Quotes About Perspective

Boredom is the only continuity the ironist has.

It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards. A proposition which, the more it is subjected to careful thought, the more it ends up concluding precisely that life at any given moment cannot really ever be fully understood; exactly because there is no single moment where time stops completely in order for me to take position [to do this]: going backwards.

As the ironist does not have the new within his power, it might be asked how he destroys the old, and to this it must be answered: he destroys the given actuality by the given actuality itself.

Fools and young men prate about everything being possible for a man. That, however, is a great error. Spiritually speaking, everything is possible, but in the world of the finite there is much which is not possible.

Everything depends upon how one is placed.

Such works are mirrors: when an ape peers into them, no Apostle can be seen looking out.

An illusion can never be destroyed directly, and only by indirect means can it be radically removed... That is, one must approach from behind the person who is under an illusion.

Most men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes – but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.

It is in your power to review your life, to look at things you saw before, but from another point of view

In order to help another effectively I must understand more than he – yet first of all surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of benefiting him, I want to be admired.

By comparison with a passionate age, an age without passion gains in scope what is loses in intensity .

Truth always rests with the minority … because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion" – Soren Kierkegaard

On aina arveluttavaa leimata absurdiksi, käsittämättömäksi jokin, minkä joku toinen voi selittää helposti ymmärrettäväksi.

My reflection on life altogether lacks meaning. I take it some evil spirit has put a pair of spectacles on my nose, one glass of which magnifies to an enormous degree, while the other reduces to the same degree.

For when an old man relives his life, he lives it only by dwelling upon his memories; and when wisdom in an old man has outgrown the immediate impressions of life, the past viewed from the quiet of memory is something different from the present in all its bustle. The

People say the good Lord fills the stomach before the eyes. I haven't noticed; my eyes have had enough and I am weary of everything, and yet I hunger.

Ein Spießbürger ist, wer ein absolutes Verhältnis zu relativen Dingen hat.

Behind the world we live in, in the distant background, lies another world standing in roughly the same relation to the former as the stage one sometimes sees in the theatre behind the real stage stands to the latter.

It is related of a Swedish priest that, profoundly disturbed by the sight of the effect his address produced upon the auditors, who were dissolved in tears, he said soothingly, Children, do not weep; the whole thing might be a lie.

If you can do that, if you can find exactly the place where the other is and begin there, you may perhaps have the luck to lead him to the place where you are. For to be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, etc. No, to be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.

For, humanly speaking, death is the last thing of all; and, humanly speaking, there is hope only so long as there is life. But Christianly understood death is by no means the last thing of all, hence it is only a little event within that which is all, an eternal life; and Christianly understood there is in death infinitely much more hope than merely humanly speaking there is when there not only is life but this life exhibits the fullest health and vigor.

Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.

Historiassa kaikki ymmärretään jälkikäteen ja sen vuoksi unohdetaan, että kuolleet kerran elivät.

Once we overcome our biases about the past, we will realize that the people we see as primitive have a lot to teach us, that looking back can help us to move forward.