Quotes About Perspective

Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.

I had become aware, as early as my college days, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible can be imagined, that has not been held by one of the philosophers.

It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, a conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to their own country.

It is just as valuable to be censured by friends as it is splendid to be praised by enemies. We desire praise from those who do not know us, but from friends we want the truth.

Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess.

Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose, n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont.

It is good to know something of the customs of different people in order to judge more soundly of our own, and so that we might not think that all that which is contrary to our own ways be ridiculous and contrary to reason, as those who have seen nothing have the habit of doing.

There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.

Nous sommes dans l'inconcevable, mais avec des repères éblouissants.

In the darkness of our lives, there is not one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty.

It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in order more sanely to judge our own, and that we do not think that everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think.

Those who protest against "Western ethnocentrism" imagine themselves to owe nothing to the West, since after all they rage furiously against it. But in fact theirs is the most Western perspective of all, more Western than that of their adversaries. Not only is the revolt against ethnocentrism an invention of the West, it cannot be found outside the West.

Let us not confuse true enlightenment with the idolatry of the here and now.

seria ilusório imaginarmo-nos com dimensão para criticar Shakespeare. Pode acontecer, ao contrário, que seja o inverso. Em vez de tentar julgá-lo de um ponto de vista 'moderno' necessariamente superior, deveríamos tentar encontrar algumas das suas intenções maiores que manifestamente nos escapam. Só podemos tê-las perdido -- Deus sabe onde e quando. A menos, bem entendido, que estejam ainda por desvendar

We are ready to deconstruct anything except the idea that we are self-directed and that the persecutors are always the others.

So long as western people imagine that there only exists a single type of humanity, that there is only one 'civilization', at different stages of development, no mutual understanding will be possible.

Europeans, since the days when they began to believe in :progress" and in "evolution," that is to say since a little more than a century ago, profess to see a sign of inferiority in this absence of change, whereas for our part, we look upon it as a balanced condition which Western civilization has failed to achieve.

Et c'est là, en même temps, ce qui donne l'illusion du progrès à ceux qui, ne connaissant qu'une civilisation, voient exclusivement la direction dans laquelle elle se développe, croient qu'elle est la seule possible, et ne se rendent pas compte que ce développement sur un point peut être largement compensé par une régression sur d'autres points.

Du reste, il est à remarquer que les philosophes disent souvent des choses beaucoup plus justes quand ils argumentent contre d'autres philosophes que quand ils en viennent à exposer leurs propres vues, et chacun voyant généralement assez bien les défauts des autres, ils se détruisent en quelque sorte mutuellement

The same can be said of the true science of num- bers, for the principial numbers, though they must be referred to as numbers by analogy, are situated relatively to our world at the pole opposite to that at which are situated the numbers of common arithmetic; the latter are the only numbers the moderns know, and on them they turn all their attention, thus taking the shadow for the reality, like the prisoners in Plato's cave.

Il faut bien comprendre qu'il ne s'agit point, dans notre pensée, de déclarer illégitime en elle-même une connaissance quelconque, même inférieure ; ce qui est illégitime, c'est seulement l'abus qui se produit lorsque des choses de ce genre absorbent toute l'activité humaine, ainsi que nous le voyons actuellement.

If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.