Quotes About Perspective

If we choose to believe we are helpless victims and that it's all hopeless, then the Universe will support us in that belief, and we will just go down the drain. It is vital that we release these foolish, outmoded, negative ideas and beliefs that do not support us and nourish us. Even our concept of God needs to be one that is for us, not against us.

What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.

That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad.

The only thing money really buys?...Space. A bigger house, a bigger car, a larger hotel room. First-class plane tickets. But it doesn't even buy comfort. No one complains more than the rich and entitled. Comfort, security, ease. None of them come with money.

Most of us are great with change, as long it was our idea. But change imposed from the outside can send some people into a tailspin. - Myrna Landers

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she'd looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn't joking. He was warning her.

Most of us are great with change, as long as it was our idea.

Wait, Armand, he heard behind him but kept walking, ignoring the calls. Then he remembered what Emile had meant to him and still did. Did this one bad thing wipe everything else out? That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad. But not today. Gamache stopped.

Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What're you going to focus on? What's unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?" Stephen tapped the boy's chest. "The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.

She taught me that life goes on, and that I had a choice. To lament what I no longer had or be grateful for what remained.

Don't believe everything you think," said Gamache, before releasing the hand and opening the door. "Pema Chödrön. A Buddhist nun.

He was an emotional communist. Everyone counted equally, but none too much.

But you knew what would happen. Why would you choose to walk right into a situation where you know the person is going to be hurtful? It kills me to see you do that, and you do it all the time. It's like a form of insanity. - Peter Morrow You call it insanity, I call it optimism. - Clara Morrow

This was the great benefit of seeing worse. Fewer things worried him now.

history wasn't just written by the victors. First it had to be erased and rewritten. Replacing troublesome truth with self-serving myth.

You weren't lost. You were exploring. There's a difference.

You're catastrophizing, allowing fear into the driver's seat. You're reacting to things that haven't happened and behaving as though they have, or are inevitable. Focus on what is actually happening, here and now." "Surrender to reality," he said with a small grin and, grabbing a tissue, he rubbed his eyes. It was one of Hardye Moel's favorite sayings. "Yes. Stop fighting battles that don't exist. Focus on what does.

Peter's a lucky man except in one respect, he doesn't seem to know how lucky he is.

C. S. Lewis wrote that we can create situations in which we are happy, but we cannot create joy. It just happens.

In a life filled with great good fortune of health, of creativity, of friends, living in safety and privilege with the loving partner. There was just one bit of misfortune in his life and that was that Peter Morrow seemed to have no idea how very fortunate he was.

Maps gave them control over their surroundings, for the first time ever. It showed how to get from one place to another. It sounds simple now, but a thousand years ago it would have been an incredible feat of imagination and imagery. All maps are drawn as though looking down. From a bird's point of view. From their god's point of view. Imagine being the first person to think of that. To be able to wrap their minds around a perspective they'd never seen. And then draw it.

In the kingdom of the blind, Amelia recited to herself as she trudged along— —the one-eyed man is king, Gamache read.

They'd crossed over to that continent where grieving parents lived. It looked the same as the rest of the world, but wasn't. Colors bled pale. Music was just notes. Books no longer transported or comforted, not fully. Never again. Food was nutrition, little more. Breaths were sighs. And they knew something the rest didn't. They knew how lucky the rest of the world was.

Despite himself, Beauvoir laughed. "There is strong shadow where there is much light.