Our fifth page of quotes, quotations and passages on perspective

perspective - perspective 2 - perspective 3
perspective 4 - perspective 6

Both optimists and pessimists
contribute to our society.
The optimist invents the airplane
and the pessimist the parachute.

Gil Stern

We have moments of such clarity, of such appreciation of the incredible web of interconnected events that carry us from breath to breath, day to day, as long as we live--and the next moment we fret about how much we weigh. Or who we didn't send a Valentine. Or who forgot to compliment the dinner. Or whatever. Sylvia Boorstein

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. Mother Teresa

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: "Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?" The apprentice looked at his master and said: "No. . . why?" "Well," the carpenter said, "because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax." Tao Story

It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive. C.W. Leadbeater

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold;
and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

Khalil Gibran

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Everywhere I go, I find a poet has been there before me.

Sigmund Freud

The great lesson from the true mystics is that the sacred
is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life,
in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard.

Abraham H. Maslow

When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take
a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. I was greatly
excited at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive a gift in this
way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. . . . I’ve been thinking
about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises.
The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.

Annie Dillard

People are buffeted by circumstances so long as they believe themselves
to be creatures of outside conditions. But when they realize that they are
creative powers, and that they may command the hidden soil and seeds
of their being out of which circumstances grow, they then become the
rightful masters of themselves. . . . Circumstances do not make the person;
they reveal the person to him or herself.

James Allen

Whenever I hear a statement that seems to be complete nonsense, I
try to pay closer attention to the meaning behind that statement, for I
know that somewhere in there is a grain of truth that may fly in the face
of what we "know" to be right and true, but that can provide me with a
truly new and unique way of seeing things. And it's the new that keeps
my life vital and dynamic, not the old, "sensible" way of looking at the
world. Besides, most of the "sensible" beliefs about life and living are
disproved, leaving us to wonder why we believed in them anyway.

tom walsh

There are no little events in life; those we think of no consequence
may be full of fate, and it is at our own risk if we neglect
the acquaintances and opportunities that seem to be casually
offered, and of small importance.

Amelia Barr

Since we tend to see ourselves primarily in the light of our intentions,
which are invisible to others, while we see others mainly in the light
of their actions, which are all that’s visible to us, we have a situation
in which misunderstanding and injustice are the order of the day.

J.G. Bennett

The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to everyone the
reflection of our own faces. Frown at it, and it in turn will look
sourly on you; laugh at it and with it, and it is
a jolly, kind companion.

William Makepeace Thackeray

I know what’s happening in this world—there are liars and
cheats, there’s prejudice, violence, greed, sickness—I know
what’s happening. I’m not going to let it deter me from
living my life, though. Look, I live in this world, and dammit,
I’m going to be cheerful and positive about living in this world.

Joseph Raymond

perspective - perspective 2 - perspective 3
perspective 4 - perspective 6

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection
to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question
of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at
our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding
meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar
things in new ways. When we find new eyes, the unsuspected blessing
in work we have done for many years may take us completely by surprise.
We can see life in many ways: with the eye, with the mind, with the intuition.
But perhaps it is only those who speak the language of meaning, who have
remembered how to see with the heart, that life is ever deeply known or served.

Rachel Naomi Remen

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May you never miss a rainbow or a sunset because you are looking down.

unattributed

Envy not success, nor pity failure, for you know not
what is success or failure in the soul's reckoning.

Neale Donald Walsch

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

John Lubbock

The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for
everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves
little more than changing our ideas about what is normal.

Deepak Chopra

It is a form of violence, to not
see a being for who he or she
really is. You think, "Oh, that's
my son." But the lens, "my son,"
completely obliterates the multi-
dimensions of that being. Maybe
you only see your disappointments
in that child, or you aspirations
for that child, but that's not the child.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

All people have stars. . . but they are not the same things for different people.
For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others,
they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are
scholars, they are problems. . . . But all these stars are silent.
You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.

Anais Nin

How old would you be, if you didn't know how old you were?

Satchel Paige

If you think you are too small to be effective,
you have never been in bed with a mosquito.

Bette Reese

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing
we have to do that makes life blessed.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I tried to learn, not from reason but from my senses. But as soon as I
began to study my perceptions, to look at my own experience, I found
that there were different facts. There was a narrow focus which meant
seeing life as if from blinders and with the centre of awareness in my head;
and there was a wide focus which meant knowing with the whole of my
body, a way of looking which quite altered my perceptions of whatever
I saw. And I found that the narrow focus way was the way of reason.
If one was in the habit of arguing about life it was very difficult not to
approach sensation with the same concentrated attention and so shut out
its width and depth and height.
But it was the wide focus that made me happy.

Marion Milner

This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything--
as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before
their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.

Nikos Kazantzakis

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We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually
our desire changes. The situation that we hoped to change because
it was intolerable becomes unimportant. We have not managed to surmount
the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us
around it, led us past it, and then if we turn around to gaze at the remote past,
we can barely catch sight of it, so imperceptible has it become.

Marcel Proust

perspective - perspective 2 - perspective 3
perspective 4 - perspective 6

It sometimes happened that you might be familiar with a person for several
years thinking he or she was a wild animal, and you would regard that
person with contempt. And then suddenly a moment would arrive when
some uncontrollable impulse would lay his or her soul bare, and you would
behold in it such riches, such sensitivity and warmth, such a vivid awareness
of its own suffering and the suffering of others, that the scales would fall
from your eyes and at first you would hardly be able to believe
what you had seen and heard. The reverse also happens.

Fyodor Dostoevsky
The House of the Dead

It is not things in themselves that trouble us but our opinion of things.

Epictetus

My friend Diane was regularly irked by her husband Jerry’s habit
of making toast in the morning and leaving crumbs on the kitchen
counter. Many times she asked Jerry to clean up the crumbs, but
her requests didn’t change his behavior. One morning Diane again
found crumbs and started to complain in her mind. Then she
considered, the only thing worse than coming into the kitchen and
finding crumbs would be to come into the kitchen and not find Jerry.
Diane realized that crumbs in the kitchen were a very minor issue in
light of the deep love she felt for her partner. That was the end of
the crumb problem for Diane and the beginning of peace of mind.

Alan Cohen
The Tao Made Easy