Quotes About Perspective

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

The very things that separated me and distinguished me from other people were what mattered; the very things no one else would or could say, these were the things I had to say.

the facts of history all appeared to me like specimens in a herbarium, permanently dried, so that it was easy to forget they had once upon a time been juicy with sap and alive in the sun.

If your target as a Muslim artist, writer or speaker is to target only Muslims you need to rethink your plan.

I have always thought that great artists were those who dared to confer the right of beauty on things so natural that people say on seeing them, Why did I never realize before that that was beautiful too?

El color de la verdad es gris.

It's madness to envy other people's happiness. Happiness doesn't come of the peg, it has to be made to measure.

How happy Ménalque is, I thought, since he has nothing! As for me, I am suffering because I want to conserve things. What importance is all this in the end?

Car, je te le dis en vérité, Nathanaël, chaque désir m'a plus enrichi que la possession toujours fausse de l'objet même de mon désir.

You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.

Moi qui d'abord ne trouvais de goût qu'au passé, la subite saveur de l'instant m'a pu griser un jour, pensai-je, mais le futur désenchante l'heure présente, plus encore que le présent ne désenchanta le passé...

The self requires a story.

Rather than recount his life as he has lived it, he must live his life as he will recount it.

B?rbatul nu-i decât un copil care a îmb?trânit.

Trop souvent la vérité sur la Russie est dite avec haine et le mensonge avec amour.

Veo peor y se me cansan más deprisa los ojos. También oigo peor. Me digo que sin duda no es malo que se aleje así de nosotros, progresivamente, una tierra que de lo contrario nos costaría demasiado dejar; que nos costaría demasiado dejar de golpe. Lo admirable sería, al mismo tiempo, acercarse progresivamente a… otra cosa.

How lucky Ménalque is, I thought, owning nothing! It is because I want to save things that I suffer. What does it all really matter?

One must allow other people to be right,' he used to say when he was insulted, 'it consoles them for not being anything else.' (The Immoralist - pp 91)

I always see, almost simultaneously, the two sides of each idea, and the emotion is always polarized in me.

Truth can be told to all; the idea, in proportion to the strength of each.

Van de duizend vormen van het leven kan ieder er maar één kennen. Het geluk van een ander benijden is dwaasheid; men zou er toch niets mee weten te doen. Het geluk wil geen confectiegoed zijn, maar een pak op maat.

Le rêve de demain est une joie, mais la joie de demain en est une autre, et rien heureusement ne ressemble au rêve qu'on s'en était fait; car c'est différemment que vaut chaque chose.