Best 2585 quotes in «perspective quotes» category

Ideas and dreams are only valuable after they have been acted on.

I didn't say you could have perfect experiences, I said you could have experiences.

I didn't lose anyone, for everyone that I lost was never really a loss, unless it was death well then I had to have words with God.

I’d often wondered, absorbed in piles of research, if the magic of history would be lost if we could go back and live it. Did we varnish the past and make heroes of average men and imagine beauty and valor where there was only dirge and desperation? Or like the old man looking back on his youth, remembering only the things he’d seen, did the angle of our gaze sometimes cause us to miss the bigger picture? I didn’t think time offered clarity so much as time stripped away the emotion that colored memories. The Irish Civil War had happened eighty years before I’d traveled to Ireland. Not so far that the people had forgotten it, but enough time had passed that more—or maybe less—cynical eyes could pull the details apart and look at them for what they were.

I'd never had a mind for math. ... It was a logic that made little sense to me. In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or a formula or an equation. It was a story.

I do have to prioritize my end-of-the-world documents.

I don’t face sadness when friends leave because friends always come back. Yet when lovers leave, it’s like death. You’ll never see them again.

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

I don’t see the me that you see. I wish for just a lit­tle bit I could climb into you and then you could climb into me and then we could tell each other what we saw there.

I don’t write poetry. I reiterate conversations.

I entrain myself (when I remember to) by tuning in to higher frequencies in the ether, in my soul, everywhere I go, always accessible, always helpful for obtaining a higher perspective in a matter of minutes.

If anything I urge you to live bravely and beyond your own comfort zone.

I fear that we live in an ahistorical age in which we believe that we are so wise that we no longer need the lessons of the past, perhaps most disturbingly of all that technology has put us beyond the lessons of the past.

I felt myself becoming angry too easily. I once saw a couple at a restaurant, and I could tell from their mannerisms that they were having some type of disagreement. I got mad at the guy and wanted to tell him, "Come on – appreciate your wife!

I felt the same profound thrill it gives me to see trees and grassland waist-high under flood water - as if the usual order of the world had shifted slightly, and entered a new phase

If everything was perfect in your life won't it be a predictable one. Life is unpredictable chaotic and madness but that's what makes life interesting won't you agree?

If he (John Adams) could not control events, he could at least record them for posterity – perhaps the ultimate form of control.

If I'd defined success very narrowly, limiting it to peak, high-visibility experiences, I would have felt very unsuccessful and unhappy during those years. Life is just a lot better if you feel you're having 10 wins a day rather than a win every 10 years or so.

If having problems feels like a problem to you, it may not be the problems themselves, but the way you think about them that is the problem.

I figure I'll win the fight in twenty years or so anyways when I end up with a decent life and their unemployed and living at home.

If I walk along a shore towards a ship which has run aground, and the funnel or masts merge into the forest bordering on the sand dune, there will be a moment when these details suddenly become part of the ship, and indissolubly fused with it. As I approached, I did not perceive resemblances or proximities which finally came together to form a continuous picture of the upper part of the ship. I merely felt that the look of the object was on the point of altering, that something was imminent in this tension, as a storm is imminent in storm clouds. Suddenly the sight before me was recast in a manner satisfying to my vague expectation. Only afterwards did I recognize, as justifications for the change, the resemblance and contiguity of what I call ‘stimuli’— namely the most determinate phenomena, seen at close quarters and with which I compose the ‘true’ world. ‘How could I have failed to see that these pieces of wood were an integral part of the ship? For they were of the same colour as the ship, and fitted well enough into its superstructure.’ But these reasons for correct perception were not given as reasons beforehand. The unity of the object is based on the foreshadowing of an imminent order which is about to spring upon us a reply to questions merely latent in the landscape. It solves a problem set only in the form of a vague feeling of uneasiness, it organizes elements which up to that moment did not belong to the same universe and which, for that reason, as Kant said with profound insight, could not be associated. By placing them on the same footing, that of the unique object, synopsis makes continuity and resemblance between them possible. An impression can never by itself be associated with another impression.

If I only looked at what I've lost, I'd never be able to see what I have.

If not for tragedy, tyrants, and injustice, there would be nothing to awaken and inspire dormant heroes. There is always a balance. Always.

If only people put as much energy into helping people as they do into creating drama.

If only you could see the greatness in yourself, you wouldn't envy the greatness in others.

I found you in our truth. Running sideways for a broken muse who loved strangers as much as alcohol.

If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective. We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe. Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day—the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening? It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we’re miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn’t seasoned just the way we like. When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we’re up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first. In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.

If religion had never existed, what then, would people have killed for in the name of religion? What would a martyr have died for? What would the masses believe in?

If the norm of the society is corrupted, then objective journalism is corrupted too, for it must not challenge the norm. It must accept the norm.

If there were ever such a thing as a unique opinion, history would probably be less inclined to repeat itself.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.

If life throws you a few bad notes, don't let them interrupt your song.

If one comes to the sense that they have arrived, they no longer feel the need to submit themselves to the process of learning and growing. This is a dangerous mindset to carry. The day that we stop learning is the day we stop living.

If my mind was in your body going through the same circumstances. I would act differently, and likewise. Judging in nature is separation.

If people only understood the incredible power of a shift in perspective. To be different you must think, feel, and act differently. Change your perceptions, change how you feel about things, and then take action.

If there’s one thing I have learned it’s that if you carry on as though nothing strange is happening, it usually stops being strange

If the sun never set, we would have no perception of the vast depths of space, which become visible only at night when we are able to see what is obscured by the bright daylight

If we don't remember where we came from, we'll go back there.

If we were fossils of two snails caught in a rock for millions of years. Would we know we were together?

If you are going to judge others it is wisest to do so individually not collectively and on your own direct experience of them personally. But first - and throughout - examine yourself closely. Blurred vision can often occur due to the lens, perspective and perceptions of the viewer projected onto the object that it sees. Be wary of taking to the judges seat. Above all meet at treat yourself and everyone else mindfully, compassionately with humanity.

If you aren't outraged, then you just aren't paying attention

If we think there is a problem with the world, we have a problem!

If you allow the life to happen, by connecting with your inner world, then you don’t have to worry about the changes with your perception or the change in the outside world. All you have to do is to follow your inner truth, to reach to your destination.

If you are serious about achieving your desired goals, be willing to let go of the small pleasures found in the moment that may sabotage your chances of experiencing true pleasure when the sacrifice is paid.

If you could look at your whole life from the outside, you can see that just past the point you wanted to give up, is the victory you hoped for. And in the grand scheme - the distance between the “I feel like I can’t” and the “I did it” was miniscule.

If you can stay focused on your most important goal, you can become incredibly successful, but to stay focused you must intentionally create and maintain an environment, atmosphere, and culture that keeps you focused.

If you could speak to yourself 5 years from now, what would your future self ask you to prioritize?

If you ever wanna be motivated, go try and be homeless for a day and that will just light a fire under your butt like none other.

If you had to jump six or seven feet or certainly drown, it's surprising how far even older people will jump.

If you find yourself complaining a lot then you are problem-oriented. Focus on what you can do not on what you can’t to become solution-oriented.