Quotable Quotes on Vision

When a patient says he has no time to practise, he is mistaken.
He has all the time there is to use his eyes in the right way,
or he can use them in the wrong way.
He has just as much time to use his eyes properly as he has to use them improperly.
William H Bates, MD, Better Eyesight magazine, May 1924

On a tomb in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence
was found an inscription which read:
"Here lies Salvino degli Armati, Inventor of Spectacles. May God pardon him his sins."
Nuova Enciclopedia Italiana, Sixth Edition

It has been demonstrated in thousands of cases that all abnormal action of the
external muscles of the eyeball is accompanied by a strain or effort to see,
and that with the relief of this strain the action of the muscles becomes normal
and all errors of refraction disappear.
William H Bates, MD, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, page 89

The ways in which people strain to see are infinite,
and the methods used to relieve the strain must be almost equally varied.
Whatever the method that brings most relief, however,
the end is always the same, namely relaxation.
William H Bates, MD, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, page 101

The eye with normal sight never tries to see.
If for any reason, such as the dimness of the light, or the distance of the object,
it cannot see a particular point, it shifts to another.
It never tries to bring out the point by staring at it,
as the eye with imperfect sight is constantly doing.
William H Bates, MD, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, page 107

The act of seeing is passive. Things are seen, just as they are felt, or
heard, or tasted, without effort or volition on the part of the subject.
When sight is perfect the letters on the test card are waiting,
perfectly black and perfectly distinct, to be recognized.
William H Bates, MD, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, page 108

Mental strain of any kind always produces a conscious or unconscious eyestrain
and if the strain takes the form of an effort to see,
an error of refraction is always produced.
William H Bates, MD, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, page 109

We see very largely with the mind,
and only partly with the eyes.
The phenomena of vision depend upon
the mind's interpretation
of the impression upon the retina.
What we see is not that impression,
but our own interpretation of it.
William H Bates, MD, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, page 148

Behead yourself!...
Dissolve your whole body into Vision: become seeing, seeing, seeing!
Rumi

People see only what they are prepared to see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eyes do not tell people what they see, people tell eyes what to look for.
Larry McDonald, OD

When the doors of perception are cleansed,
men will see things as they truly are,
infinite.
William Blake

Over half the people in the United States wear corrective lenses,
and almost all of them are capable of seeing much more clearly -
if they would only experiment with changing their ideas about vision.
Jacob Liberman, OD, PhD, Take off your glasses and see, page 6

The suspicion began to dawn on me slowly that among the causes of
progressive myopia it might be necessary to list concave (minus) lenses themselves.
From many articles that have appeared in the past on the subject of 'Optical Poison',
a familiar term a decade ago, many other optometrists appear to have the same idea.
Samuel Druker of Brooklyn, NY, in the Optical Journal of March 15, 1946

I've found, however, that real change only comes when we let go of the struggle,
when we stop trying, and that the greatest key to healing our vision
is also the simplest one:
expanding our awareness.
Jacob Liberman, OD, PhD, Take off your glasses and see, page 68

From my experience in this land of myopes (i.e. China) I have formed
strong prejudices against the evil of weak minus prescriptions in all ages.
C.P. Rakusen, OD, Shanghai, China

Myopia, in more than ninety-five percent of cases,
begins between five and ten years of age.
It increases largely because the myopic eye is given a minus lens.
Dr. Rasmussen

I would like to have a law established forbidding the prescribing
of minus glasses without extenuating circumstances.
Neville Schuller, vision specialist of Toronto, Canada, 1938

I have yet to hear of a research paper confirming the beneficial effect of prescribing compensatory lenses. I am sure most optometrists will confirm the clinical observation that patients who receive compensatory lenses for full time wear
are usually the ones who need a stronger prescription every year.
J. Liberman OD, PhD

Spectacle lenses can create their own problems. There are frequently ignored patterns of addiction to minus lenses. The typical prescription tends to overpower and fatigue the visual system and what is often a transient condition becomes a lifelong situation, which is likely to deteriorate with time.
S. Gallup

When one's mind is under a strain one unconsciously tightens the muscles which encircle the eyeball, and consequently squeeze it out of shape and out of focus.
But when the mind is at rest these muscles are relaxed and the eyeball is allowed to assume its proper shape and focus.
William H Bates, MD, Better Eyesight magazine, May 1923

Most of my patients always do better when they have someone with perfect sight to encourage them by their example or advice.
William H Bates, MD, Better Eyesight magazine, July 1922

A great many people spend more time hunting bargains in eyeglasses, and in getting the kind of rims adapted to their particular style of beauty, than it would take to cure their eyes by following the method outlined along the lines of common sense.
Minnie E. Marvin, Better Eyesight magazine, September 1923

It is a mistake to believe that even though the glasses do no good they cannot do harm. Glasses keep up the strain. A person wearing glasses for myopia has to strain all the time in order to make the eyeball elongated sufficiently to fit the glasses.
William H Bates, MD, Better Eyesight magazine, September 1922

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14feb08