I am inclined tothink that the fargreater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselvesöthat we have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

-Berkeley, George
  A  Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, introduction.

Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St  John 9:25.

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.

-Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior
Anatomy of Melancholy, pt.1, section 2, member 4, subsection 7.

'Then you should say what you mean,'the March Hare went on. 'Ido,'Alicehastily replied; 'at leastöat least Imeanwhat I sayöthat's the same thing, you know.' 'Not the same thing a bit! 'said the Hatter.'Why, you might just as well say that ''I see what I eat'' is the same thing as ''I eat what I see!'''

-Dodgson
  Alice's  Adventures in Wonderland, ch.7, 'A Mad Tea-Party'.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feelöit is, before all, to make you see.Thatöand no more, and it is everything.

-Korzeniowski
  The Nigger of the Narcissus, preface.

You see, but you do not observe.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'Scandal in Bohemia'.

   It is this backward motion toward the source, Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in. The tribute of the current to the source.

-Frost, Robert Lee
  'West-Running Brook'.

But where dothey find these lines innature? Personally I only see forms that are lit up and forms that are not, planes which advance and planes which recede, relief and depth. My eye never sees outlines or particular features ordetails.I donot count thehairs in the beard of the man who passes byany more than the buttonholes on his jacket attract my notice. My brush should not see better than I do.

-Goya, Francisco de
Quoted in Enriqueta Harris Goya (1969).

Not only will I not play it, but if Rex Harrison doesn't do it, I won't even go to see it.

-Grant, Cary pseudonym of  Archibald Leach
c.1963  Response when offered the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the film of My Fair Lady.  Attributed.

   The great thing isto last and get your workdone, and see and hear and understand and write when there is something that you know and not before and not too damn much after.

-Hemingway, Ernest Millar
  Death in the Afternoon, ch.16.

Teach me, my God and King, In all thingsThee to see, And what I do in any thing To do it as forThee.

-Herbert, George
'The Elixir', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

On the summit of the precipice and in the deep green woods emotions as palpable and as true have agitated me as if I were surveying them with the blessing of sight. There was an intelligence in the winds of the hills and in the solemn stillness of the buried foliage that could not be misleading. It entered into my heart and I could have wept, notthat Ididnot see, butthat Icould not portrayall I felt.

-Holman,James
  A Voyage round the World.

I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, Why Democracy means, Everybody but me.

-Hughes, (James Mercer) Langston
  'The Black Man Speaks'.

   Some of the opera houses in Italy had to be burnt down because people could neither see nor hear. They gave up seeing years ago, but they did enjoy the music.

-Johnson, Philip Cortelyou
  Informal talk,  Architectural  Association School of Architecture, 28 Nov. Collected in Writings (1979).

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
Attributed.

Helen, did Homer never see Thy beauties, yet could write of thee?

-Jonson, Ben
The Underwood,'An Ode' (published1640).

It may be divided into three parts; in one you cannot hear, in another you cannot see, and in the third you can neither see nor hear. I remember once sitting alone in the third divisionöand never before or since have I had such a profound feeling of the power of solitude.

-North, Christopher pseudonym of  JohnWilson
  Of the Theatre Royal, Glasgow.'Noctes  Ambrosianae', no.64, in Blackwood's Magazine, Nov.

We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.

-O'Keeffe, Georgia
The Famished Road, ch.1.

   You see things, and you say,'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'

-Shaw, George Bernard
The Serpent

I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Julian and Maddalo', l.14^16.