23 Quotes Tagged: blindness

A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one’s art. One must accept it. For this reason I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn't mean it does not exist.

We scarcely know how much of our pleasure and interest in life comes to us through our eyes until we have to do without them; and part of that pleasure is that the eyes can choose where to look. But the ears can't choose where to listen.

"I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning: "The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness." . . . In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. . . . The mental effort involved . . . proves overwhelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. . . . A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. . . . On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision."

If the Creator stood before a million men with the light of a million lamps, only a few would truly see him because truth is already alive in their hearts. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them. He who does not have Truth in his heart, will always be blind to it.

"A blind pursuit of cheap popularity has nothing to do with revolution."

[Political Report of the National Executive Committee to the forty-ninth A.N.C. National Conference, Bloemfontein, South Africa, 17 December 1994]

There are many degrees of sight and many degrees of blindness. What senses do we lack that we cannot see another world all around us?

Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

Eyes that are blind have no way to tell the loveliness of faces and features; eyes with no pupils have no way to tell the beauty of colored and embroidered silks.

Love doesn't think like that. All right, it's blind as a bat — '
'Bats have radar. Yours doesn't seem to be working.

WHO AM I?

I have seven heavenly panels
Leading up to a pointed sphere
I’m multidimensional like a crystal
And my center is never clear.

I’m an inventor and pioneer.
A mentor to my peers.
But I'm not as sound as my shell reveals,
Because I’m tormented by my fears -
That may appear to be grounded
But my insides are filled with tears.
And the sadness is well-founded,
From years and years
Of traumatic experiences
Compounded
In the most demented
Atmospheres.

I talk but feel like nobody hears.

Has reason disappeared?
And, God, are you near?

This is Giza’s 7th light force
And I'm asking you to interfere.
I can no longer walk amongst the blind and dead
With open eyes and ears.
I’m trying to maintain my sanity
And to straighten up my veneer
As I roll amongst the growing calamities
Flowing on Earth’s severely trashed
Frontier.

Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate, and not a grain more. ... A man sees only what concerns him.

If the blind must lead the blind, it is as well
that the leader knows he is.