Quotes & Sayings About Other Perspectives

The postmodern poststructuralists go from saying "there is no final perspective" (or "perspectives are boundless") to saying "therefore there is no advantage in any perspective over another." This leveling of perspectives is not an interrelation of all perspectives but is itself merely one particular and covertly privileged perspective (and thus ends up, as we have seen, being perfectly self-contradictory: there is no advantaged perspective except mine, which maintains that all other perspectives are not so privileged). — Ken Wilber

For us, the great conclusion is this: all the colors can be obtained from any one of them, by motion, or, as we say, by making Galilean transformations. Because Galilean transformations are symmetries of the laws of Nature, any color is fully equivalent to any other. They all emerge as different views of the same thing, seen from different but equally valid perspectives. — Frank Wilczek

Conversation can be as mutually incomprehensible as foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas - and ideally of all religions - not only to reach God but to reach each other. — Huston Smith

One of the powerful functions of a library - any library - lies in its ability to take us away from worlds that are familiar and comfortable and into ones which we can neither predict nor control, to lead us down new roads whose contours and vistas provide us with new perspectives. Sometimes, if we are fortunate, those other worlds turn out to have more points of familiarity with our own than we had thought. Sometimes we make connections back to familiar territory and when we have returned, we do so supplied with new perspectives, which enrich our lives as scholars and enhance our role as teachers. Sometimes the experience takes us beyond our immediate lives as scholars and teachers, and the library produces this result particularly when it functions as the storehouse of memory, a treasury whose texts connect us through time to all humanity.
[Browsing in the Western Stacks, Harvard Library Bulletin NS 6(3): 27-33, 1995] — Richard F. Thomas

If you understand something in only one way, then you don't really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all other things we know. Well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives until you find one that works for you. And that's what we mean by thinking! — Marvin Minsky

In other words, multiculturalism is a noble, logocentric, and rational endeavor that simply misidentifies its own stance and claims to be not rational because some of the things it tolerates are not rational. But its own tolerance is rational through and through, and rightly so. Rationality is the only structure that will tolerate structures other than itself. It thus fails to notice that that stance itself actually (and appropriately) rejects all narrower perspectives (which clearly shows that all perspectives are not equal). — Ken Wilber

Extraverts, in other words, often stumble over themselves. They can talk too much and listen too little, which dulls their understanding of others' perspectives. They can fail to strike the proper balance between asserting and holding back, which can be read as pushy and drive people away.* — Daniel H. Pink

Children with social challenges are sometimes described as lacking empathy. This is usually not the case. Instead, the child is struggling with perspective taking, which makes empathy difficult. If they could understand the perspectives and emotional status of others, they would empathize. Indeed, many quirky children empathize quite well with others, provided that the other person is experiencing a strong, obvious emotion that can be easily understood (sad, angry, happy). It — Mark Bowers

The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. Independence doesn't imply rationality or impartiality, though. You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you're independent, you won't make the group any dumber. — James Surowiecki

Through the imagination and the human sense of creativity, the book will examine not only raw clinical data but philosophical perspectives as well. As within many moral fables, animals will be used, at times, to convey a a fundamental truth of human nature. More simply stated, animals that elicit human empathetic responses, will be examined in a religious context.
So, starting with cats, dogs and ultimately other primates, as moral experiments of imagination, we can perhaps understand differing cognitive processes that could have shaped our religious purview. It might be even stated that they should shape our opinion, especially in a reevaluation of the spiritual present and coming future. When this happens, it will help humanity create a unique pristine outlook on its religious traditions. — Leviak B. Kelly

I think I've become more understanding of people around me compared to before. I try to understand other people's tendencies and relationships. I've been able to laugh off a lot of things between myself and others, but it's still difficult trying to look at things from their perspectives. — Jessica Jung

In these days [1908], when all things and memories of the past are at length become not only subservient to, but submerged by, the matters and needs of the immediate present, those paths of knowledge that lead into regions seemingly remote from such needs are somewhat discredited; and the aims of those that follow them whither they lead are regarded as quite out of touch with the real interests of life. Very greatly is this so with archaeology, and the study of ancient and curious tongues, and searchings into old thoughts on high and ever-insistent questions; a public which has hardly time to read more than its daily newspaper and its weekly novel has denounced - almost dismissed - them, with many other noble and wonderful things, as 'unpractical,' whatever that vague and hollow word may mean. — Battiscombe G. Gunn

We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don't have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Suffering in life can uncover untold depths of character and unknown strength for service. People who go through life
unscathed by sorrow and untouched by pain tend to be shallow in their perspectives on life. Suffering, on the other hand, tends to plow up the surface of our lives to uncover the depths that provide greater strength of purpose and accomplishment. Only deeply plowed earth can yield bountiful harvests. — Billy Graham

Nonetheless, Scranton had travelled in space. He had known the loneliness of separation from all other human beings, he had gazed at the empty perspectives that I myself had seen. — J.G. Ballard

Every time I talk about 'The Shield' I kind of talk about it from three perspectives, as if I'm three people, because I'm a fan of the show. I'm in love with all the other characters and their journeys and their work. But then, as an actor, I love getting this kind of rich material and having to do it. As my character, did my journey finish? — Benito Martinez

There are so many lenses through which we look at life. There are so many lenses through which we perceive others. There are so many lenses through which we interpret things that happen to us in life and there are so many lenses that give us not just the different perspectives about life, but how we behave towards life and other people due to the reasons we have! Wealth influences our reasons and poverty directs our actions. Failure shows us a different way to behave and success gives us a different reason for action. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The idea that other perspectives exist may not be obvious to those who are in an emotional state of mind. — Nabil N. Jamal

It's the sketch Edward did of me before he went away, the one he said was fine but didn't want to keep. It's as if he's drawn me not once but twice. In the main drawing I have my head turned to the right. It's so detailed, you can see the tautness of my neck muscles and the arch of my clavicle. But underneath or over that there's a second drawing, barely more than a few jagged, suggestive lines, done with a surprising energy and violence: my head turned the other way, my mouth open in a kind of snarl. The two heads pointing in opposite directions give the drawing a disturbing sense of movement.

Which one's the pentimento, and which the finished thing? And why did Edward say there was nothing wrong with it? Did he not want me to see this double image for some reason? — J.P. Delaney

One way to overcome our natural self-centeredness is to try to see things from other people's perspectives. — John C. Maxwell

Studies show that people who are prone to guilt are more forgiving. They handle anger more constructively, experience more empathy and have a greater ability to see others' perspectives. Those prone to shame, on the other hand, are more likely to hold grudges and are less likely to forgive when they feel wronged. Shame is also associated with feelings of anger and aggression and the tendency to blame others. — Amanda Enayati

In the broader spiritual realities, no rites or rituals are necessary to know God. NONE. Any religion that insists you can come to intimate knowledge of the Divine by any means other than stillness, self-awareness, and unity with consciousness is deceptive. So-called holy texts are about religion, not necessarily about God. They are really owners manuals for faith traditions. I am not denouncing them altogether, as I love the Bible and have studied it reverently all my life. But I don't view the Bible as the inspired word OF God as much as the inspired word of men ABOUT God, as they perceive God through their often jaded, human perspectives. Again, I respect these so-called sacred writings. I would just like to see them read and placed in their proper, less idolatrous, place. — Carlton D. Pearson

Some people are born with tornadoes in their lives, but constellations in their eyes. Other people are born with stars at their feet, but their souls are lost at sea. — Nikita Gill

I'm a pluralist about perspectives on literature. There seem to me to be all sorts of illuminating ways of responding to major literary works, some of them paying considerable attention to context, others applying various theoretical ideas, yet others focusing on details of language, or linking the work to the author's life, or connecting it with other works. — Philip Kitcher

From it genesis twelve hundred years ago to today, Islamic philosophy (al-hikmah; al-falsafah) has been one of the major intellectual traditions within the Islamic world, and it has influenced and been influenced by many other intellectual perspectives, including Scholastic theology (kalam) and doctrinal Sufism (al-ma'rifah or al-tasawwuf al-'ilmi) and theoretical gnosis ('irfan-i nazari). — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The books which seal off the long perspectives, which sever us from our losses, which represent the world of potency as a world of act, these are the books which, when the drug wears off, go on to the dump with the other empty bottles. Those that continue to interest us move through time to an end, an end we must sense even if we cannot know it; they live in change, until, which is never, as and is are one. — Frank Kermode

There is a false ecumenism, as sentimental and vague as you please, which for all intents and purposes abolishes doctrine; in order to reconcile two adversaries, one strangles them both, which is certainly the best way to make peace.
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Objectivity toward the perspectives and spiritual ways of other peoples is too often the result of philosophic indifferentism or sentimental universalism, and in such a case there is no reason to pay it homage; indeed one may well ask whether objectivity in the full sense of the word is really involved. The Christian saint who fights Muslims is closer to Islamic sanctity than the philosopher who accepts everything and practices nothing. — Frithjof Schuon

In junior high I read a lot of Stephen King, whose Americana approach to writing was often about "the terror next door" and at the same time I was reading a lot of Clive Barker, who was on the other end of the horror pendulum: insidious and disturbingly psychological. I found it fascinating how these two authors came at horror from two totally different perspectives. — Bryan Fuller

Many outsiders clarified that they believe Christians have a right (even an obligation) to pursue political involvement, but they disagree with our methods and our attitudes. They say we seem to be pursuing an agenda that benefits only ourselves; that we expect too much out of politics; they question whether we are motivated by our economic status rather than faith perspectives when we support conservative politics; they claim we act and say things in an unchristian manner; they wonder whether Jesus would use political power as we do; and they are concerned that we overpowered the voices of other groups. — David Kinnaman

To change a perspective, we need to be willing to see other perspectives, choose to see other perspectives, release all judgments about the situation, let go of the perspective that hurts us, and then decide to choose a better, healthier perspective." Changing — Lori Rubenstein

I'm now doing three things: concerts, conducting, and teaching, and they each support each other. I learn to see things from different perspectives and listen with different ears. The most important thing that you need to do is really listen. — Itzhak Perlman

What I'm saying is individuals have better ideas if they're connected to rich, diverse networks of other individuals. If you put yourself in an environment with lots of different perspectives, you yourself are going to have better, sharper, more original ideas. It's not that the network is smart. — Steven Johnson

The world that is coming toward us out of time is going to be very much richer in a mental sense because (among other freedoms) we are going to get a modicum of freedom from linguistic frameworks, from familiar mental habits. Anyone who really knows two or more tongues realizes that even that small enlargement of liberty ... gives him new perspectives, exercizes his soul anew. — Benjamin Lee Whorf

Civility is not about dousing strongly held views. It's about making sure that people are willing to respect other perspectives. — Jim Leach

Collaboration is being open to each other's ideas and benefiting from each other's perspectives in an open way. Collaboration is all about rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and helping each other to constantly improve a piece. And, it's also about spurring each other on to doing really great, hard work - it's easier to do it in a collaboration than on your own. — Alan Menken

I used to be the guy who wanted to do everything myself, wanted to write and play everything myself, but the older I've gotten, the more collaborations I've gotten. I really enjoy working with other people to create different styles of music, because I really do listen to everything, and I enjoy every kind of music. I think some of the best stuff comes from working with people who have different perspectives on the same thing. — Piggy D.

To write the truth as I see it; to defend the weak against the strong; to fight for justice; and to seek, as best I can to bring healing perspectives to bear on their terrible hates and fears of mankind, in the hope of someday bringing about one world, in which men[and women] will enjoy the differences of the human garden instead of killing each other over them. — I. F. Stone

I always find time to read novels and poetry as well as scripts; I like to enjoy different kinds of storytelling. I spend time at the beach and with my loved ones. I like traveling to unfamiliar places to challenge my perspectives and glean wisdom from other ways of life. — Rose McIver

Something is askew when our passion for the truth blinds us to other perspectives and to the grace to be able to differ graciously from others and learn from others who may see things very differently than we do. — Gordon T. Smith

Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life. — Paul Bloom

To be an effective leader and make sound decisions, you must be able to gather data by seeking out diverse perspectives and be willing to consider points of view other than your own. — Elizabeth Thornton

For a crowd to be smart, the people in it need to be not only diverse in their perspectives but also, relatively speaking, independent of each other. In other words, you need people to be thinking for themselves, rather than following the lead of those around them. — James Surowiecki

There are two perspectives on the oil sands. You have companies that want to make it the next Saudi Arabia. The other is that it's a transitional resource to a low-carbon economy, and to regard it as anything else is to drain the continent's financial resources. — Andrew Nikiforuk

I think that if we don't learn to inhabit other people's perspectives, then we're never going to understand why people do what they do. — Ruth Ozeki

Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with each other. You've been locked up here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel. Snap out of it! The people in those books never lived. Come on now! — Ray Bradbury

Wars are not a pub brawl. They are very complex projects that require an extraordinary degree of organisation, cooperation and appeasement. The ability to maintain peace at home, acquire allies abroad, and understand what goes through the minds of other people (particularly your enemies) is usually the key to victory. Hence an aggressive brute is often the worst choice to run a war. Much better is a cooperative person who knows how to appease, how to manipulate and how to see things from different perspectives. This is the stuff empire-builders are made of. The — Yuval Noah Harari

What multiplies is only up to us. Whether it is kindness that multiplies; or unkindness. Whether it is goodwill that multiplies; or bad intentions. Whether it is love that multiplies; or fear. Whether it is truth that multiplies; or doubt. What multiplies in our own minds, in our relationships with other people, in our relationship with our perspectives about the rest of the world, in our relationship with God, in our outlooks and in our hearts - it's all up to us. The power of multiplication is in our own hands. What you magnify upon will in fact become your reality. — C. JoyBell C.

Strategy making needs to function beyond the boxes to encourage the informal learning that produces new perspectives and new combinations ... Once managers understand this, they can avoid other costly misadventures caused by applying formal techniques, without judgement and intuition, to problem solving. — Henry Mintzberg

The very worst that could happen would be for Jayda to fall in love with a godless man whilst she was in London. If it were an Englishman he would most likely be an infidel and apostate, a kafir. As a stream of light rayed its column from the dome and shifted all other perspectives into shadow, Jamil squeezed his eyes shut away from the beam and prayed again that his sister could be guided to Allah; but the thought most acute to him at that moment was that such a temptation would appeal to her. — Johnny Leavesley

I existed on my own terms. I was different my entire life. Some called me divergent, wild, crazy, unpredictable and unconformed - an apostate to the rules of the majority. I called myself God's creation and found purpose in the madness. When that day came, I didn't allow other people to dictate how I should feel or act. I learned there was no shame in imperfection because history had shown being different had the power to change perspectives and eventually the world. This is when I realized that flaws had responsibility. This was the day that I learned I was truly BLESSED. — Shannon L. Alder

The somatotype of the cat or any animal from quadruped to biped partially determines the perspective of the creature. The physiology of any given creature will alter its understanding of its environment. A close look then at the physiology of cats and dogs and one biped, in particular, the primate, should give anyone a clear reason for the biological and psychological shaping of religion. This examination of cats, dogs and then other primates, humanity's cousins, in comparison with some religious ideals, will show just how physiological perspectives would and have influenced religious dogma or cat-ma as the case may be. — Leviak B. Kelly

I mean really wonderful. In teaching. Personal epiphanies. About life. About different perspectives-help with different perspectives that you have. You know what I mean? Relationships to nature. Relationships with the self. With other people. With events. — Keanu Reeves

There were two different expectations in this land of the future. On the one hand the the optimistic belief in an unending progress with millenarianistic overtones and on the other hand the doomsday expectation of the final battle of Armageddon. Both are perspectives are uniquely American and both are inter-related. — Jurgen Moltmann