Quotes About Perspective

When the producers of 'Why Poverty?' came to me to do a film about poverty in the United States, I asked if I could do a film about wealth instead. I tend to make films about perpetrators, rather than victims.

When you are 81 years old, you don't really need a lot of the trappings of wealth.

I remember I had a psychologist that I worked with in Phoenix tell me one time that the loss of a job and the loss of one's wealth is more devastating to most than losing a loved one or getting divorced. And that really hit me.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they're gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

As the earth spins through space, a view from above the North Pole would encompass most of the wealth of the world - most of its food, productive machines, doctors, engineers and teachers. A view from the opposite pole would encompass most of the world's poor.

Moving from Dubai to the Congo was one of the best things that happened to me, it's a shock to be confronted by the contrast in wealth and culture, and it's hard, but I loved it and it influenced me a lot.

The trimmings of wealth are not as important to me and my generation as they were to my parents' generation.

You're never going to read 'The Wealth of Nations,' and you shouldn't, really. It's 900 pages.

I had the notion that, OK, so now we have all of this wealth, we could buy not only one expensive car, we could buy all of them. As soon as you realize that you could buy all of them, then none of them are particularly interesting or satisfying.

The poverty one still sees in America today is more shocking to me than anything I have seen in Ethiopia or Calcutta or Manila, and has made me, as someone living in a society of great wealth and someone who's never had to worry about the next meal, think seriously about what universal responsibility really means.

I don't spend any time at all thinking about my personal wealth. I suppose if I had nothing, I might think, 'I have nothing.'

Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy.

I'm not interested in building wealth, which is kind of naive and probably frowned on, living in America. It's something that people don't necessarily understand, but if I die poor, I die poor.

The richest people are those who have life arranged so they have food for the family and the rent or mortgage paid. After that, at least in my case, it can become a pretty boring existence if wealth is the only objective.

Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.

Most people would assume my business success, and the wealth that comes with it, have brought me happiness. But I know I am successful, wealthy, and connected because I am happy.

I never thought of myself as a wealthy person. I've thought of myself as a person who has had a lot of luck. I don't have the same stress that other people have, but there are too many things I could have done differently if wealth was what I was after. If I was all about money, I would have lived in L.A.

Edith Vonnegut behaved like a guest in her children's lives. To her way of thinking, parenting came under the general heading of household tasks, which, as a wealthy woman, she could pay others to do.

I am always someone who follows the research more than my self-interest. It certainly has not been in my self-interest to defend men. I've gone from being quite wealthy, when I was defending women, to being quite poor defending men.

Studying abroad should not be something that only the wealthy can afford. Every student deserves the opportunity to experience other cultures, make new friendships, share ideas and widen their horizons.

You always hear that tragedies put sports in perspective, that they prove we shouldn't care this much about the successes and failures of a bunch of wealthy strangers. I'm going the other way - sometimes, sports put everything else in perspective.

No, I'm not wealthy.

Now, twenty years old, I come out and I go back to Greenwich Village. Now, of course, I'm a wealthy man.

I never felt hard done by and never wanted for anything, but I grew up in a wealthy area where I saw people being handed things on a plate. So it made me want to earn some money and be able to buy things for myself.