How to Know a Person — Chapter Three: Illumination

1. 1. The quality of attention you project determines the quality of your life and how you see others.
2. 2. Seeing each person as having a soul of infinite value is a precondition for seeing them well.
3. 3. An Illuminator's gaze answers the unspoken question: 'Am I a person to you? Do you care about me?'
4. 4. Tenderness, receptivity, active curiosity, affection, generosity, and a holistic attitude are key features of the Illuminator's gaze.
5. 5. Dr. Ludwig Guttmann saw paraplegic patients as 'the best of men,' leading to the Paralympic Games.
6. 6. People are like rivers, containing all human qualities; we should not classify them simplistically.
7. 7. Iris Murdoch argues that morality is primarily about how we pay attention to others, not abstract principles.
8. 8. The mother-in-law M in Murdoch's example changes her view of her daughter-in-law from 'coarse' to 'spontaneous' as an act of moral self-improvement.
9. 9. Therapist Mary Pipher practices 'a way of paying attention, which is the purest form of love.'
10. 10. A moment of illumination occurs when a mother and daughter in therapy realize they both thought of the phrase 'paint oneself into a corner.'