Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend

Consciousness of a fact is not knowing it: if it were, the fish would know more of the sea than the geographers and the naturalists.

You can be standing right in front of the truth and not necessarily see it, and people only get it when they're ready to get it.

The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.

Without consciousness and intelligence, the universe would lack meaning.

The great mystery of our consciousness is beyond our grasp.

The perception of what a thing is and the perception of what it means are not separate, either.

He who closes his eyes sees nothing, even in the full light of day.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't.

As adults, when we attend to something in the world we are vividly conscious of that particular thing, and we shut out the surrounding world. The classic metaphor is that attention is like a spotlight, illuminating one part of the world and leaving the rest in darkness.

Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.

The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant.

The best thing anybody ever told me about acting - and I think it's probably true for life, generally - is listen. You've really got to watch, and you've really got to listen. Not see and hear.

It's one thing thinking something and another thing knowing it.

Once I started to look i finally began to see.

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.

Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.

The rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing.

We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice.

But I know that all the things I do know are very small compared with the things that I don't know.

To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas and perception being the same thing.

It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.

If a man cannot see a church, it is preposterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece or painted window.