Quotes About Perspective

Our ignorance of history makes us libel to our own times. People have always been like this.

The illusion that times that were are better than those that are has probably pervaded all ages.

Oh, what times! Oh, what standards!

The Golden Age was never the present Age.

The "good old times"-all times, when old, are good.

The past should be culled like a box of fresh strawberries, rinsed of debris, sweetened judiciously and served in small portions, not very often.

Anyone who limits her vision to memories of yesterday is already dead.

I'm not convinced that the world is in any worse shape than it ever was. It's just that in this age of almost instantaneous communication, we bear the weight of problems our forefathers only read about after they were solved.

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.

The good old days are neither better nor worse than the ones we're living through right now.

The past in retrospect holds manifold disenchantments, failures and even tragedies; and yet the worse may be forgotten and the best held fast.

People are always asking about the good old days. I say, why don't you say the good "now" days? Isn't "now" the only time you're living?

Today was once the future from which you expected so much in the past.

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.

Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine.

My head is buried in the sands of tomorrow, while my tail feathers are singed by the hot sun of today.

The habit of looking into the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

Very strange is this quality of our human nature which decrees that unless we feel a future before us we do not live completely in the present.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is, but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

No one thinks of Winter when the grass is green.

We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

Sometimes I would almost rather have people take away years of my life than take away a moment.