The Quotation IndexThe trusted reference for quotations and the sources behind them
Tag Tag Perception
If Jack’s in love, he’s no judge of Jill’s beauty.
Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack · 1732-1758

Quotes

“The true method of knowledge is experiment.”

William Blake · All Religions are One, 1788 · Primary source

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

William Blake · Auguries of Innocence, 1803 · Primary source

“The golden age never was the present age.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“These Secret Service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Nature, 1836 · Primary source

“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“Grief too will make us idealists.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Experience, 1844 · Primary source

“Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Experience, 1844 · Primary source

“There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“Beauty is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Things do not change; we change.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

Works

Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841
Intellect

An examination of thought, perception and intuition, arguing that genuine understanding depends on intellectual openness rather than rigid systems or inherited authority.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1844
Experience

An exploration of perception, change, grief and uncertainty, examining how temperament and circumstance shape human experience and limit claims to certainty.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841
Behavior

An exploration of beauty in nature, people and art, considering how form, proportion, character and perception shape aesthetic experience.

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William Blake · 1803
Auguries of Innocence

A sequence of aphoristic verses linking everyday acts with wider questions of innocence, suffering, injustice, perception and spiritual consequence.

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Related Tags

Love 8 Bias 6 Beauty 14 Judgement 29 Nostalgia 3 Golden age 1 Historical perspective 2 Idealisation 4 Sex 1 Professional life 1 Gender relations 1 Priorities 8 Nature 20 Inner life 3 Transcendentalism 32 Circles 1 Patterns 1 Grief 5 Loss 5 Idealism 2 Detachment 3 Experience 28 Distance 1 Perspective 18 Imagination 16 Memory 7 Inspiration 3 Intellect 4 Aesthetics 6 Understanding 15 Emotional response 1 Simplicity 24 Self-reliance 48 Material needs 2 Inner freedom 1 Personal change 2 Self-examination 5 Knowledge 16 Observation 17 Empiricism 2 Experiment 2 Epistemology 2 Infinity 3 Reality 3 Human limitation 1 Eternity 1 Intuition 7 Independent thought 8 Uncertainty 19 Innocence 4 Social injustice 2 Animal cruelty 1