quotes, quotations and passages on perspective

perspective 2 - perspective 3 - perspective 4
perspective 5 - perspective 6

When they tell you to grow up,
they mean stop growing.

Tom Robbins

It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand
side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld
by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.

George Gissing

We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well.
It thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well.
If it surfaced, it would have an entirely different view.

Mao Tse-Tung

The unhappiness we experience is not so much a result of the difficulties
encountered along our journey as it is of our misperception of how life
instructs us. We may see a failed relationship as an indictment of our self-worth when it is really a lesson in using better judgment, in valuing ourselves more, in expressing greater appreciation for our partner--lessons
to prepare us for a more loving and fulfilling union. If we are passed over
for a much-anticipated promotion, it may be just the push we need to get
more training or to venture out on our own as an entrepreneur. As we rise
to meet the challenges that are a natural part of living, we awaken to our
many undiscovered gifts, to our inner power and our purpose.

Susan L. Taylor

A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place.
A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home.

Carl Burns

Two Tough Questions: A Lesson in Perspective

Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already (three deaf, two blind, one mentally retarded) and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before moving down to the answer of this one.

Question 2: It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.

Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Decide first--no peeking--then scroll down for the answer.

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Every person takes the limits of his or her own
field of vision for the limits of the world.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The moment one gives close attention
to anything, even a blade of grass,
it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.

Henry Miller

It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Whether it's a pebble in a riverbed or a soaring mountain peak, I see everything
in the world as the handiwork of the Lord. When I paint, I try to represent the
beauty of God's creation in my art. Many modern painters see the world
as a jumble of random lines and shapes with no divine beauty or order, and their
works reflect their viewpoint. Because I see God's peacefulness, serenity,
and contentment, I work to capture those feelings on the canvas.
My vision of God defines my vision of the world.

Thomas Kinkade

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower:
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses,
Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men
but what they thought. People should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which
flashes across their minds from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards
and sages. Yet they dismiss without notice their thought, because it is theirs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitude
and expectations. If we feel that our environment could stand some improvement,
we can bring about that change for the better by improving our attitude.
The world plays no favorites. It's impersonal. It doesn't care who succeeds
and who fails. Nor does it care if we change. Our attitude toward life
doesn't affect the world and the people in it nearly as much as it affects us.

Earl Nightingale

A flower unblown; a book unread;
A tree with fruit unharvested;
A path untrod; a house whose rooms
Lack yet the heart's divine perfumes;
A landscape whose wide border lies
In silent shade beneath the skies;
A wondrous fountain yet unsealed;
A casket with its gifts concealed--
This is the Year that for you waits
Beyond tomorrow's mystic gates.

Horatio Nelson Powers

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune.

William Wordsworth

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest creative thinkers of all time,
strongly recommended the habit of meditation in the dark. He wrote:
"For I have found in my own experience that it is of no small benefit,
when you lie in bed in the dark, to recall in imagination, one after another,
the outlines of the form you have been studying." He often awoke to find
his problems solved. Da Vinci would often stand silent and motionless
before a painting for hours, without using his brush,
as though waiting for spiritual guidance.

Wilferd A. Peterson

perspective 2 - perspective 3 - perspective 4
perspective 5 - perspective 6

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people,
with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following:

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
and all 6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death
1 would be near birth

1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education

1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective,
the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

thanks, noelle

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It amazes me, and I know the wind will surely someday blow it all away
It amazes me, and I'm so very grateful that You made the world this way

John Denver

We believe we can change things according to our wishes because
that's the only happy solution we can see. We don't think
of what usually happens and what is also a happy solution;
things don't change, but by and by our wishes change.

Marcel Proust

Before we set our hearts too much upon
anything, let us examine how happy
they are who already possess it.

Francois de la Rochefoucauld

What makes us discontented with our condition
is the absurdly exaggerated idea
we have of the happiness of others.

unattributed

The world is round and the place
which may seem like the end,
may also be only the beginning.

Ivy Baker Priest

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There are defeats more
triumphant than victories.

Michel de Montaigne

The wealth of the soul is
the only true wealth.

Lucian

One is never as fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

Francois la Rochefoucauld

Answers:

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler

And the answer to the abortion question: If you said yes, you just killed Ludwig von Beethoven.

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember: amateurs built the ark; professionals built the Titanic.

The brighter you are the more you have to learn.

Don Herold

perspective 2 - perspective 3 - perspective 4
perspective 5 - perspective 6