#perception

You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an idea, the less he believes in it. ↗

— Wilhelm Reich

#knowledge #orgone #pride #projection #self-knowledge

What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#person

Every culture has its southerners -- people who work as little as they can, preferring to dance, drink, sing brawl, kill their unfaithful spouses; who have livelier gestures, more lustrous eyes, more colorful garments, more fancifully decorated vehicles, a wonderful sense of rhythm, and charm, charm, charm; unambitious, no, lazy, ignorant, superstitious, uninhibited people, never on time, conspicuously poorer (how could it be otherwise, say the northerners); who for all their poverty and squalor lead enviable lives -- envied, that is, by work-driven, sensually inhibted, less corruptly governed northerners. We are superior to them, say the northerners, clearly superior. We do not shirk our duties or tell lies as a matter of course, we work hard, we are punctual, we keep reliable accounts. But they have more fun than we do ... They caution[ed] themselves as people do who know they are part of a superior culture: we mustn't let ourselves go, mustn't descend to the level of the ... jungle, street, bush, bog, hills, outback (take your pick). For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book, developing a sense of rhythm, making love whenever you feel like it -- then you know. The south has got you. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#culture #north #north-and-south #northerners #perceptions

There's more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves. ↗

— Jacqueline Carey

#self-perception #change

Perception can be one-sided or variant: "Glass half empty or half full." There usually is more than one way of perceiving. Thoroughly check your inner dialogue. ↗

— T.F. Hodge

#empty #full #perception #quotes #recognition

How good something is should never be determined by its cost, designer, origin, or its perceived value by others. ↗

— Ashly Lorenzana

#materialism #perception #quality #value #design

In the ultimate stillness Light penetrates the whole realm; In the still illumination, There pervades pure emptiness. When I look back on the Phenomenal world, Everything is just Like a dream. ↗

— Han-shan Te-Ch'ing

#perception #reality #silence #world #dreams

Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality. ↗

— Robin S. Sharma

#nature-of-reality #perception #spiritual-growth #truth #dreams

Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see. ↗

— Henry Adams

#perception #senses #sight #unity #vision

No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit. ↗

— Ansel Adams

#confidence #create #creative #creative spirit #dictate