Quotes About Perspective

I chose not to listen to my poor dad, even though he was the one with all the college degrees.

one dad had a habit of saying, "I can't afford it." The other dad forbade those words to be used. He insisted I ask, "How can I afford it?" One is a statement, and the other is a question. One lets you off the hook, and the other forces you to think.

You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.

It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?

I love them, they are so nice and selfish. Dogs are TOO good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.

Most of the trouble in life comes from misunderstanding, I think,' said Anne.

But I believe I rather like superstitious people. They lend color to life. Wouldn't it be a rather drab world if everybody was wise and sensible . . . and good? What would we find to talk about?

I can't cheer up — I don't want to cheer up. It's nicer to be miserable!

The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.

Don't you ever imagine things differently than what they are? Oh, Marilla, how much you miss.

When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts...it's like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.

There is no such thing as freedom on earth, he said. Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. YOU think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbreakable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me - THAT'S a bondage.

That's the worst…or the best…of real life, Anne. It won't let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable…and succeeding…even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic.

Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,' wailed Anne. 'You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.

The ghosts of things that never happened are worse than the ghosts of things that did.

It's so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding.

Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it?

But I'd rather look like you than be pretty, she told Anne sincerely. Anne laughed, sipped honey from the tribute, and cast away the sting.

Nobody whom this war has touched will ever be happy again in quite the same way. But it will be a better happiness, I think, little sister - a happiness we've earned.

There are a great many people who do not understand things so there is no use in telling them.

If any person wants to see clearly just how much she has changed - whether for better or worse - let her revisit after some lapse of time any place where she has ones lived. She will meet her former self at every turn, with every familiar face, in every old recollection ... She will see how much she has gained in some respects, how much she has lost - irretrievably lost - in others.

It's not what the world holds for you, it's what you bring to it.

Don't let a three-o'clock-at-night feeling fog your soul.