importance? When you're the one constantly being observed, because they view you as a celebrity? It's all wrong.

- Hayden Christensen

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Views, Understanding, Trying, Observers

It's difficult for me to be around anyone for longer than an hour. Love, death, elation, sorrow, I just don't care all that much about any of it. I am at this point, more of an observer/journalist.

- Henry Rollins

source: Source: paulsemel.com

topic: Sorrow, Elation, Care, Observers

I never wanted to accept the position of the observer who is not involved in the situation. The technique and the aesthetics do not matter to me. Only the essence of what is happening is important to me. Here, for example, blurred pictures, they have appeared because for years I was shooting while being drunk.

- Antoine D'Agata

topic: Years, Essence, Drunk, Being Drunk, Observers

Adroit observers will find that some who affect to dislike flattery, may yet be flattered indirectly, by a well seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals.

- Charles Caleb Colton

source: Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.53

topic: Abuse, Rivals, May, Flattered, Observers

One who can see without seeming to see-- That's an observer as good as three.

- William Allingham

source: William Allingham, Helen Paterson Allingham (1912). “Poems”

topic: Three, Observers

When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.

- Annie Dillard

topic: Reading, Light, Sight, Shutters, Observers

One observer commenting on security analysts over forty stated: "They know too many things that are no longer true." As long as I am "on stage", publishing a regular record and assuming responsibility for management of what amounts to virtually 100% of the net worth of many partners, I will never be able to put sustained effort into any non-BPL activity. If I am going to participate publicly. I can't help being competitive. I know I don't want to be totally occupied with out-pacing an investment rabbit all my life. The only way to slow down is to stop.

- Warren Buffett

topic: Responsibility, Long, Effort, Pacing, Assuming Responsibility

The observer of the soul cannot penetrate into the soul, but there doubtless is a margin where he comes into contact with it. Recognition of this contact is the fact that even the soul does not know of itself. Hence it must remain unknown. That would be sad only if there were anything apart from the soul, but there is nothing else.

- Franz Kafka

source: Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

topic: Soul, Doe, Would Be, Observers

The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side; has its translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and necessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.7

topic: Spiritual, Lying, Play, Observers

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore risky to send it out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent.

- Mark Rothko

topic: Eye, World, Companionship, Unfeeling, Quickening

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

topic: Men, Thinking, Issues, Observers

The sun never sets. It is only an appearance due to the observer's limited perspective. And yet, what a sublime illusion it is.

- Eckhart Tolle

topic: Perspective, Sublime, Sun, Limited Perspective, Observers

When the mind goes beyond the thought of 'the me,' the experiencer, the observer, the thinker, then there is a possibility of a happiness that is incorruptible.

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

topic: Meditation, Mind, Possibility, Meditation Mindfulness, Observers

You are not a passive observer in the cosmos. The entire universe is expressing itself through you at this very moment.

- Jean Houston

topic: Cosmos, Moments, Passive, Observers

Who will observe the observers?

- Arthur Eddington

topic: Observers

Deep and elegant explanations relate to natural or social phenomena and the observer often has no place in them.

- Dimitar Sasselov

topic: Natural, Social, Explanation, Observers

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

topic: Perspective, Facts, Events, Interpreter, Observers

There are two phases of enjoyment in journeying through an unknown country - the eager phase of wondering interest in every detail, and the relaxed phase when one feels no longer an observer of the exotic, but a participator in the rhythm of daily life.

- Dervla Murphy

topic: Country, Two, Details, Observers

Fiction writers are strange beasts. They are, like all writers, observers first and foremost. Everything that happens to and around them is potential material for a story, and they look at it that way.

- Terry Brooks

source: Terry Brooks (2003). “Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life”, p.24, Del Rey

topic: Writing, Looks, Fiction, Observers

My approach is that we are not searching for experiences here. We are trying to know the one who experiences all experiences. Our search is for the witness. Who is this observer? Who is this consciousness? Sometimes it feels sad, sometimes it feels happy; sometimes it is so high, flying in the sky, and sometimes so down. Who is this watcher of all these games? - high and low, happy, unhappy, in heaven and hell. Who is this watcher? To know this watcher is to know God. And you are already it - just a little awakening is needed... no search but only awakening.

- Rajneesh

topic: Spiritual, Wisdom, Games, Highs And Lows, Observers

Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact, the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking.

- Steve Allen

source: Steve Allen (1998). “Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking : with 101 Ways to Reason Better & Improve Your Mind”

topic: Observers