Vision and art

Seeing amounts to feeling and stimulation of the retina, which is painted with the coloured rays of the visible world. The picture must then be transmitted to the brain by a mental current, and delivered at the seat of the visual faculty.

— Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), quoted by Henry King, The History of the Telescope, Dover edition, 1979, 45.

Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will not pay a farthing for it.
— Oliver Cromwell, quoted in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, ch. 12.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness
by his electrical skin and glaring eyes …
— Christopher Smart (1722-1771) Jubilate Agno XX, 15.

BOSWELL: ‘Had not you some desire to go upon this expedition, sir?’

JOHNSON: ‘Why, yes; but I soon laid it aside. Sir, there is very little of intellectual in the course. Besides, I see but a small distance. So it was not worth my while to go see birds fly which I should not have seen fly; and fishes swim, which I should not have seen swim.’
— Dr Johnson explains why he did not tour the South Sea, New Zealand and Australia on HM bark Endeavour. Quoted in Barton’s History of NSW from the Records, Vol I, lv.

Why don’t you come up sometime, see me?
— Mae West (1893 – 1980), She Done Him Wrong (1933).

If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
— Holy Bible, Gospel according to St Matthew, 18:9.

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