To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large — this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.
— Aldous Huxley
Philosophy
What the rest of us see only under the influence of mescalin, the artist is congenitally equipped to see all the time. His perception is not limited to what is biologically or socially useful.
— Aldous Huxley
Creativity
There is nothing in the real world which is merely an inert fact. Every reality is there for feeling: it promotes feeling; and it is felt.
— Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy
People look at me as this very, I don't know, Confucius-like wise person — which I'm not. They don't see all the shit that I've been through.
Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.
— Edward de Bono
Knowledge
We usually see only the things we are looking for — so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
All living souls welcome whatsoever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
— George Santayana
Philosophy
I don't want to give you the idea that existence without your camouflage patterns is bland and innocuous because this is not the case. The inner senses have a strong immediacy, a delicious intensity that your outer senses lack. There is no lapse of time in perception, since there is no time.