Quotes & Sayings About Perspective And Wisdom

People only have true understanding when they look at everything from God's perspective. Authentic wisdom begins when we understand that God is to be the object of our devotion, our adoration, and our reverence. — R.C. Sproul

When we look at the past from beyond the perspective of sadness and error, without judgment, without right or wrong, understanding it was part of our chosen experience, then the past is healed. And by healing I mean that it is seen with wisdom and insight rather than judgment and scorn. — Linda Hoppe

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say, - 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

From an athlete's perspective, to cancel the Olympics in regards to the threats would be absolutely devastating - especially since the Olympics - it's really about people meeting together through sports and putting aside their countries' differences for that time. — Brian Boitano

By grounding yourself in mindfulness early in the morning, you are reminding yourself that things are always changing, that good and bad things come and go, and that it is possible to embody a perspective of of constancy, wisdom, and inner peace as you face any conditions that present themselves. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Accept the things I cannot change," I said. "And pray for the courage to change the things I can, as well as the wisdom to know the difference."
The thing is ... I know this is good advice. It's called the Serenity Prayer, and it really does put things in perspective (it's suppose to be for recovering alcoholics, but it helps recovering freakoutaholics, like me, as well). — Meg Cabot

Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective ... and the saddest sight of all is to see, far behind you, temptations you've resisted. — Robert A. Heinlein

Everything that happens, happens at the only possible time it can happen, and it is always at exactly the right time. We cannot get to an appointment before we arrive - or after. It is only at the instant of our arrival that we can arrive, and that is always at exactly the right moment, the perfect moment, the only possible moment. — Wu Wei

Store up knowledge. Then question your own knowledge in order to expand your mind, both to build and to create more space. Then store up more knowledge. And so on. That is wisdom. — Criss Jami

Have love for your inner Self and everything else is done for you. — Amit Ray

Wisdom is not just knowing fundamental truths, if these are unconnected with the guidance of life or with a perspective on its meaning. If the deep truths physicists describe about the origin and functioning of the universe have little practical import and do not change our picture of the meaning of the universe and our place within it, then knowing them would not count as wisdom. — Robert Nozick

It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom. — Dee Hock

There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China.
To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply by 1,198,500,000.
See? Nothing to it. — Annie Dillard

The antidote, in so far as it is a matter of individual psychology, is to be found in history, biology, astronomy, and all those studies which, without destroying self-respect, enable the individual to see himself in his proper perspective. What is needed is not this or that specific piece of information, but such knowledge as inspires a conception of the ends of human life as a whole: art and history, acquaintance with the lives of heroic individuals, and some understanding of the strangely accidental and ephemeral position of man in the cosmos - all this touched with an emotion of pride in what is distinctively human, the power to see and to know, to feel magnanimously and to think with understanding. It is from large perceptions combined with impersonal emotion that wisdom most readily springs. — Bertrand Russell

Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations — George Santayana

The only good thing to come out of it was a kind of wisdom in Hirsch. He'd grown to understand that police officers can drift over time, and it isn't always or entirely conscious but a loss of perspective. Real and imagined grievances develop, a feeling that the job deserved greater and better public recognition. Rewards, for example, in the form of more money, more or better sex, a promotion, a junket to an interstate conference, greater respect in general. Some of these rewards were graspable, others the thwarted dreams that drove their grievances. Cynism set it. The bad guys always got away with it, and the media seized on the police officer who took a bribe rather than the one who helped orphans. So why not take shortcuts and bend the rules?? — Garry Disher

The secret of our lost mode of prayer is to shift our perspective of life by feeling that the miracle has already happened and our prayers have been answered. Now we have the opportunity to bring this wisdom into our lives as prayers of gratitude for what already exists, rather than asking for our prayers to be answered. — Gregg Braden

In God's eyes, a man who teaches one truth and nothing else is more righteous than a man who teaches a million truths and one lie. — Criss Jami

The essence of wisdom, from a practical standpoint, is pausing long enough to look at our lives-invitations, opportunities, relationships-from God's perspective. And then acting on it — Charles Stanley

Wisdom is the central form which gives meaning and position to all the facts which are acquired by knowledge, the digestion and assimilation of whatever in the material world the man comes in contact with. — Northrop Frye

Perspective makes all the difference. It's not what you look at; it's what you see ... Remember that the sun never actually sets; it's our perspective that makes it appear to. Our sunset is another's sunrise. It's all perspective. How would your life be different if you applied this truth to the things that cause you stress? Letting go isn't about erasing the past; it's about looking at the same event and seeing something different. Activate this power in your life! Take the pain and poison of the past and allow it to nourish a new found wisdom. Remember, you can't change the past, but you can change the labels you place on events. Perspective - it's not what you look at; it's what you see. — Steve Maraboli

What we also need is a constructive overarching vision of Christian engagement in today's advanced modern world, one that is shaped by faith in God and a Christian perspective rather than by current wisdom, and one that can inspire Christians to move out with courage to confront the best and worst that we may encounter. — Os Guinness

This lesson is, I suppose, a major reason I wrote this book: because along the way I've picked up the wisdom that bad things happen, and yet the sun still comes up the next day, and it's up to you to carry on living your life and keeping your setbacks in perspective. You also have to understand that on some level, these horrible and sad things happen to everyone; the mark of a man is not just how he survives it all but also what wisdom he's gained from the experience. — Martin Short

Answer the big question of eternity, and the little questions of life fall into perspective. — Max Lucado

There is a lot of work ahead of us, as we endeavor to rescue the planet from ourselves, and we are likely to be at this work for a very long time. Perhaps we could come at it from the wisdom of the non-self perspective, rather than the passions of the "world is mine" point of view. — Andrew Olendzki

Animism is the way humanity has been deeply connected to the land and its seasonal cycles for millennia, in rapport and conversation with the animals, plants, elements, Ancestors and earth spirits. The opposite of animism is the "cult of the individual" so celebrated in modern society, and the loss of the animist worldview is at the root of our spiritual disconnect and looming ecological crisis. Human beings are just one strand woven into the complex systems of Earth Community, and the animistic perspective is fundamental to the paradigm shift, and the recovery of our own ancestral wisdom. — Pegi Eyers

I hope that I have gained some wisdom, but I don't know. I have kids, and that certainly puts things into perspective. I think I'm a more patient person. I hope I'm a more patient person. I'm a little more relaxed about the peripheral side of this business, which I used to find very confusing and alarming. — Cillian Murphy

How can we judge fairly of the characters and merits of men, of the wisdom or folly of actions, unless we have ... an accurate knowledge of all particulars, so that we may live as it were in the times, and among the persons, of whom we read, see with their eyes, and reason and decide on their premises? — William Wilberforce

A large majority of our respondents were inspired by a tension in their domain that became obvious when looked at from the perspective of another domain. Even though they do not think of themselves as interdisciplinary, their best work bridges realms of ideas. Their histories tend to cast doubt on the wisdom of overspecialization, where bright young people are trained to become exclusive experts in one field and shun breadth like the plague. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Perspective and perseverance are carved by time and constructed by wisdom. — A.D. Sams

We tend to teach mathematics as a long list of rules.You learn them in order and you have to obey them, because if you don't obey them you get a C-.This is not mathematics. Mathematics is the study if things that come out a certain way because there is no other way they could possibly be. — Jordan Ellenberg

And someone, somewhere, was having an even worse time of it than me. I tried to keep that in mind. No matter how crappy your life, someone will probably beat you in the my-life-is-crap category. Not that I don't let myself whine a little now and then, but sometimes it's good to keep your misery in perspective — Lish McBride

It's a strange thing, being the parent of a teenager. One thing to raise a little boy, another entirely when a person on the brink of adulthood looks to you for wisdom. I feel like I have little to give. I know there are fathers who see the world a certain way, with clarity and confidence, who know just what to say to their sons and daughters. But I'm not one of them. The older I get, the less I understand. I love my son. He means everything to me. And yet, I can't escape the feeling that I'm failing him. Sending him off to the wolves with nothing but the crumbs of my uncertain perspective. I — Blake Crouch

Nor did these society people add to Elstir's work in their mind's eye that temporal perspective which enabled them to like, or at least to look without discomfort at, Chardin's painting. And yet the older among them might have reminded themselves that in the course of their lives they had gradually seen, as the years bore them away from it, the unbridgeable gulf between what they considered a masterpiece by Ingres and what they had supposed must forever remain a "horror" (Manet's Olympia, for example) shrink until the two canvases seemed like twins. But we never learn, because we lack the wisdom to work backwards from the particular to the general, and imagine ourselves always to be faced with an experience which has no precedents in the past. — Marcel Proust

Hope resides in the future, while perspective and wisdom are almost always found by looking to the past. — Greg Mortenson

Small moments we find so pointless can become cherished memories with time and the perspective that wisdom brings. — Brandy Nacole

The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out. — Charlie Kaufman

wisdom is not having the right answers but having a proper sense of scale and perspective. — Jonathan Martin

Our world is moving so fast and we are apt to miss so much of what is happening "right now." If we can put down our smart phones for one moment and be present to what is around us, I believe these incidental meetings and strangers who come into our lives can give us unexpected fortitude, perspective and even wisdom just when we need them the most - if we are just awake, aware and open to these new insights. — Kristin S. Kaufman

The greater number of a man's errors come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and escaped it. — Alexandre Dumas

Great leaders possess tremendous long-term clarity about what they're trying to accomplish both personally and in their careers. And it's this long-term perspective that builds character, wisdom, and self-discipline. Long-term thinking is the hallmark of high-performance living, yet it's often neglected in favor of the treadmill of urgent activities of the moment. — Tommy Newberry

Science and technology have freed humanity from many burdens and given us this new perspective and great power. This power can be used for the good of all. If wisdom governs our actions; but if the world is mad or foolish, it can destroy itself just when great advances and triumphs are almost without its grasp. — Jawaharlal Nehru

The idea of victimage is a dreadful thing, a product of a safe middle-class perspective. What people who are not safe develop is a tragic wisdom, a wisdom that embraces contradiction and seeks a sense of balance rather than going to extremes. — Gerald Vizenor

When you study God's Word and incorporate His wisdom and principles into your daily life, your whole perspective will change. — Elizabeth George

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

Remember, morality is God's standard, not humankind's standard. So it is important that we understand the process that God used to bring us his wisdom, truth and historical perspective. — Reid A. Ashbaucher

A wise and clear-eyed book, Future Hype challenges the conventional wisdom about technological change and provides a fresh perspective on our so-called computer age. — Nicholas G. Carr

There's a wealth that has nothing to do with dollars, that comes from the perspective and wisdom of paying attention to your life. — Oprah Winfrey

Life will not, it will never, make sense to your mind. The secret is to see life from the soul's perspective; to add to the mind's experience the soul's wisdom, awareness, and total knowing. — Neale Donald Walsch

Inner peace is more a question of cultivating perspective, meaning, and wisdom even as life touches you with its pain. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Knowledge is power, as some say. But on some days it is just as much pain and confusion as it is power; and any wise man worth his salt as a wise man at least understands this. One may be able to comprehend all the human perspectives in the universe, but this gives more to decipher regarding what is actually true; and even after discovering the truth, the challenge is in maintaining a patience for the infinite number of opinions that do not reflect that truth. Its consistency in man is challenge. A worldly knowledge ends at the former challenge of confusion, but the knowledge of Christ ends at the latter challenge of patience. — Criss Jami

Wisdom is to be fostered where it is found and those who judge without discretion do so because they themselves are blinded and chained to the vestibule of ignorance. Those lacking the sight to understand the circumstance and perspective of another place primacy on the material over the spiritual and become symptomatic of the problem rather than the cure. — Gwendolyn Taunton

Remember, whatever you focus upon, increases ... When you focus on the things you need, you'll find those needs increasing. If you concentrate your thoughts on what you don't have, you will soon be concentrating on other things that you had forgotten you don't have-and feel worse! If you set your mind on loss, you are more likely to lose ... But a grateful perspective brings happiness and abundance into a person's life. — Andy Andrews

It doesn't help anyone to judge their happiness or career by looking at where others may or may not be. Dad said it best: 'All the time you're looking left and right at other people, you're neglecting what's in front of you.If you focus on looking straight ahead, you can take the odd glance at the future.' He's got a way of saying things sometimes that just puts everything into perspective. — James Corden

Sometimes, you may think you have fallen into an abyss ... when in fact, you've just descended to the roots ... of the tree of life! Somewhere along your climb, you got lost amongst the branches, and lost in the darkness of the branches, the only way to find the straight way up would be to return to the roots! And from there amongst the roots, you will be able to look straight up and see the top again! And begin your ascent! — C. JoyBell C.

Mothers are supposed to listen and, afterward, to respond with some wisdom and perspective, but these things were not my mother's strong suit. — Anne Lamott

Each time, you'll learn something. Each time, you'll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you. — Ryan Holiday

Give yourself permission to see and feel the extraordinary events in your own life. In internalizing them, you also will find your perspective about life and its meaning will change, resulting in growth and expansion of your soul. — Susan Barbara Apollon

Meditation is a practice that can teach us to enter each moment with wisdom, lightness, and a sense of humor. It is an art of opening and letting go, rather than accumulation or struggle. Then, even within our frustrations and difficulties, a remarkable inner sense of support and perspective can grow. — Jack Kornfield

Part of the art of teaching is the ability to rearrange the world for students - to force them to see things in a new way. i've known too many stupid intellectuals to believe that education and wisdom come as a package deal along with facts, it's your perspective that counts - your ability to see differently, not just to see a lot. — Sunny Decker

I see a lot of people complaining about the things they can fix, and a lot of people being accepting of the things they cannot change.
Maybe tragedy really is the catastrophic event, for the way people view their lives.
I would rather be wise, than nieve. — Nikki Rowe

four new factors of wisdom were identified: non-dualistic thinking in cognitive wisdom, perspective-taking and nonresentment in reflective wisdom, and empathy in affective wisdom. — Anonymous