They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. - Henry David Thoreau

We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads, —and then we can hardly see anything else.

I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places.

How long we may have gazed on a particular scenery and think that we have seen and known it, when, at length, some bird or quadruped comes and takes possession of it before our eyes, and imparts to it a wholly new character.