Quotes about Perspective

He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed.

I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.

So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

Anyway, what do happiness and unhappiness mean? They depend so little on circumstances and so much more on what goes on inside us.

They (theological liberals) seemed to know what the answer was supposed to be and weren't much concerned with how to get there. They knew only that whatever answers the Fundamentalists came up with must be wrong.

The battle for our culture must be waged at the level of the imagination.

Bonhoeffer's change was not an ungainly, embarrassing leap from which he would have to retreat slightly when he gained more maturity and perspective. It was by all accounts a deepening consistent with what had gone before.

However thankful we may be for all our personal pleasures, we mustn't for a moment lose sight of the great things that we're living for, and they must shed light rather than gloom on your joy.

He destroyed an entire way of seeing the world, one that had held sway from the beginning of history, and he replaced it with another way of seeing the world. Included in the old way of seeing things was the idea that the evil of slavery was good.

There ought to be no awkwardness or embarrassment to either of us, tho' there may be some anxiety: and if you will open to me fairly the whole state of your mind on these subjects, tho' I shall venture to state to you fairly the points where I fear we may differ, and to desire you to re-examine your own ideas where I think you are mistaken, I will not importune you with fruitless discussion on any opinion which you have deliberately formed.

Sometimes the curses of the godless sound better than the hallelujahs of the pious."

If our people could only see all this, they would stop grumbling about their own misfortunes and offer thanks to God for blessing them with such abundance."