#perspective

We are often taught to look for the beauty in all things, so in finding it, the layman asks the philosopher while the philosopher asks the photographer. ↗

— Criss Jami

#beauty #finding #layman #modeling #perspective

MANAGE YOUR MOOD: Name 1 thing that surprised you today...Name 1 thing that moved you...Name 1 thing that inspired you... ↗

— Gino Norris

#inspiration #mood-change #motivation #perspective #change

Earth teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall. Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands all alone. Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring. ↗

— William Alexander

#courage

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ↗

— George Orwell

#perspective #totalitarianism #experience

We live in a moment in which old conflicts, much altered during their subterraneous years, have boiled up again. The struggle to own the past so that it can be made to serve contemporary interests has led to gross distortions. But it is true also that the experience of any generation is inevitably a warped lens through which to view the thought and the actions of any previous generation, especially when there is a lack of rigorous historical perspective to correct for these distortions. This second consideration may go some way toward explaining the fact that there are not two sides to what would otherwise be a great national controversy. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#history #experience

He grimaced at that, for he liked to believe he was master of his own fate. 'You think we should all rush madly down the paths of destiny?' 'I think, Lord, that when fate grips you, you do well to put reason aside. ↗

— Bernard Cornwell

#experience #fate #friendship #intuition #life

Reading is a sage way to bump up against life. Reading may be an escape, but it is not an escape from my own life and problems.  It is an escape from the narrow boundaries of being only me. Reading in some wonderful ways helps me find out who I am. When she was a young girl Patricia MacLachlan's mother encouraged her to "read a book and find out who you are." And it is true that in some ways reading defines me as it refines me. Reading enlarges my vision of the world; it helps me understand someone who is different from me. It makes me bigger on the inside. We tend to see the world from our own perspective; it is good to see it from the eyes of others. Good literature helps me understand who I am in relation to what others experience. Far from being an escape from reality, good literature is a window into reality. I read to feel life. ↗

— Gladys Hunt

#perspective #reading #reality #experience

Everyone on this planet has a unique experience. Nothing travels the exact same path through time. Therefore everyone and everything in this universe is notable. In my opinion, to say otherwise is more than a little shortsighted and lacks perspective. ↗

— Dr. Leslie Dean Brown

#notable-quote #perspective #shortsightedness #experience

When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacred. Then it functions not as a prison but as a lens. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#faith #perspective #tradition #faith

Thank you to Giulia Fani, Joan Spence and my sister for the rooms and desks they loaned me. ↗

— Moez Surani

#familial-perspectives #favoritism #floaters #graciousness #politicized-spaces