Arvo Part Quotes

Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.

Success in any endeavor requires single-minded attention to detail and total concentration.

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.

My eye is educated to discover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens.

Another way to be awakened by the beauty and complexity of the word is to get a dog. Small Things like a plant that I had passed a thousand time and never given a second thought to. But the dog is curious. And the dog stops and wants to smell this and smell that. And the dog makes you look and focus and take the time.

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

For the next week, try the best you can to pay attention to sounds. You will start hearing all these sounds coming in. Once you let them in, you've already done the first and most critical thing, you've honored that information by including it. And by doing that, you've actually changed the world.

Attention is the material I work with.

If you're really in the process of photographing, you are absolutely aware. You are looking.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

In the first place, you must pay great attention to the key note.

Focusing isn't just an optical activity, it is also a mental one.

The focus and the concentration and the attention to detail that flying takes is a kind of meditation. I find it restful and engaging, and other things slip away.

Don't think that the things around you don't count, because they do.

You need to pay attention to the little things as well as the big things.

Listening is active. At its most basic level, it's about focus, paying attention.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

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.

When we turn on our observation capabilities, we become much more in the moment and much more powerful. Psychic powers have been known to develop from consistent practice of paying attention. It's available to us all. It's all in what we choose to practice.

The real value in everything you do is in the details. I just like that quote. A very similar way to say the same thing. If you're washing dishes you pay attention to washing dishes. If you're driving a car, you're paying attention to driving the car.

Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we use this energy. Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how use it. And it is an energy under control, to do with as we please; hence attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.

Whatever you are doing, put your whole mind on it. If you are shooting, your mind should be only on the target. Then you will never miss. If you are learning your lessons, think only of the lesson. In India boys and girls are taught to do this.

The naturalist is a civilized hunter. He goes alone into the field or woodland and closes his mind to everything but that time and place, so that life around him presses in on all the senses and small details grow in significance. He begins the scanning search for which cognition was engineered. His mind becomes unfocused, it focuses on everything, no longer directed toward any ordinary task or social pleasantry.

I always notice flowers.