Quotes About Perspective

One thing each of us knows for certain is that reality vastly exceeds our awareness of it.

To point out nonepistemic motives in another's view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, as it serves to cast doubt upon a person's connection to the world as it is.

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious.

Every experience you have ever had has been shaped by your mind.

We cannot live by reason alone.

What we call reality is just when we all agree about our hallucinations.

If your denial of death is sufficiently explicit and persuasive that you believe death isn't real, then what you deny isn't death but the significance of life.

More than half of our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.

The burn of lifting weights, for instance, would be excruciating if it were a symptom of terminal illness. But because it is associated with health and fitness, most people find it enjoyable. Here we see that cognition and emotion are not separate. The way we think about experience can completely determine how we feel about it.

Remaining open to the powers of conversation—to new evidence and better arguments—is not only essential for rationality. It is essential for love.

I want to maximize my happiness, but I am generally not moved to do what I believe will make me happier than I now am.

Knowing what a person believes on a certain subject is not identical to knowing how that person thinks.

It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe.

The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emerging technology.

Am I free to change my mind? Of course not. It can only change me.

there is no divine purpose, only a plurality of human purposes.

texts don't speak for themselves

Changing your perception of the world is often as good as changing the world.

When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives—about

There is at least a billion people in this world, who would consider their prayers answered if they could switch places with you.

There's certainly no unchanging self that is carried through from one moment to the next. Its a processes; it's not a thing. You're a verb more than you're a noun (from the point of view of neuroscience).

If you're suffering, you're thinking.

there is an alternative to simply identifying with the next thought that pops into consciousness. And glimpsing this alternative dispels the conventional illusion of the self.

Our interests in life are not always served by viewing people and things as collections of atoms—but this doesn't negate the truth or utility of physics.