You see, all our ordinary views of things are no good, they do not lead anywhere. It is necessary to think differently, and this means to see things we do not see now, and not to see things we see now. And this last is perhaps the most difficult, because we are accustomed to see certain things: it is a great sacrifice not to see the things we are accustomed to see. We are accustomed to think that we live in a more or less comfortable world. Certainly there are unpleasant things, such as wars and revolutions, but on the whole it is a comfortable and well-meaning world. It is most difficult to get rid of this idea of a well-meaning world. And then we must understand that we do not see things themselves at all. We see like in Plato’s allegory of the cave only the reflections of things, so that what we see has lost all reality. We must realize how often we are governed and controlled not by the things themselves but by our ideas of things, our views of things, our picture of things. This is the most interesting thing. Try to think about it.

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

We see things not as they are, but as we are ourselves.

The way we see things is the source of the way we think or the way we act

Things which we see are not by themselves what we see.

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

Motivations and desires affect our perceptions. We don’t necessarily see things as they are. We see them as we are.

It is not things that trouble us, but our judgements about things.

It's not things that upset us but our judgements about things.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.

We see the world not as it is, but as we are, or as we are conditioned to see it.

Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused

People are not disturbed by things themselves, but by the views they take of those things.