Quotes About Perspective

Age has been the perfect fire extinguisher for flaming youth.

I had believed that my homeland was the whole world, just as when I was a child I believed that our street was the whole homeland. As I grew up so the street grew smaller. But when my being reached out beyond the homeland, the earth shrank and new feelings, that I was larger than before, filled me.

You never know whether this is a form of instinctive blackmail, and therefore, to be resisted, or whether it is real illness brought on in the other person by what you live by and believe in.

Some mothers in today's world feel "cumbered" by home duties and are thus attracted by other more "romantic" challenges. Such women could make the same error of perspective that Martha made. The woman, for instance, who deserts the cradle in order to help defend civilization against the barbarians may well later meet, among the barbarians, her own neglected child.

A friend of mine who passed through a most severe trial, when I discussed it with him, he said simply, if it's fair, it isn't a trial.

Our afflictions brothers and sisters often will not be extinguished, they will be dwarfed and swallowed up in the joy of Christ. That's how we overcome, most of the time. It's not their elimination, but the placing of them in that larger context.

Long ago it took a Copernicus to tell a provincial world that this planet was not the center of the universe. Some selfish moderns need a Copernican reminder that they are not the center of the universe either!

Walking and overcoming by faith is not easy. For one thing, the dimension of time constantly constrains our perspective. Likewise, the world steadily tempts us. No wonder we are given instructive words from Jesus about the narrowness and the straightness of the only path available to return home: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). And then he said, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Jesus laid down strict conditions.

Humility is not the disavowal of our worth; rather, it is the sober realization of how much we are valued by God.

When Tony Benn became a minister in the 1960s -- and I think this must be apocryphal -- he had a huge map of Britain hung upside down in his office, so the channel was at the top and Scotland was at the bottom and, apparently, he said, "This is how we need to look at this country, with the money and the power draining by force of gravity out of the south east." That was a great idea. I rather liked him for that. I don't know if it's actually true or not.

breadth of experience is worthwhile in my estimation. Consider this another nugget of wisdom: you don't want to end up so lost in your power and omniscience that you forget how to take a shit.

That sounded a lot more appetizing than my aging cynicism, complete lack of interest in others, and lifetime of enthusiastic immersion in a culture that encourages you to look out for number one. Clearly, my best self was miles down the road.

Getting to know someone in blind darkness changes your impression of them.

Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.

As told in Friendship with God, if we simply decided to believe and act as if first, we're all one, and second, life is eternal, it would render virtually everything we've done all our lives pointless.

There is no truth except the truth that exists within you. Everything else is what someone is telling you.

There are those who say that seeing is believing. I am telling you that believing is seeing.

What's happening is merely what's happening. How you feel about it is another matter.

To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realize that where you wish to be is where you have already been ... and always were.

Belief creates behaviors.

Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin.

Apathy in the face of continual violence is something someone who has never lived through a war cannot understand.

The Now Habit perspective does not accept that laziness, disorganization, or any other character defect is the reason you procrastinate.

We are so busy constantly checking our own temperatures, we fail to notice the burning fevers of others.