our third page of quotes and quotations on perspective

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

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

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. Dr. Seuss

One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one's perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which he or she looks at them. Tom Robbins When you fall in a river, you’re no longer a fisher; you’re a swimmer. Gene Hill

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better. Malcolm S. Forbes

What people most need now is to apply their conversion skills to those things that are essential for their survival. They need to convert facts into logic, free will into purpose, conscience into decision. They need to convert historical experience into a design for a sane world. Norman Cousins

Merely looking at the world around us
is immensely different from seeing it.

Frederick Frank

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Today's world needs change, alteration, renewal, and corrections of errors.
It needs new ideas, new approaches, methods, plans, procedures, and new
ways of doing things. Maybe you should think of going--literally or symbolically--
to a circus today, where you'll see stunts you never dreamed possible. The novelty
and originality there may stimulate what you need more of in this life. Have the
daring to take a flight for the idea you believe in!

Wilferd A. Peterson

Despite all the doom and gloom that constantly assaults our senses,
there is a way for us to ransom our lives and reclaim our futures:
it consists in turning away from the world to recognize what in life
makes us truly happy. For each of us, what that is will be different.
But once we obtain this inner knowledge, we will possess the ability
to transform our outer world. "You can live a lifetime and, at the
end of it, know more about other people than you know about
yourself," the pilot and writer Beryl Markham reminds us.
We cannot let this continue to occur.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

In this world there
is nothing softer
or thinner than
water. But to compel
the hard and unyielding,
it has no equal.
That the weak
overcomes the strong,
that the hard gives
way to the gentle –
This everyone
knows, yet no one
acts accordingly.

Lao-Tzu

When we look for the good in others,
we discover the best in ourselves.

Martin Walsh

People go abroad to wonder at the heights of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars;
and they pass by themselves without wondering.

St. Augustine

Invest in the “process” rather than the product. Process living neutralizes
the depleting and impoverishing effects of chronically living in anticipation. Even when
impossible goals occasionally are reached, satisfactions derived from them are
invariably disappointing unless the process has given ample satisfaction along the way.

Theodore Rubin

Recently my fingers have developed a prejudice against comparatives.
They all follow this pattern: a squirrel is smaller than a tree; a bird is
more musical than a tree. Each of us is the strongest one in his or her
own skin. Characteristics should take off their hats to one another,
instead of spitting in each other’s faces.

Bertolt Brecht

We’re all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find
ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires
and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet.
Who can ever understand exactly why or how it comes down
as it does? The bottom line is, here we are. Whatever,
wherever we are, this is what we’ve got. It’s up
to us whether we do it as easy time or hard time.

Bo Lozoff

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. . . .
So why bother in the first place? Just this: what is above knows what is below,
but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees.
One descends, one sees no longer but one has seen. There is an art
to conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one
saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.

Rene Daumal

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

We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. The Talmud
We are not rich by what we possess but rather by what we can do without. Immanuel Kant	Things don’t change, but by and by our wishes change. Marcel Proust
When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting. St. Jerome

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There is no greater mistake in the world than the looking
upon every sort of nonsense as want of sense.

Leigh Hunt

The way out is through the door you came in.

R.D. Laing

A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

So much has been given to me; I have no time
to ponder over that which has been denied.

Helen Keller

A friend's son was in the first grade of school, and his teacher
asked the class, "What is the color of apples? Most of the children
answered red. A few said green. Kevin, my friend's son, raised his
hand and said white. The teacher tried to explain that apples could
be red, green, or sometimes golden, but never white. Kevin was quite
insistent, and finally said, "Look inside." Perception without
mindfulness keeps us on the surface of things,
and we often miss other levels of reality.

Joseph Goldstein
Insight Meditation

I was driving north on Highway 101, just ten minutes past the Golden Gate Bridge, on my way to the Richmond Bridge in San Rafael. I planned to cross the bay and drive on north from there to Antioch, where I had an important business meeting. Even though it was midday, I found myself suddenly in gridlock traffic. I thought I might miss my appointment in Antioch. I began to feel anxious. I became irritated at the drivers I saw joining the freeway traffic from entrance ramps without leaving any space for the cars already on the highway to move forward. It was looking less and less likely that I'd be at my appointment on time. I noticed that my body had become tense and I was gripping the wheel. Then I looked out the driver's side window and saw Mount Tamalpais. I looked out to my right and saw Richardson Bay. I thought, "I am sitting between two major tourist attractions. People come from all over the world to sit exactly where I am sitting right now in order to have this view." I sat back and appreciated the view. My hands unclenched. My body relaxed. My mind relaxed. Then I had this big revelation.

This was my revelation: "I'll get to Antioch when I get to Antioch. Maybe today. Maybe not today. Maybe I'll be there for the meeting. Maybe I won't be there for the meeting. Whatever will be will be. My getting aggravated is not changing the situation. It is making it worse."

When the traffic did start up again, I didn't drive too fast, so I didn't become a menace to myself and everyone else on the highway. That's the important part. . . . You need to keep looking for whatever perspective you can find that will transform the moment.

Art George
as related to Sylvia Boorstein

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When Emerson's library was burning at Concord, I went to him as he
stood with the firelight on his strong, sweet face, and endeavored
to express my sympathy for the loss of his most valued possessions, but
he answered cheerily, "Never mind, Louisa, see what a beautiful blaze
they make! We will enjoy that now." The lesson was one never forgotten
and in the varied lessons that have come to me I have learned to
look for something beautiful and bright.

Louisa May Alcott

One evening at Sagamore Hill, President Theodore Roosevelt's home in
New York, naturalist William Beebe walked outside with his host. Roosevelt
searched the star-filled night sky and, finding a small glow below the corner
of the constellation Pegasus, he said, "This is the spiral galaxy Andromeda.
It is as large as our Milky Way. It consists of one hundred billion suns. It
is one of a hundred billion galaxies." Then Roosevelt looked at Beebe and
said, "Now, I think we are small enough! Let's go to bed."

unattributed

If reality were an ocean, the left brain could only take in one wave at a time. The right brain sees the vastness of the sea all at once. Both of these are a kind of image of reality rather that reality itself. No matter how the ocean is taken in, the ocean does not change its nature; only its appearance changes. But because the right brain is sensing the entire picture including the empty space, rather than just the objects in space one at a time as the left brain does, reality is more closely represented in the right brain. The right brain senses the world in parallel (all at once), while the left brain senses the world in series (one thing at a time).

Chris Niebauer
No Self, No Problem

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

Live every day to fulfill your personal mission. God has a reason for
whatever season you are living through right now. A season of loss
or blessing? A season of activity or hibernation? A season of growth
or incubation? You may think you’re on a detour, but God knows the
best way for you to reach your destination.

Barbara Johnson

Nothing is too great or too good to be true. Do not believe that
we can imagine things better than they are. In the long run, in
the ultimate outlook, in the eye of the Creator, the possibilities
of existence, the possibilities open to us, are beyond our imagination.

Joseph Wood Krutch

One summer, midway through Seminary, I was on a weekend vacation in a little town in New England. I decided on Sunday to go hear a visiting preacher in the little town's chapel. I heard the worst sermon I could have ever imagined. I sat in the pew thinking, "He's going against every rule they're teaching us about preaching. What a waste of time!" That's what I thought until the very end of the sermon when I happened to see the person beside me with tears in her eyes whispering, "He said exactly what I needed to hear." It was then that I knew something very important had happened in that service. The woman beside me had come in need. Somehow the words of that poorly crafted sermon had been translated into a message that spoke to her heart. On the other hand, I had come in judgment, and I heard nothing but the faults.

It was a long time before I realized it, but that sermon's effect on the person beside me turned out to be one of the great lessons of my life. Thanks to that preacher and listener-in-need, I now know that the space between a person doing his or her best to deliver a message of good news and the needy listener is holy ground. Recognizing that seems to have allowed me to forgive myself for being the accuser that day. In fact, that New England Sunday experience has fueled my desire to be a better advocate, a better "neighbor," wherever I am.

Fred Rogers
The World According to Mr. Rogers

I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.
It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.”
~ William Shatner describing his rocket trip to space: