Arnold Bennett Quotes

The really magical things are the ones that happen right in front of you. A lot of the time you keep looking for beauty, but it is already there. And if you look with a bit more intention, you see it.

Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.

[W]e have ceased to see the life in which we live. It is my intent to cause the viewer to revisit the gifts we are surrounded by and see them as if for the first time.

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.

I try not to have too many opinions; I just marvel at the world we live in.

I'm saying look, here they come, pay attention. Let your eyes transform what appears ordinary, commonplace, into what it is, a moment in time, an observed fragment of eternity.

Something that's very important is to preserve the sense of surprise, the sense of discovery. The eye of the person you are talking to, your shadow on the ground. It's important not to get suffocated by all the things in life and lose that sense of surprise.

Cultivate the habit of zest. Purposefully seek out the beauty in the seemingly trivial. Especially in the trivial. The colors and shapes of the foods you eat. The shadows a vase makes on your table. The interesting faces of the people on the bus with you.

I simply liked looking at the world around us.

If you don’t see the wonder in the most ordinary phenomenon, you’re not going to resonate very much.

The part I enjoy most is not the doing, but the noticing.

The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing. Nothing is boring if you look at it carefully.

I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don't notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.

How beautiful the world was when one looked at it, without searching... just looked, simply and innocently.

You look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is.

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and you do not learn.

A lot of the time you keep looking for beauty, but it is already there. And if you look with a little bit more intention, you see it.

We have names for everything. What if we forgot about those names? And we stopped seeing things as something? What if we just observed things, watched things, without giving them a name, without coming to a conclusion? What do you think would happen? You would transcend everything.

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you.

Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.

Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.

Being engaged with life. One has to develop a poet's eye for perfect moments, moments that most people pass by.