Quotes about perceptual blindness

George Eliot

... the fallibility of human brains is in nothing more obvious than in proof reading.

Don DeLillo

Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.

Don Miguel Ruiz

We only see what we want to see; we only hear what we want to hear. Our belief system is just like a mirror that only shows us what we believe.

David Eagleman

We open our eyes and we think we're seeing the whole world out there. But what has become clear—and really just in the last few centuries—is that when you look at the electro-magnetic spectrum we are seeing less than 1/10 Billionth of the information that's riding on there. So we call that visible light. But everything else passing through our bodies is completely invisible to us. Even though we accept the reality that's presented to us, we're really only seeing a little window of what's happening.

Graeme Simsion

Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others.

Daniel Kahneman

We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.

Douglas Adams

The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what's more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.

Frank Herbert

Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?

Neil Gaiman

It has occasionally been remarked upon that it is as easy to overlook something large and obvious as it is to overlook something small and niggling, and that the large things one overlooks often cause problems.