18 Quotes by Betty Edwards

By closing one eye, you removed binocular vision, the slight variance in images, called “binocular disparity,” that occurs when we view an object with both eyes open. Binocular vision – sometimes called “depth perception” – allows us to see the world as three-dimensional. When you close one eye, the single image is two-dimensional – that is, it is flat, like a photograph, and therefore can be “copied” onto flat paper.

In order to gain access to the right hemisphere, it is necessary to present the left hemisphere with a task that it will turn down.

Art has this long history, predating even language, of expressing nonverbal information.

The one art subject that we could easily afford is drawing, the skill that is basic to training visual perception and is therefore the entry-level subject – the ABCs – of perceptual skill-building.

The greatest satisfaction comes from mastering something that is truly difficult.

Today we are not only testing and grading our children into the ground, but we are not teaching them how to see and understand the deep meaning of what they learn, or to perceive the connectedness of information about the world. It is indeed time to try something different.

One of the most encouraging new discoveries that the human brain has made about itself is that it can physically change itself by changing its accustomed ways of thinking, by deliberately exposing itself to new ideas and routines, and by learning new skills.

I will even go out on a limb and say that we mistakenly may have been putting all our educational eggs into one basket only, while shortchanging other truly valuable capabilities of the human brain, namely perception, intuition, imagination, and creativity. Perhaps Albert Einstein put it best: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

That is like deciding that you shouldn’t take a Spanish class because you don’t already speak the language.