A simple thought or quote can send your mind off in a new direction.
It can be the simple start of a positive change in your life and in how you think about things.
So in this post I’d like to share the most thought-provoking quotes on perspective that I’ve found over the past decade and a half.
You’ll for instance learn:
- Why sorrow and pain can be something that will bring you more joy in the long run.
- That if you want a change in your world then that starts with you and what you focus on.
- How to reduce the worrying in your life.
If you want more motivation and timeless thoughts that will send your mind off on new and unexplored pathways then check out this post with quotes about empathy and also this one that’s all about finding inner peace.
Thought-Provoking Quotes About Perspective
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Anaïs Nin
“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.”
Chris Pine
“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.”
Helen Keller
“Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.”
Sterling K. Brown
“Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.”
Muhammad Ali
“Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.”
Robert Morgan
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Kahlil Gibran
“Every form of art is another way of seeing the world. Another perspective, another window. And science –that’s the most spectacular window of all. You can see the entire universe from there.”
Claudia Gray
“Gratitude is one of the strongest and most transformative states of being. It shifts your perspective from lack to abundance and allows you to focus on the good in your life, which in turn pulls more goodness into your reality.”
Jen Sincero
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
Frances Hodgson Burnett
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucious
“A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way.”
Allen Klein
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
Lao Tzu
“If we don’t have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective.”
Wayne Thiebaud
“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. … In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.”
John Lubbock
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.”
Alphonse Karr
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”’
Soren Kierkegaard
“Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.”
Wayne Dyer
“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”
George Eliot
“It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”
Albert Einstein
“Never mistake motion for action.”
Ernest Hemingway
“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”
Ansel Adams
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
Abraham Maslow
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”
Neil Armstrong
“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”
Dorothea Lange
“Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”
Hans Margolius
“If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Henry Miller
“Though I might travel afar, I will meet only what I carry with me, for every
man is a mirror. We see only ourselves reflected in those around us. Their attitudes and actions are only a reflection of our own. The whole world and its condition has its counterparts within us all. Turn the gaze inward. Correct yourself and your world will change.”
Kristen Zambucka
You may also find this post with quotes about regret helpful.
Inspiring Quotes on Changing Perspective
“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”
Epictetus
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”
Bertrand Russell
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Anaïs Nin
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
C.G. Jung
“To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.”
Stephen R. Covey
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
L.M. Montgomery
“It’s not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.”
Kristin Armstrong
“I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.”
Audrey Hepburn
“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.”
Eckhart Tolle
“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.”
Albert Einstein
“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.”
Don Miguel Ruiz
“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
Jim Rohn
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.”
Viggo Mortensen
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
George Bernard Shaw
“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”
Bertrand Russell
“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.”
David Allen
“If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.”
Irvin D. Yalom
“What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.”
Martha Graham
Positive Perspective Quotes
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
Henry Ford
“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”
Dalai Lama
“Perspective is everything when you are experiencing the challenges of life.”
Joni Eareckson Tada
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
Winston Churchill
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
Harvey Mackay
“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”
Eskimo Proverb
“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
Og Mandino
“I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation. I may be, for I have also learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances.”
Martha Washington
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
Peter Marshall
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
Marthe Troly-Curtin
“If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.”
Joseph Addison
“There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.”
Aaron Lauritsen
“Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.”
Irving Berlin
“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.”
Wayne Dyer
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain
Want even more? You can find a in-depth collection of quotes on compassion here.