A Quote by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Our ability to perceive the world around us seems so effortless that we tend to take it for granted.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Quote Topics

Ability Around Effortless Granted Our Perceive Seems Take Tend Us World

Quote Author

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Indian - Scientist
Born: 1951

The world is still new . . . it seems old to us, but only seems because our lives are so short . . . our human race has been around for such a brief amount of time that the universe hasn't had the chance to detect us yet. One blink is all it needs to miss our dance through actuality.

Carlton Mellick III

The brain is a far more open system than we ever imagined, and nature has gone very far to help us perceive and take in the world around us. It has given us a brain that survives in a changing world by changing itself.

Norman Doidge

In the past we have always assumed that the external world around us has represented reality, however confusing or uncertain, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes, ambitions, represented the realm of fantasy, and the imagination. These roles, it seems to me, have been reversed. The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction - conversely, the one small node of reality left to us is inside of our own heads.

J. G. Ballard

The ability to sympathize with those around us seems crucial to our survival, and it's connected to the mirroring functions of the brain.

Jay Parini

Creative people have an abiding curiosity and an insatiable desire to learn how and why things work. They take nothing for granted. They are interested in things around them and tend to stow away bits and pieces of information in their minds for the future use. And, they have a great ability to mobilize their thinking and experiences for use in solving a new problem.

William Redington Hewlett

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves.

Harry Frankfurt

So much depends on our health, and we tend to take it so for granted.

Achy Obejas

Everyone here seems to appreciate the sunshine way more than we do in California. We tend to take it for granted, but in Chicago, it's like Woodstock love every time it gets above 70 degrees.

Miranda Rae Mayo

Nine planets round the sun, only one does the sun embrace. Upon this watered one, so much we take for granted; So let us sleep outside tonight, lay down in our mother's arms, for here we can rest safely ... One sweet world around a star is spinning One sweet world And in her breath I'm swimming, and here we will rest in peace.

Dave Matthews

You've always got to work to your highest ability level. When times are great and restaurants are jamming, that's when some restaurants get sloppy and take things for granted. Never take things for granted.

Michael Symon

Dogs help you to appreciate the world around you. They smell the ground so intensely. They look at the trees as though they are seeing them for the first time. It helps us to remember the wonders that we take for granted.

Cesar Millan

For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.

Walter Lippmann

Poetry challenges you. Much of its importance is that it's one of the few places left in culture that makes things difficult-it asks you to think, to perceive and not to take for granted what we think about the world.

Dan Beachy-Quick

In America, we're getting too comfortable with our ability to take kinetic strikes around the world without having enough process to avoid consistently the kinds of civilian casualties that can end up actually hurting us in the war against radicalization.

Barack Obama

There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbours here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.