Quotes about Perspective

How can we judge fairly of the characters and merits of men, of the wisdom or folly of actions, unless we have . . . an accurate knowledge of all particulars, so that we may live as it were in the times, and among the persons, of whom we read, see with their eyes, and reason and decide on their premises?

The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy.

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

For myself I am an optimist--it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: you become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

They are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than for illumination.

In the words of the Scottish proverb, 'Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.

For the Arab, the past does not merely live. The past defines the present.

So long as your eyes remain set upon the things of this world, your acts will lead to earthbound results.

Life is 10 percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.