Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

Whatever we look at, and however we look at it, we see only through our own eyes.

What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.

Our shadows are often behind us, where others can see them better than we can.

We all see only that which we are trained to see.

But this thick darkness that hides it from itself does not prevent its seeing with perfect clarity things outside itself, just as our eyes can perceive everything else and are only blind when it comes to seeing themselves.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.

We see things not as they are, but as we are. Because it is the 'I' behind the 'eye' that does the seeing.

Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns. We will do anything — anything — to defend ourselves against that return.

A person does not, as I had imagined, stand motionless and clear before our eyes with his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with regard to ourselves (like a garden at which we gaze through a railing with all its borders spread out before us), but is a shadow which we can never penetrate, of which there can be no such thing as direct knowledge, with respect to which we form countless beliefs, based upon words and sometimes actions, neither of which can give us anything but inadequate and as it proves contradictory information — a shadow behind which we can alternately imagine with equal justification, that there burns the flame of hatred and of love.

Here is my secret. It's quite simple:
One sees clearly only with the heart.
Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.

Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.

We see so much that we in fact see nothing, and we know so much that we no longer possess anything that is our own, that is to say, something we could not have learned, something that arises out of the virtues and errors of our own self

Our shadow is on the outside. And we can see in the dark: we can see you, we see you turn away, but one day we finally understand that you turn away not from our faces but from your own fears. From those things inside you that you think mark you as someone unlovable to your family, and society, and even to God.