John Cage Quotes

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if you're not careful.

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.

Anything is hard to find when you will not open your eyes

We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.

We are all too much inclined, I think, to walk through life with our eyes shut. There are things all round us and right at our very feet that we have never seen, because we have never really looked.

I always look outside.

I go too fast to see much, only the tops of everything. I've got to prowl slow some time through this country.

The eyes see not what is before them when the mind is intent on other matters.

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

But I suppose there's a lot to see everywhere, if only you keep your eyes open.

Do not look too far for you will see nothing.

I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all.

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

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

I'm trying to do what I have never done - give the impression one has on entering a room: one sees everything and at the same time nothing.

I relax by looking at things and reading about things. Even the simplest thing can reveal a great deal about the world around us. It relaxes me greatly to sit back with my feet up and look around my study at the everyday things that surround me.

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.

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

Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected.

It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ.

I had to make sure I kept an eye on the real world.

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.

I regularly take my entrepreneurship students out walking because I want to get them in the habit of noticing and thinking about what they notice. They have to leave their phones behind to learn the basic lesson: Be where you are.

Walk to work, even if it's four miles. Ride a bike to work. Drive a different way. On your way there, try to find beauty. You'd be surprised how much more of the neighborhood you can perceive and experience when you're looking for unique spots of beauty.