Perspective Quotes

The huge problems we deal with every day are actually really small. We’re so focused on what bothers usthat we don’t even try to see our lives from a clearer perspective.

~ Susane Colasanti

[T[his isn’t just “another day, another dollar.” It’s more like “another day, another miracle.” (213)

~ Victoria Moran

Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.

~ Ernst Cassirer

In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually toward the horizon.

~ Albert Camus

The city glitters past us with its sharp edges, reminding us of how tiny, how weak, how totally unimportant we are.

~ Joe Meno

Indeed, I find that distance lends perspective and I often write better of a place when I am some distance from it. One can be so overwhelmed by the forest as to miss seeing the trees.

~ Louis L'amour

Things that are falling apart encourage me: whatever else, I’m in better shape than they are.

~ Margaret Atwood

Of course it was a terrible thing, and the world would be a much better place without someone in it who could do that, but did that mean we had to miss lunch?

~ Jeff Lindsay

Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.

~ Steven Hall

I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

~ Douglas Adams

Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right.

~ Mario Cuomo

I have always been taught to be proud of being Latina, proud of being Mexican, and I was. I was probably more proud of being a label than of being a human being, that's the way most of us were taught.

~ Erin Gruwell

You spend a lot of time thinking about how awful the prison is rather than envisioning your future.

~ Piper Kernan

Earth teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall. Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands all alone. Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring.

~ William Alexander

One just has to look at the thing from a perspective that interests you personally.

~ Zadie Smith

A mountain still in the distance can appear as a molehill.

~ Howard Fast

Isn't it lucky?

~ James Patterson

The willingness to reexamine lifelong beliefs because of conflicting data takes enormous courage, and contrasts sharply with recent examples of public discourse in which our political, cultural, and religious leaders have fit data to preconceived theories.

~ Donal O'shea

It's so difficult, isn't it? To see what's going on when you're in the absolute middle of something? It's only with hindsight we can see things for what they are.

~ S.j. Watson

I tried to put things in perspective but sometimes you're just too close to it.

~ Cormac Mccarthy

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?

~ George Orwell

It’s not a bad lesson to learn in the bleaker months: how you view a storm is a question of perspective; provided you find the right rock to watch it from, it could be the most incredible thing you’ll ever witness.

~ Dan Stevens

In fact, the more each person can remove his or her ego from the discussion and focus on the subject matter, the more fruitful the conversation will be for all involved.

~ Matthew Kelly

Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.

~ Criss Jami

No perspective, no perception.New perspective, new perception.

~ Toba Beta

I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

This place aint the same. It never will be. Maybe we've all got a little crazy. I guess if everbody went crazy together nobody would notice, what do you think?

~ Cormac Mccarthy

Essentially, perspective is a form of abstraction. It simplifies the relationship between eye, brain and object. It is an ideal view, imagined as being seen by a one-eyed, motionless person who is clearly detached from what he sees. It makes a God of the spectator, who becomes the person on whom the whole world converges, the Unmoved Onlooker.

~ Robert Hughes

When you're at peace, you embrace the eternity.When you're confused, you be dazzled by doomsday.

~ Toba Beta

From the sky, everything looked fake. The buildings were doll houses. The cars were Matchbox racers. People scuttled about, but they weren’t really people anymore. Their little lives meant absolutely nothing from this altitude.

~ P.s. Baber

No one looks at the mountains. But they were there, making them all look silly.

~ Ross Macdonald

You just had to get some idea of what matters and what doesn't, and how much, and try not to be scared of the stuff that doesn't. Put it in perspective.

~ Lev Grossman

He would get up and go out into a world which seemed very unfamiliar, but with a tantalizing unfamiliarity like the world of boyhood to which an old man returns.

~ Robert Penn Warren

But an inferior talent can only be graceful when it's carrying inferior ideas. And the more narrowly you can look at a thing the more entertaining you can be about it.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

~ Khaled Hosseini

People ask me what my greatest strengths are and I say perspective. The best way to get that is to meet people that are polar opposites; you learn the most from them. There are pieces of you that are inherently yours, but everything else is a collection of the things you’ve seen and the people you’ve met.

~ Eddie Huang

Was it the case that colours dimmed as the eye grew elderly? Or was it rather that in youth your excitement about the world transferred itself onto everything you saw and made it brighter?

~ Julian Barnes

[W]hile the use of non-lethal weapons such as tasers and LEDIs may not necessarily reduce the number of civilian casualties, they have been largely accepted as the humane alternative to deadly force because they make the use of force appear far less dramatic and violent than it has in the past.Contrast, for instance, the image of police officers beating Rodney King with billy clubs as opposed to police officers continually shocking a person with a taser. Both are severe forms of abuse. However, because the act of pushing a button is far less dramatic and visually arresting than swinging a billy club, it can come across as much more humane to the general public. This, of course, draws much less media coverage and, thus, less bad public relations for the police.

~ John W. Whitehead

Lifting your eyes from the things of this world is an activity that must begin WHERE YOU ARE.

~ K.p. Yohannan

He realized suddenly that it was one thing to see the past occupying the present, but the true test of prescience was to see the past in the future. Things persisted in not being what they seemed.

~ Frank Herbert