To observe is to watch carefully the way something happens or the way someone does something, especially in order to learn more about it. Profoundly inspirational observation quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
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Famous Observation Quotes
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life. — Marcus Aurelius
I’m a good teacher and am great at observation and picking out what’s wrong and fixing it. — Abby Lee Miller
One man’s observation is another man’s closed book or flight of fancy. — Willard Van Orman Quine
It is necessary to look at the results of observation objectively, because you, the experimenter, might like one result better than another. — Richard P. Feynman
That the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another is a matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated. — Isaac Newton
It’s a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things. — Anne Sullivan
If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk. — Robert Baden-Powell
The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment… not authority. — Thomas Huxley
Observation more than books and experience more than persons, are the prime educators. — Amos Bronson Alcott
Guantanamo Bay can be and has been visited repeatedly by the International Red Cross and other human-rights groups for observation in an open, regular, and transparent manner. Detainees receive the same medical care as the guard force and are able to participate in their daily prayer sessions. — Tom Cotton
A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. — Erwin Schrodinger
Growing up, I wasn’t the most vocal kid in the world. I feel like I learned through observation, and usually, when you’re watching things, you’re not speaking. That sort of metastasized in a way that I began to participate less and less in the world. — Barry Jenkins
All through Latin America, there’s sharp condemnation of the criminal atrocities of Sept. 11. But it’s qualified by the observation that although these are horrible atrocities, they are not unfamiliar. — Noam Chomsky
True Scouts are the best friends of animals, for from living in the woods and wilds, and practising observation and tracking, they get to know more than other people about the ways and habits of birds and animals, and therefore they understand them and are more in sympathy with them. — Robert Baden-Powell
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. — Edward Abbey
Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. — Thomas Huxley
Perceptual reality is different for different species. In certain species it is a mode of observation, so what we call scientific fact is actually not ultimate truth, it is perceptual experience, and it’s a mode of observation. — Deepak Chopra
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Rhetoric and dialectics can’t change what I have learned from observation and experience. — J. Paul Getty
Observation, very general and wide-spread, has shown that small children are endowed with a special psychic nature. This shows us a new way of imparting education! — Maria Montessori
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge… observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. — Denis Diderot
Tell a man that he is putting on a stage performance in order to get what he wants, and he will irritably reject your observation. Why? Because most people go through life as cunning actors with a permanent horror of getting found out. — Vernon Howard
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation? — Richard P. Feynman
Providing – that’s not love. Being there – that’s more important. I mean, we see that. We see that with all these rich socialites. They’re crying out for attention; they’re hurting for love. I’m not being judgmental – I’m just making an observation. They’re crying out for the love that maybe they didn’t get at home, and they got everything. — Jay-Z
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves. — Will Rogers
Modern science is predicated on ‘truths’ verified through accurate observation and measurements of physical world phenomena. — Bruce Lipton
There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health. — Francis Bacon
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. — George Bernard Shaw
It is a great pity but tis certain from every day’s observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end provided there is a sufficient wick standing out. — Laurence Sterne
Observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science. — Claude Bernard
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning – an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There was a time when ‘science’ meant the systematic pursuit of knowledge through experimentation and observation. But it’s rapidly becoming a synonym for progressive politics and materialist philosophy. — Eric Metaxas
How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world. — Franz Kafka
It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world. — Richard Dawkins
Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry. — Samuel Smiles
A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation. — Joseph Addison
There is no better proof of a man’s being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men. — Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Observation is an old man’s memory. — Jonathan Swift
I’m an only child, so I don’t come from a big family. But it has been my observation from friends who do come from big families that usually, when you have a family fight, on the back end you come out better and stronger for it. — Ayanna Pressley
Of course as children, we all, in all cultures and societies, learn behavior from observation, imitation, and encouragement of various kinds. So by the suggestion made, we all ‘pretend’ most of the time. — Gary Gygax
If you were to build a wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, you would still have to back that wall up with patrolling by human beings, sensors, observation devices. — John F. Kelly
Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way. — Lucius Annaeus Seneca
People who get into animation tend to be kids. We don’t have to grow up. But also, animators are great observers, and there’s this childlike wonder and interest in the world, the observation of little things that happen in life. — John Lasseter
My observation is that women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership. — James Dobson
We cannot create observers by saying ‘observe’, but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses. — Maria Montessori
People often assume that the same approach will work for everyone, that the same habits will work for everyone, and that everyone has the same aptitude and appetite for forming habits, but from my observation, that’s not true. — Gretchen Rubin
The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat. — John Muir
The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man’s observation, not overturning it. — Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
We have seen that no religion stands on the basis of things known; none bounds its horizon within the field of human observation; and, therefore, as it can never present us with indisputable facts, so must it ever be at once a source of error and contention. — Frances Wright
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation. — Walter Scott
Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us. — Frances Wright
It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste. — Henry Ford
To become an academic expert takes years of studying. Academic experts are experts in how and what others have done. They use case studies and observation to understand a subject. — Simon Sinek
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. — Henry David Thoreau
Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation. — Walter Winchell
There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language. — William Osler
In dealing with the China problem, the British and American side, which had particularly strong interests in China, should have based its judgments about the origins of the problem on direct observation of the actual circumstances at the time. — Hideki Tojo
Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect. — Bill Nye
It has been my observation that the happiest of people, the vibrant doers of the world, are almost always those who are using – who are putting into play, calling upon, depending upon-the greatest number of their God-given talents and capabilities. — John Glenn
The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision. — Bruce Barton
Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with every day observation. — Joseph Stiglitz
My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation. — Jonathan Winters
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation. — John Burroughs
People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument. — Will Rogers
A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth. — Alexis Carrel
My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty… it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. — George Washington
The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation that every man is really two men – the man he is and the man he wants to be. — William Feather
The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation. — Adam Smith
A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it. — Frederick Douglass
The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation. — Walter Pater
Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common. — Denis Diderot
From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. — Isaac Asimov
Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking. — Wallace Stevens
Observation and thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, insofar as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our spirit. — Rudolf Steiner
Certain periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation point where a clear light falls upon a world previously dark. — Anne Sullivan
It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody. — Spike Lee
It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. — Isaac Newton
The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal. — Alice Munro
