A Quote by Gaston Bachelard

It is not a question of observation which propels mankind forward as if toward a looking glass of great magnitude; it is an instance of aggrandized reflection that insinuates the human psyche to the inhuman.

Gaston Bachelard

Quote Topics

Forward Glass Great Human Human Psyche Inhuman Instance Looking Magnitude Mankind Observation Psyche Question Reflection Toward Which

Quote Author

Gaston Bachelard
French - Philosopher
June 27, 1884 - October 16, 1962

We have three approaches at our disposal: the observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation serves to assemble the data, reflection to synthesise them and experimentation to test the results of the synthesis. The observation of nature must be assiduous, just as reflection must be profound, and experimentation accurate. These three approaches are rarely found together, which explains why creative geniuses are so rare.

John Dewey

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

Your real statesman is first of all, and chief of all, a great human being, with an eye for all the great fields on which men likehimself struggle, with unflagging, pathetic hope, toward better things.... He is a guide, a counselor, a mentor, a servant, a friend of mankind.

Woodrow Wilson

As man reaches out toward the twenty-first century, he will learn to be suspicious of all ideas that are not formulated so that they can be tested by observation. He will realize that the history of human thought shows that the ideas of which we are surest are the ones we most need to test. He will realize that his common sense only mirrors his training and experience. What seems natural and right to him is usually a reflection of the conditions under which he spent his first decade of life.

Jacque Fresco

'Neon Future' is, in short, a positive outlook on human progress and technology, looking forward to a bright, colorful utopia. It's embracing the future and looking toward the future in a more optimistic way.

Steve Aoki

You can looking at that glass of water, not as a glass of water, but as paint on a two-dimensional surface. It's not just a question of looking, but of doing, in relation to this, in relation to that, in relation to the space between things.

Malcolm Morley

The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival.

Eric Hoffer

The force that propels the human spirit on the clear way forward and upward is the abstract spirit.

Wassily Kandinsky

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

William Makepeace Thackeray

All my pictures are very voyeuristic, but ultimately I'm looking at what lurks in my own interior. I make photographs because I want to answer the question of what propels me to do the things that I do. But that always remains a mystery.

Gregory Crewdson

[I] put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!

John Stuart Mill

From a pure metaphysical perspective, there is no world outside ourselves. So, at the deepest level, the state of the planet is more a reflection of the consciousness of mankind than the consciousness of mankind is a reflection of world events.

Marianne Williamson

It is an awesome thing to comprehend the magnitude of the fact that what a human being dreams and imagines can be realized. The power of that truth needs to be directed toward our creation of a future that is worthy of true human value and the world civilization.

Vanna Bonta

I think a life of a human being is not something you can explain in a few interview questions. The stuff you do in the media is sometimes a great reflection and sometimes not a great reflection of who you are as a person.

Andreja Pejic

As there is not in human observation proper means for measuring the waste of land upon the globe, it is hence inferred, that we cannot estimate the duration of what we see at present, nor calculate the period at which it had begun; so that, with respect to human observation, this world has neither a beginning nor an end.