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We're a little different than most social networks. Like you, we're here for a reason! Our goal? To inspire and empower you to realize your purpose, so that you can do the same for others, and so that, together, we can contribute to a better world.

Come join us... not only can you develop your own library of quotations and receive daily inspiration and wisdom, you'll be able to experience an emerging world of others who share your vision for a positive future.

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Quotes about Observation

"What a shift!  In a radically different interpretation of our relationship to the world we live in, Wheeler states that it's impossible for us to simply watch the universe happen around us.  Experiments in quantum physics, in fact, do show that simply looking at something as tiny as an electron--just focusing our awareness upon what it's doing for even an instant of time--changes its properties while we're watching it.  The experiments suggest that the very observation is an act of creation, and that consciousness is doing the creating.  These findings seem to support Wheeler's propostion that we can no longer consider ourselves merely onlookers who have no effect on the world that we're observing.

To think of ourselves as participating in creation rather than simply passing through the universe during a brief period of a lifetime requires a new perception of what the cosmos is and how it works.  The groundwork for such a radical worldview was the basis for a series of books and papers by another Princeton physicist and colleague of Einstein, David Bohm.  Before his death in 1992, Bohm left us two pioneering theories that offer a very different--and in some ways, a nearly holistic--view of the universe and our role in it.

The first was an interpretation of quantum physics that set the stage for Bohm's meeting and subsequent friendship with Einstein.  It was this theory that opened the door to what Bohm called the "creative operation of underlying ... levels of reality."  In other words, he beileved that there are deeper or higher planes of creation that hold the template for what happens in our world.  It's from these subtler levels of reality that our physical world originates."

Gregg Braden
Source: Divine Matrix
Contributed by: Beth Martell. More quotes added by Bird from all sources
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To acquire knowledge, one must study.To acquire wisdom one must observe.

Marilyn vos Savant (1946 - )
 
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I go to a pub and talk to another man. He is experienced deeply part of the time, and shallowly another part of the time, depending on the quality of my consciousness. If I am very conscious, meeting him can be an experience comparable to great music or even an earthquake; if I am in the usual shallow state, he barely "makes an impression." If I am practicing alertness and neurological self-criticism, I may observe that I am only experiencing him part of the time, and that part of the time I am not-tuning-in but drifting off to my favorite “Real” Universe and editing out at the ear-drum much of what he is saying. Often, the “Real” Universe hypnotizes me sufficiently that, while I “hear” what he says, I have no idea of the way he says it or what he means to convey.

Robert Anton Wilson
 
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Ever since learning I wasn’t the only unreal person in the world, I’d developed an annoying habit of studying people to determine their true ontological status. I studied people in class, the library, the cafeteria, my dorm, around campus, while running the Gargoyle Castle Loop. Now, under the influence of acid, I began to suspect everyone was unreal. That behind all the masks and makeup, the smiles and laughter, the quips and repartees, there was a good chance of finding absolutely nothing.

Sol Luckman
Contributed by: Leigh. More quotes added by Leigh from this | all sources
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[Physicist Henry Stapp of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.]

            “How does the mid/brain cause one particular line of thought, or decision, to be sustained over another?  Stapp offers an intriguing speculation based on the Quantum Zeno Effect.  This refers to a prediction (since confirmed by experiments) that  the act of rapidly observing a quantum system forces that system to remain in its wavelike, indeterminate state, rather than to collapse into a particular, determined state.  As Stapp says,

            ‘Taken to the extreme, observing continuously whether an atom is in a certain state keeps it in that state forever.  For this reason, the Quantum Zeno Effect is also known as the watched pot effect.  The mere act of rapidly asking questions of a quantum system freezes it in a particular state, preventing it from evolving as it would if we weren’t peeking.  Simply observing a quantum system suppresses certain of its transitions to other states.’”

Dean Radin : Gaia Child
Dean Radin
Contributed by: David. More quotes added by HeyOK from this | all sources
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Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha : Indian mystic, founder of Buddhism
Buddha (563 - 483 BC)
Source: Kalama Sutra : Buddha (Anguttara Nikaya Vol. 1, 188-193 P.T.S. Ed.)
Contributed by: Sarang. More quotes added by whoAmI? from all sources
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The torture of being the unseen object, and the constantly observed subject.

LeRoi Jones
 
Contributed by: mar. More quotes added by mar from all sources
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Sit in reverie, and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: unknown
Contributed by: mar. More quotes added by mar from all sources
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Of course, a psychologist would find it more direct to study the inspired poet. He would make concrete studies of inspiration in individual geniuses. But for all that, would he experience the phenomena of inspiration? His human documentation gathered from inspired poets could hardly be related, except from the exterior, in an ideal of objective observations. Comparison of inspired poets would soon make us lose sight of inspiration.

Gaston Bachelard (1884 - 1962)
Source: The Poetics of Reverie, Page: 6..7
Contributed by: Christopher Galtenberg. More quotes added by Chris from this | all sources
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"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

George Bernard Shaw : British playwright & novelist
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Source: George Bernard Shaw
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"To observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence."

J. (Jiddu) Krishnamurti : Indian religious figure, spiritual teacher, educated in England
J. Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)
 
Contributed by: Gaia Dempsey. More quotes added by Gaia from all sources
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Thinking is the talking of the soul to itself.

Plato : Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle
Plato (c.427 - 347 BC)
 
Contributed by: Randy Walker. More quotes added by Randy from all sources
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Honor thy error as hidden intention.

Brian Eno
 
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When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw : British playwright & novelist
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
 
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By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth.

Yukio Mishima
 
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You can observe a lot just by watching.

Yogi Berra (1925 - )
 
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The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England - he should have said Britain, of course - always wins one battle - the last. Eleutherios Venizelos, 1864-1936, Greek statesman.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill : British prime minister during World War II, winner of Nobel Prize for literature 1953
Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
Source: Speech at the Lord Mayor's Day Luncheon, London, November 10, l942
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Brutus, I do observe you now of late: I have not from your eyes that gentleness And show of love as I was wont to have: You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand Over your friend that loves you. Poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shows of love to other men.

William Shakespeare : English poet, the greatest poet ever
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Source: Julius Cesar, Act 1, scene 2.
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For he is but a bastard to the time that doth not smack of observation.

William Shakespeare : English poet, the greatest poet ever
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Source: King John
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The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

Will Rogers : American humorist & writer
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)
 
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We hear a good deal about business confidence, which means confidence of business in itself, in its government, and in its capacity for expansion. But confidence is only another way of saying that people believe each other, keep their promises, pay their debts, and regard their duty to society. As long as business observes these rules, it will have the confidence of the community and it will be safe from all of the irresponsible attacks of its enemies.

Will H. Nays
 
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If we represent knowledge as a tree, we know that things that are divided are yet connected. We know that to observe the divisions and ignore the connections is to destroy the tree.

Wendell Berry (1934 - )
 
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Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)
 
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I suppose the pleasure of the country life lies really in the eternally renewed evidences of the determination to live. That is a truism when said, but anything but a truism when daily observed. Nothing shows up the difference between the thing said or read, so much as the daily experience of it.

Vita Sackville-West (1892 - 1962)
Source: Country Notes, 1940
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Hope is a state of mind, not of the world . . . Either we have hope or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons ... Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather and ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel
 
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What is true for you is what you have observed yourself.

unknown : Gaia Child
unknown
 
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Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd: I am always about in the Quad. And that's why the tree Will continue to be, Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.

unknown : Gaia Child
unknown
Source: The Limerick Book
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Life was not meant to be observed, it was meant to be stolen

unknown : Gaia Child
unknown
Source: Covington Cross
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Eight "Do Mores" 1. Do more than exist: Live. 2. Do more than touch: Feel. 3. Do more than hear: Listen. 4. Do more than listen: Understand. 5. Do more than look: Observe. 6. Do more than love: Serve. 7. Do more than think: Ponder. 8. Do more than Talk: Say something.

unknown : Gaia Child
unknown
 
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Speaking of automobiles, some wit has observed; many freeways have three lanes. There's a left lane, a right lane and the one you're trapped in when you go past your exit.

unknown : Gaia Child
unknown
Source: Albert W. Daw Collection
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