Quotes About Perspective

FOREWORD by François Truffaut

This cancer of the mind which consists of thinking all too sadly that certain things 'are,' while others, which well might be, 'are not.

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams.

La vie est autre que ce qu'on écrit.

Vous ne pourrez jamais voir cette étoile comme je la voyais. Vous ne comprenez pas : elle est comme le cÅ"ur d'une fleur sans cÅ"ur.

Je préfère, encore une fois, marcher dans la nuit à me croire celui qui marche dans le jour.

Quer dizer que a morte não nos tomará nada (já que só nos tomará o futuro que não é), que o tempo não nos toma nada (já que o presente é tudo), enfim que é absurdo esperar a eternidade - pois já estamos nela. ''Se entendermos eternidade não como uma duração infinita mas como atemporalidade,'' dizia por sua vez Wittgenstein, ''então tem a vida eterna quem vive no presente.

Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it.

You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.

Juger c'est, de toute évidence ne pas comprendre puisque, si l'on comprenait, on ne pourrait pas juger.

Subjectivity and objectivity commit a series of assaults on each other during a human life out of which the first one suffers the worse beating.

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.

Are you then unable to recognize unless it has the same sound as yours?

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

Modern history, both early and late, was made by Europeans, who "built a world around Europe", as historians "know", according to Braudel. That is indeed the "knowledge" of the European historians who themselves "invented" history and then put it to good use. There is not even an inkling of suspicion that it may have been the other way around, that maybe it was the world that made Europe.

The true painter strives to paint what can only be seen through his world.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game is finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.

We are almost always the craftsman of our own unhappiness.

Lo que mas separa a las personas es, sin duda, que unos vivan en el pasado y otros en el presente.

Even our strongest emotions die, don't you think? And we can look back to the woman we were three years ago with the same curiosity and detachment as if it were someone else.

The really important thing I've realized in the last year is that if we truly love we mustn't attach too much importance to the things that the people we love do. We need them; they alone mean we can live in a particular 'atmosphere' (your friend Helene calls it a 'climate' and that's exactly right) that we can't get by without. So long as we can keep them, hold on to them good God, what does the rest matter?