I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. ~ Christopher Isherwood

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence. ~ Aristotle

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking. ~ Wallace Stevens

The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. ~ Werner Karl Heisenberg

Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep. ~ Will Rogers

I'm always saying something that's just the edge of something more. ~ Robert Frost

It is what you choose not to observe in your life that controls your life. ~ Lynn V. Andrews

Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature. ~ Gao Xingjian

As soon as I observed myself from outside myself, I recognized and understood that I had a long-standing habit of keeping an eye on myself. That's how I managed to pull myself together, over the years, checking myself from the outside. ~ Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book

If a writer stops observing, he is finished. ~ Ernest Hemingway

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution. ~ Paul Cézanne

Observation is the most enduring of the pleasures of life. ~ George Meredith

Innocent and infinite are the pleasures of observation. ~ Henry James