Quotes About Perspective

I don't believe in magic, but I do believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want

We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear, he said. Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.

she had long accepted the fact that happiness is like swallows in Spring. It may come and nest under your eaves or it may not. You cannot command it. When you expect to be happy you are not, when you don't expect to be happy there's suddenly Easter in your soul, though it be midwinter.

Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own, said Mary. I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.

I]f you believe in God omnipresent, then you must believe everything that comes into your life, person or event, must have something of God in it to be experienced and loved; not hated.

Could you understand the meaning of light if there were no darkness to point the contrast? Day and night, life and death, love and hatred; since none of these things can have any being at all apart from the existence of the other; only the indolence of human nature finds it so hard to pierce through to the other side.

Don't waste hate on pink geranium.

Helen was happy for them, and disdainful, and jealous of them for getting more of each other while she got less of them, and, mostly, astonished-that life could actually move forward like this into adulthood.

Two whole lives, a person might have. Three or four or five. If only. Never before had she felt this fanning out of possibilities; one life had seemed plenty, difficult sometimes, other times fine. Either way, her lot.

You cannot see the beauty without facing the darkness. Remember this.

We all know that we'll die someday, but believing it is another thing entirely.

He smiled down at her. Truly. I think a man may find happiness-or discontent- no matter if he has a full belly or not.

One's own family and situation are all one knows as a child. Therefore they are, by default, normal. I thought everyone had a papa who sometimes stayed awake all night writing philosophical papers, only to burn them all in a rage in the morning. It was only when I was old enough to notice that other fathers didn't act like my own that I realized the truth.

In England you learn only to compete with your men in the world and it's not enough to be loved for yourselves because you are women. I shall try to learn of you, but you must try to learn from me, convenido?

Il n'y a pas d'erreur, pas de coïncidences. Tous les événements sont des bénédictions, qui nous sont données pour que nous apprenions.

Faith is simply whatever is real to us.

For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth—really seen it—you can't look away.

It's a shame for a woman's history to be all about men-first boys, then other boys, then men, men, men. It reminds me of the way our school history textbooks were all about wars and elections, one war after another, with the dull periods of peace skimmed over when they happened.

perhaps when you live your entire life among such scenes, they do not register as beauty but as the world itself—

The past is very useful, but only for what if can teach us about the present. The present is the rich thing. But I am very fond of the past.

It's the reward of the business (historian), to look history in the eye & say, 'I know who you are. You can't fool me.

Der Glaube ist das, was fuer uns real ist.

The study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.

El pasado es muy útil, pero sólo cuando puede enseñarnos algo acerca del presente. El presente es lo que cuenta. Pero me gusta mucho el pasado.