Noticing Things Quotes

Everyone chases after happiness,
not noticing that happiness is right at their heels ~ Bertolt Brecht

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

Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened. ~ James M. Barrie

I'm not sure a lot of other people would walk up to the same artwork and see the shadow on the person's face from the hat and be like "Do you see that!" It's about noticing things that interest you, and that definitely happens with the natural world as well. ~ Laura Owens

They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns) ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I try to be upbeat. I read this book which tells you to write down everything that you're grateful for each day. Now I'm constantly noticing all the little things that make me joyful. ~ Naomie Harris

I must confess that in all the times I read Madame Bovary, I never noticed the heroine's rainbow eyes. Should I have? Would you? Was I perhaps too busy noticing things that Dr Starkie was missing (though what they might have been I can't for the moment think)? Put it another way: is there a perfect reader somewhere, a total reader? Does Dr Starkie's reading of Madame Bovary contain all the responses which I have when I read the book, and then add a whole lot more, so that my reading is in a way pointless? Well, I hope not. My reading might be pointless in terms of the history of literary criticism; but it's not pointless in terms of pleasure. I can't prove that lay readers enjoy books more than professional critics; but I can tell you one advantage we have over them. We can forget. Dr Starkie and her kind are cursed with memory: the books they teach and write about can never fade from their brains. They become family. Perhaps this is why some critics develop a faintly patronising tone towards their subjects. They act as if Flaubert, or Milton, or Wordsworth were some tedious old aunt in a rocking chair, who smelt of stale powder, was only interested in the past, and hadn't said anything new for years. Of course, it's her house, and everybody's living in it rent free; but even so, surely it is, well, you know…time?
Whereas the common but passionate reader is allowed to forget; he can go away, be unfaithful with other writers, come back and be entranced again. Domesticity ~ Julian Barnes

She handed him the blankets and the ground sheet and he shook them out, then put them down under the trees. Angie got down on her knees and spread the ground sheet over the leaves, then the blankets.
'You never forget do you? I mean about seeing things first.'
'Hope I never.'
He was oddly uncomfortable, hesitant. 'Good way to lose your hair, not noticing things.'
He sat down and pulled off his boots. The cottonwoods whispered more softly. The squirrel gave one short inquiring chatter, then was silent.
The lone coyote spoke to the sky and the stream rustled busily about the stones. A bit of mud fell into the stream with a faint plop.
It was night and there was no sound. Or anyway, not very much. (p 154) ~ Louis L'Amour

I try not to look at her because it's weird to check out your best friend, but I can't stop noticing things that I can't believe I've missed all these years. Her ears are exactly the right size. Her head is exactly the right shape. She smells fantastic.

'What?' she asks.

'Your head,' I tell her, 'is a very pleasing shape.'

'Likewise,' she says, and smiles. ~ Cath Crowley

Photography is simply a function of noticing things. ~ Elliott Erwitt

although it may seem obsessive I began noticing things and made note of it, knowing what I knew gave us an advantage. ~ Charon Lloyd-Roberts

It's not enough to be aware of the domain you're working in, you need to understand it. Noticing things and being curious about how they work is the single most common trait I see in creative people. Once you can break the components down, you can put them back together into something brand new. ~ Seth

You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy. ~ Elliott Erwitt

Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you've started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can't get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things? ~ Joyce Meyer

By losing my external things, I found myself. I found something very powerful, very permanent, that I could have with me all the time. ~ Isha Judd

Save lies for things that are important. ~ Sean Michael

I am the recipient of many benefits that I do not deserve and did not earn. Someone else paid for them. I am grateful! How do I show my gratitude? By daily pouring into others and passing on to them the things that will allow them to run far and achieve beyond what I have done. ~ John C. Maxwell

The best things in life are usually difficult. ~ Dirk Benedict

You have to fight to hold on to the important things. ~ Anna Jarzab

One of the beautiful things about podcasting is that I'm not beholding to some public entity. ~ Bryan Callen

The paradox of worship is this: we perform these acts of worship, but they are not actually for us. We do these things for God, and then we are the ones who are changed. ~ Robert Benson

Many energy companies will use models to value assets with lifetimes of 20 years or longer - things like power plants, pipelines, and natural gas wells. Even if the model was sufficient when first developed, it can still fail before its lifetime is up. Assumptions made 15 years earlier are often invalidated due to regulatory changes, population shifts, and technological changes. Exacerbating this problem is the problem of employee turnover - commonly, the original developers of the models have moved to other jobs when problems develop. After a number of years, organizations need to take steps to ensure that someone still understands every model that is in production. ~ Davis W. Edwards

Humans are the absolute worst thing to happen to this planet. ~ Lauren DeStefano

I think my books give people a language to have a conversation about God that's not religious. There isn't enough new literature that brings the conversation of God into a modern context. I love the Bible, but in the West we've analyzed it until it fits into a structure of control. We need more new stories. We need different ways of looking at things, and I think it's coming. ~ William P. Young

The best thing must be to flee from all to the All. ~ Teresa Of Avila

I love my children, but I don't really want to talk about them. I'm not that much of a freakish middle-aged mother, I'm just very lucky, and there isn't much more to say. I'd like not to be constantly expected to be a spokesman for things that are part of the natural rhythm of a woman's life. ~ Mariella Frostrup

If we close our eyes and take a deep breath, and summon meaningful memories, we quickly notice that they are tied to a specific place. The place evokes a network of sensations, the warmth of sunlight on your skin, the smell of your love, the sound of her voice. Architecture, through its unique means, creates a harbor for these ephemeral, tangible things. ~ Sarah Robinson

Even if, in one or other of them, I had a particular word or words in mind, I would not tell anyone, because the same word means different things to different people. Only the songs say the same thing, arouse the same feeling, in everyone - a feeling that can't be expressed in words. ~ Felix Mendelssohn

Remembering your mistakes more acutely than any minor success. This was the worst. The things that kept you up at night. Tip a waiter that was too small. The words that didn't fit the moment. Words that didn't come till to late. You could kill yourself in increments, punishing your spirit day after day-regret. Guilt. Not the guilt of the little girl who woke in the night embarrassed God was mad at her because she had ticked balls under her shirt, pretending to have breasts. "I even felt sexy." That was sweet, and pure, no crime at all. But the crime of obsessive replay-get rid of it, get rid of it. Who could ever have known that hardest punishments would be the ones you gave yourself? ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

All things considered, science is the best means of understanding almost everything around us. It works well on the human scale and stands as a stark counter-point to beliefs that by their very nature refute the notion of evidence. And I would be the last person to attack people encouraging the rest of us to use our ability to be rational, thereby defending the value and the necessity of science. But I will lift a querying hand when the notion of 'science' is held to be immutable, because 'science' as such does not exist. Science is a process to be sure, a way of thinking, but what science is above all is that which scientists do, and alas, scientists are people, too. As potentially fallible, irrational, biased, greedy, in short, as flawed, as the rest of us. So, by all means defend science as a process. But don't confuse it with the very human endeavor of science as a profession. Because they're not the same thing. And this is why when some guy in a white lab-coat says 'you can trust me, I'm a scientist,' best take it with a big bucket of salt, and then say 'Fine, now show me the evidence and more to the point, show me how you got to it. ~ Steven Erikson

We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life. ~ Epictetus

I've thought of doing many things in my life, under the influence of life, and I've never actually thought of straddling two carriages while they're moving. ~ Johnny Depp

It occurs to me one evening as I'm feeding the birds that all I did was put two birds in the aviary, some food and water and nothing else and now there are six of them. I know this is perfectly natural, it's one of the things life is all about, but to have it happen in my bedroom, under my own eyes, is magic. ~ William Wharton

Sometimes when you try too hard," Aqamdax explained, "things get tangled, and the only way to untangle them is to let go. ~ Sue Harrison

Man, as a spiritual being, cannot be maintained in strength, uprightness, and peace except if he periodically withdraw himself from the outer world of perishable things and reach inwardly towards the abiding and imperishable realities. ~ James Allen

I really love doing nothing. I really love just being at home and taking a couple of days, you know, doing nothing. You know what I mean? Just getting up, being around the house, going outside the back yard, coming back in; I really like to do nothing because I travel a lot. There's a lot of travelling. There's a lot of on the phone all the time. There's a lot of looking at papers and reading things and so you don't want to read magazines and you don't want to do anything; you don't want to read books, you just want to just kind of shut down a little bit. ~ Jennifer Lopez

Men and women thought and did noble and mean things that would have been impossible to them before or after. A man cannot drink old Bourbon long and remain in his normal condition. We did not drink Bourbon, but blood. ~ Rebecca Harding Davis

There is always this perception that you want to shoot for the top, but I think there's this great place to shoot for the middle and get consistent work and try different things and do the work you want to do with the kind of people you want to do it with. ~ Callum Keith Rennie

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art. ~ Charles Saatchi

One of the first obligations of art is to make all useful things beautiful. ~ Edith Wharton

[T]he price you've paid is not the price of becoming human. It's not even the price of having the things you just mentioned. It's the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world. ~ Daniel Quinn

To have people to the White House and worry about the price of things is laughable. ~ Letitia Baldrige

The green painted concrete out in front of the house, which at first seemed like a novel way to save money on lawn-moving, was now just plain depressing. The hot water came reluctantly to the kitchen sink as if from miles away, and even then without conviction, and sometimes a pale brownish color. Many of the windows wouldn't open properly to let flies out. Others wouldn't shut properly to stop them getting in. The newly planted fruit trees died in the sandy soil of a too-bright backyard and were left like grave-markers under the slack laundry lines, a small cemetery of disappointment. It appeared to be impossible to find the right kinds of food, or learn the right way to say even simple things. The children said very little that wasn't a complaint. ~ Shaun Tan

I've wanted to be Mick Jagger since I was 18. One of the things I love about music is that you don't have to be dependent on other people like you are in the film business. I hate being dependent on anyone. With my music, I can do whatever I want. I also think it's made me more relaxed as an actress. ~ Emmanuelle Seigner

You should do it, Trixie. It's good for your soul. If you have a desire to write, that means there's stuff in you that wants out. And if you don't write things down, you just forget them," he said. "Think of all the stuff you've forgotten over the course of your lifetime."
"How can I think of it if I've forgotten it?"
"My point exactly. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

I'd gone my whole life with people expecting things I didn't seem capable of giving, so why should now be any different? ~ Jordan Castillo Price

We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are. ~ Cynthia Ozick

I don't know how long I lay there afterward, telling myself: squeeze your eyelids tight, just try to forget. Try to ignore all the things that didn't feel right, all the things that felt like they would never feel right again. ~ Amber Smith

Call it an issue. Call it baggage. But I really hated lies. They're ugly things, festering like wounds, spreading like disease. They're winner-less crimes that hurt everybody in the end. ~ Cora Carmack

When people campaign for positions, they promise people all kinds of things. ~ Hugh Masekela

Monsters are very real. But they're not just creatures. Monsters are everywhere. They're people. They're nightmares ... They are the things that we harbor within ourselves. If you remember one thing, even above remembering me, remember that there is not a monster dreamt that hasn't walked once within the soul of a man. ~ C. Robert Cargill

There seems to be a consistency, in that people who have had access to the Iranian program - people who actually have had boots on the ground and have been able to investigate and inspect the program - have consistently been saying these things. ~ Trita Parsi

And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd? You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And ~ Plato

And it came to pass that there was no darkness in all that night, but it was as light as though it was mid-day. And it came to pass that the sun did rise in the morning again, according to its proper order; and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be aborn, because of the bsign which had been given. 20 And it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets. 21 And it came to pass also that a new astar did appear, according to the word. ~ The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

Life is rich it's full of gifts-the more you have the more there is to share. You know its men with small souls who think there isn't enough to go around. They fight to keep their little grasp on their tiny piece of the world and they're always angry because they're never satisfied. They're cursed with a hole they can never fill. They may get things done but they can never keep what they've achieved. ~ Phyllis Curott

Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances. Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. ~ Charles Spurgeon

[Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers ... The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it ... The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it. ~ Terry Gilliam

[If]…we are not afraid to adopt a revolutionary stance - if, indeed, we wish to be radical in our quest for change - then we must get to the root of our oppression. After all, radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'" ~ #AngelaDavis, "Let Us All Rise Together ~ Angela Y. Davis