Value yourself according to the burdens you carry, and you will find everything a burden.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 52 (2001)
Quotations about:
perspective
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Nothing is good or bad but by Comparison.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3666 (1732)
(Source)
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Prince Caspian (1951)
When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.
Walter Payton (1954-1999) American football player
(Attributed)
When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.
Epictetus (c.55-c.135) Greek (Phrygian) Stoic philosopher
(Attributed)
Harder to laugh at the comedy if it’s about you, harder to cry at the tragedy if it isn’t.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than others.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street (1920)
“I suppose there are two views about everything,” said Mark.
“Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there’s never more than one.”
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
That Hideous Strength (1945)
You’ve never said anything as stupid as what people thought you said.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 5 (2001)
Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9; Yerushalmi Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 37a
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world."
He whose Belly is full, believes not him whose is empty.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2399 (1732)
(Source)
This problem, when solved, will be simple.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
Sign at the General Motors research laboratories
(Source)
Quoted by Kettering in "Don't Be Afraid to Stumble," The Rotarian (Jan 1952)
ORLANDO: But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 45ff (5.2.45) (1599)
(Source)
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.
If evil Men speak good, or good Men evil of thee; examine thy Actions, and suspect thy self: But if evil Men speak evil of thee; hold it as an Honor, and by way of Thankfulness love them; but upon condition, that they continue to hate thee.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, #1253 (1725)
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989) American historian and author
The Guns of August, ch. 7 (1962)
(Source)
The contemporary has no perspective; everything is in the foreground and appears the same size. Little matters loom big, and great matters are sometimes missed because their outlines cannot be seen. Vietnam and Panama are given four-column headlines today, but the historian 50 or 100 years hence will put them in a chapter under a general heading we have not yet thought of.
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989) American historian and author
“Can History Be Served Up Hot?” New York Times (8 Mar 1964)
(Source)
You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois (25 Sep 1956)
It is only when you truly don’t care what people think that you truly don’t need to care what people think.
Abdal Hakim Murad (b. 1960) British Muslim shaykh, researcher, writer, academic [b. Timothy John Winter]
“Contentions 2,” # 5
(Source)
The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors.
Maxwell "Max" Lerner (1902-1992) American journalist, columnist, educator
It Is Later Than You Think: The Need for a Militant Democracy (1939)
(Source)
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts (which are but the mute articulation of his feelings,) not those other things, are his history. His acts and his words are merely the visible thin crust of his world, with its scarred snow summits and its vacant wastes of water — and they are so trifling a part of his bulk! a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden — it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night nor day. These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written. Every day would make a whole book of eighty thousand words — three hundred and sixty-five books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (2010)
(Source)
For to a great man both things are needful; to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important matters.
[Denn zu einem großen Manne gehört beides: Kleinigkeiten als Kleinigkeiten, und wichtige Dinge als wichtige Dinge zu behandeln.]
Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) German playwright, philosopher, dramaturg, writer
Hamburgische Dramaturgie [Hamburg Dramaturgy], Essay 34, 1767-08-25 (1767-1769) [tr. Zimmern (1890)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translations:
For the great man does both, that is, he treats trivialities as trivialities and important things as important things.
[tr. Arons/Figal]
It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.
[Source]
However accurately we may determine the “facts” of history, the facts themselves and our interpretations of them, and our interpretation of our own interpretations, will be seen in a different perspective or a less vivid light as mankind moves into the unknown future. Regarded historically, as a process of becoming, man and his world can obviously be understood only tentatively, since it is by definition something still in the making, something as yet unfinished. Unfortunately for the “permanent contribution” and the universally valid philosophy, time passes; time, the enemy of man as the Greeks thought; to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow creeps in this petty pace, and all our yesterdays diminish and grow dim: so that, in the lengthening perspective of the centuries, even the most striking events (the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, the Great War itself; like the Diet of Worms before them, like the signing of the Magna Carta and the coronation of Charlemagne and the crossing of the Rubicon and the battle of Marathon) must inevitably, for posterity, fade away into pale replicas of the original picture, for each succeeding generation losing, as they recede into a more distant past, some significance that once was noted in them, some quality of enchantment that once was theirs.
Carl L. Becker (1873-1945) American historian
“Everyman His Own Historian” (3), speech, American Historical Association, Minneapolis (29 Dec 1931)
(Source)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Richard Cumberland (1732-1811) English dramatist and civil servant.
The Observer (1788)
Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking.
Great as our differences are, all of us — professors, politicians, preachers — would no doubt find that we had much in common after all if it were possible to meet in the flesh some distinguished representatives from a former age.
Carl L. Becker (1873-1945) American historian
The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-century Philosophers (1932)
The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
The Rebel (1951)
Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.
Antisthenes (c. 445 - c. 365 BC) Greek Cynic philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, VI, xii
Power always Sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself Right. Power always thinks it has a great Soul and vast Views, beyond the Comprehension of the Weak; and that it is doing God Service when it is violating all his Laws.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (2 Feb 1816)
(Source)
de très bon foi = "very candidly"
Don’t let them tell us stories. Don’t let them say of the man sentenced to death “He is going to pay his debt to society,” but: “They are going to cut off his head.” It looks like nothing. But it does make a little difference.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
“Entre oui et non,” in L’Envers et l’endroit (1937)
Translated as "Between Yes and No", in World Review (Mar 1950).
We have a backstage view of ourselves and a third-row view of everybody else.
Garrison Keillor (b. 1942) American entertainer, author
(Attributed)
Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes. Any help we can give you must be different from that you can give yourselves, and perhaps the value of that help may lie in the fact of that difference.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
Three Guineas, ch. 1 (1938)
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favored and imperially slim.And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good Morning!” and he glittered when he walked.And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine — we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.So on we worked and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) American poet
“Richard Corey” (1897)
What reason is there to admire ourselves because we are not as bad as the worst?
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Natural Questions, Preface (1.5) [tr. Corcoran (1921)]
Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save face. Put yourself in his shoes — so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil — nothing is so self-blinding.
B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) English soldier, military historian (Basil Henry Liddell Hart)
Deterrent or Defense (1960)
Advice to statesmen.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted by his student, Harold S. Kushner, in When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough, ch. 3 (1986). Also attributed (without citation) to Milton Steinberg and Oscar Wilde.
Variants:
- "When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am older, I admire kind people."
- "When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people."
“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is — ‘Be what you would seem to be’ — or, if you’d like it put more simply — ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'”
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “The Mock Turtle’s Story” (1865)
The religion of one seems madnesse unto another.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 4 (1658)
(Source)
Discussing a problem with yourself is almost never a good way to secure a divergent viewpoint.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Ghost Story, ch. 21 (2011)
Too many people don’t care what happens so long as it doesn’t happen to them.
William Howard Taft (1857-1930) US President (1909-13) and Chief Justice (1921-1930)
(Attributed)
The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people and we exist alone. Man is the only creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary he is lying.
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French author
Remembrance of Things Past “The Sweet Cheat Gone” (1913-27)
We find it almost as difficult as the communists to believe that anyone could think ill of us, since we are as persuaded as the communists that our society is so essentially virtuous that only malice could prompt criticism of any of our actions.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian and clergyman
The Irony of American History (1962)
If we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking of it at all!
[Begegnet uns jemand, der uns Dank schuldig ist, gleich fällt es uns ein. Wie oft können wir jemand begegnen, dem wir Dank schuldig sind, ohne daren zu denken.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Elective Affinities [Die Wahlverwandtschaften], Part 2, ch. 4, “From Ottilie’s Journal [Aus Ottiliens Tagebuche]” (1809) [tr. Hollingdale (1971)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:
If we meet a person who is under an obligation to us, we remember it immediately. But how often may we meet people to whom we are ourselves under obligation without its ever occurring to us.
[Niles ed. (1872)]
There’s no end to the list; there are millions of them! And all insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitable towards one another’s lunacies. I recognize that in his special belief the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upon a great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the world — a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative opinion of his stupid neighbor — no decision is reached; the affirmative opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman — no decision is reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above — that, in disputed matters political and religious, one man’s opinion is worth no more than his peer’s, and hence it followers that no man’s opinion possesses any real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Christian Science, ch. 5 (1907)
(Source)
There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign, and again, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the earth.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
The Silverado Squatters, “With the Children of Israel,” sec. 3 (1883)
(Source)
The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #68 (10 Nov 1750)
(Source)
THE BASTARD: Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice, but beggary.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King John, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 621ff (2.1.621-624) (1596)
(Source)
Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (9 Jan 1758)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.
Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there, are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars. I think we must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded. I think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, as regards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound. Now there are really several things which we do all see alike; things which we all accept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who are outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that six times six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eight and seven are fifteen. These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreed about; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever accepts them him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the working essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them him we know to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum.
Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitled to go at large. But that is concession enough. We cannot go any further than that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same man is insane — just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was. We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Christian Science, Book 1, ch. 5 (1907)
(Source)
I love to see two truths at the same time. Every good comparison gives the mind this advantage.
[J’aime à voir deux vérités à la fois. Toute bonne comparaison donne à l’esprit cet avantage.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], Introduction, “L’auteur Peint par Lui-Même [The Author’ Self-Portrait]” (1850 ed.) [tr. Auster (1983)], 1796]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
I like to see two truths at once. Every good comparison gives the mind this advantage.
[tr. Calvert (1866), "Notice"]
I like to see two truths at once. Every good comparison gives the mind that advantage.
[tr. Collins (1928)]
Ira, age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Time Enough For Love [Lazarus Long] (1973)
EDGAR: O gods, who is ‘t can say “I am at the worst”?
I am worse than e’er I was. […]
And worse I may be yet: the worst is not,
So long as we can say, “This is the worst.”William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 4, sc. 1, l. 27ff (4.1.27-31) (1606)
(Source)
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: “President Can’t Swim.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
(Attributed)
Frequently attributed to Johnson, usually referencing the last year or two of his presidency, when public opinion turned against him over Vietnam. I am unable to find any actual citable source.
All things […] are best to those who know no better.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
“Ignorance”
(Source)
Full passage:The less Judgment any Man ha's the Better he is perswaded of his owne abilities, because he is not capable of understanding anything beyond it, and all things how mean so ever, are best to those who know no better: for beside the naturall affection that he has for himself, which go's very farre, the less he is able to improve and mend his Judgment, the higher value he sets upon it, and can no more correct his own false opinions, when he is at his height, than outgrow his own Stature.
No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) Russian poet
“Pushkin and Pugachev [Пушкин и Пугачев]” (1937)
See Heraclitus.
