Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.
As the Deity has given us Greeks all other blessings in moderation, so our moderation gives us a kind of wisdom which is timid, in all likelihood, and fit for common people, not one which is kingly and splendid. This wisdom, such as it is, observing that human life is ever subject to all sorts of vicissitudes, forbids us to be puffed up by the good things we have, or to admire a man's felicity while there is still time for it to change.
An observant child should be put in the way of things worth observing.
I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.
PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.
When a woman has the gift of silence she possesses a quality above the vulgar. It is a gift of Heaven seldom bestowed; without a little miracle it cannot be accomplished; and Nature suffers violence when Heaven puts a woman in the humor of observing silence.
I didn't go to acting school, but I've been observing my fellow man for 66 years now, and I would think that's the best school there is.
Observing someone without context amplifies the experience. The more we know, the less we are able to feel.
I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I learned, from observing him, the satisfaction that comes from striving and seeing a dream fulfilled.
One gets into a strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and noticing things in a normal way.
Amusement to an observing mind is study.
The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.
I’m a quiet person. I spend time observing, not speaking.
The average man is what his environment and his superstitions have made him; and their function is to make him an ass. He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the earth in a year.
To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It's commenting or observing or twisting life.
For me, it's not about masochism to talk about death. For me, it's about observing life through death, from the last point of it.
The very act of observing disturbs the system.
Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)
We need to realize that we are observers and creators, and in every moment that we are observing our world, we're constantly remaking it at every instant, and that we have to understand too that every last thought we have, every judgment we hold, is having an effect whether it's conscious or not. So of course the most important thing of all is to be aware of what we are thinking and to realize it has an effect on the world around us.
Trend following is an exercise in observing and responding to the ever-present moment of now
