Perception is a clash of mind and eye, the eye believing what it sees, the mind seeing what it believes.

Robert Brault is best known for concise, aphoristic observations circulated primarily through quotation collections and online venues rather than a single canonical volume. This line appears in that characteristic mode: a compact reflection on how human beings register reality through both sensory data (“the eye”) and prior assumptions (“the mind”). It is typically encountered as a standalone aphorism, detached from a larger essay or speech context, and is often shared in discussions of cognitive bias, subjectivity, and the psychology of seeing. I cannot confidently place it in a dated publication or identify a specific occasion on which Brault first released it.

The quote frames perception as a tension between sensory data (“the eye believing what it sees”) and interpretive frameworks (“the mind seeing what it believes”). Brault suggests that seeing is never purely passive: the mind filters, selects, and even manufactures meaning from what the eye reports. The paradox—eye believes what it sees, mind sees what it believes—highlights two complementary errors: naïve realism (trusting sight as self-evident truth) and confirmation bias (treating belief as evidence). The significance lies in its warning that perception is negotiated, not given: to perceive more accurately, one must question both the reliability of appearances and the preconceptions that quietly script what counts as “seen.”