Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities.
Tom G. Palmer

All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this.
Miyamoto Musashi

And I seemed to discern a power and meaning in the old, which the more impassioned would not allow.
Frederick Henry Hedge

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Jung

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
Marcel Proust

Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
Ambrose Bierce

I have to go on being a priest and bishop, that is, to celebrate God and what God has done in Jesus, and to offer in God's name whatever I can discern of God's perspective on the world around - something which involves both challenge and comfort.
Rowan Williams

In conclusion we may say, in view of the confirmation that our study has given of the parallelism between individual and racial thought of the Self, that in the history of psychology we discern the great profile which the race has drawn on the pages of time.
James M. Baldwin

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.
Sandra Day O'Connor

One of my challenges was to try to photograph the Great Wall of China. And I did actually take some photos, but it was hard to discern the wall with the naked eye.
Leroy Chiao

Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn.
Robert Browning Hamilton

The eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern: and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it.
George Berkeley

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.
Lactantius

The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case.
Howard Nemerov

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
Henry David Thoreau

Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.
Sophocles

To discern what weaknesses and faults separate you from God, you must enter into your own inward ground and then confront yourself.
Johannes Tauler

To invent is to discern, to choose.
Henri Poincare

To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.
Jules Verne