Quotes about Perception

The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.

When a man says money can do anything that settles it: he hasn't got any. When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

It is positively because he is quick-witted that he is long-winded.

There is no physical gulf between the philosopher's class room and the bull ring; but the bull fighters do not come to the class room for all that.

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you [Colonel Pickering], because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

Tulajdonképpen nem abban van a különbség, hogy az ember hogy viselkedik, hanem hogy az emberrel hogyan viselkednek. Én Higgins professzor úr számára mindig csak egy virágoslány maradok, mert Ã…' mindig úgy fog viselkedni velem, mint egy virágoslánnyal. De maga elÃ…'tt úrinÃ…' lehetek, mert maga mindig úgy fog viselkedni velem, mint egy úrinÃ…'vel.

The simple biggest problem in communication is the illusion that has taken place.

whatever else remained the same, the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same.

Attempts at description are stupid. Who can all at once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances.

It had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table. In warming himself at French social theories he had brought away no smell of scorching. We may handle even extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture, our dinner-giving, and preference for armorial bearings in our own ease, link us indissolubly with the established order.

Gwendolen would not have liked to be an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she liked all disgust to be on her side.