“There is nothing there. What you see is not what you see. What you see is nothing. Nothing but shapes, lines, colors. What you see is whats in your mind. What you see is something somebody told you to look for. Look out for anything you see! Watch it! Watch out! Take care! Don’t leap before you look out.”
1956 - 1967
Source: the 'Ad Reinhardts Papers', Archives of American Art, microfilm no. N/69-103, frame no. 268
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Ad Reinhardt 22
American painter 1913–1967Related quotes
“To see what you've done, look at what you are. To see what you'll be, look at your actions.”
Karma Doesn't Explain Anything http://www.unfetteredmind.org/karma-two-approaches%20. Unfettered Mind http://unfetteredmind.org. (Topic: Life)

“Hey! What are you looking at? Don’t you see that it’s about you?”
Zen ni kike (To you) (Tokyo: Daihorinkaku, 1987)
Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 15

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
Variant: It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Letter to Monica Jones, 22 October 1967
“You must learn to see what you are looking at.”
Glaedr
Variant: Learn to see what you are looking at.
Source: Inheritance (2011)