Inspirational Quotes on Perspective

“The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.”

“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.”

“There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”

“Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions. Learn to see great things great and small things small.”

“Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.”

“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.”

“Preach [and live] as if Jesus was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is returning tomorrow.”

“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?”

“Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little In comparison to eternal realities.--”

“But of course these conjectures as to why God does what He does are probably of no more value than my dog's ideas of what I am up to when I sit and read.”

“The way you SEE your life SHAPES your life. How you define life determines your destiny. Your perspective will influence how you invest your time, spend your money, use your talents, and value your relationships.”

“Lifting your eyes from the things of this world is an activity that must begin WHERE YOU ARE.”

“If we were to gain God's perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying our things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in an asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.”

“If ants had a language they would, no doubt, call their anthill an artifact and describe the brick wall in its neighborhood as a object. in fact would be for them all that was not 'ant-made'.”

“When man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off. He is back where he always was, where every man always is.”

“We are not free to love God insofar as we are enslaved to creatures. And we all are. We are addicted to whatever we cannot part with that is less than God, our true good. And that includes ourselves--especially ourselves and our own will. So we must renounce this too, this especially. God's world is not the problem; our attitude is. God does not want us to renounce the unspeakably beautiful world he gave us as creation, as gift, as it really is. He wants us to renounce it as creator, as our god, as it really is not. This wonderful world is our God-given house to live in and to live the love of God in. But God's bride must learn not to love her house as if it were her husband.”

“Know the enemy, know yourself and victory is never in doubt, not in a hundred battles.”

“Let me be one of the upward and outward lookers, not one of the downward and inward lookers.”

“Endure, my heart; yea, a baser thing thou once didst bear”

“Like it! Yes—the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I'll stick to 'em, too.”