I used to think perspective was simply about seeing things from unique angles (thanks in part to my appreciation for photography).
But after slow traveling the world full-time for 8+ years, I’ve gained perspectives my past self could have never envisioned. Many of my previous beliefs have been challenged, and I’ve developed a more nuanced worldview as a result.
As I’ve learned, it’s about being totally open to new ways of thinking and realizing that your reality is just one of many.
By layering on new levels of understanding and exploring new perspectives, you can become a more worldly thinker and create a richer, more connected and meaningful life.
Let’s explore some quotes about perspective that help open our minds up to new ways of seeing the world.
Quotes About Perspective
One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.
Tim Burton
Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.
Muhammad Ali
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
Horace Walpole
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
Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.
Criss Jami
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
It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?
Isaac Asimov
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One moment the world is as it is. The next, it is something entirely different. Something it has never been before.
Anne Rice
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
Martha Graham
Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and — if at all possible — speak a few sensible words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
And those who were seen dancing, were thought to be crazy, by those who could not hear the music.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Is someone different at age 18 or 60? I believe one stays the same.
Hayao Miyazaki
I wish I could draw you how I see you. I’d draw a boy with the most magnetic smile, and the kindest hands, and eyes that are gloomy, but can sometimes be bright. I’d draw a boy who deserves to see the ocean.
Jasmine Warga
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.
C.S. Lewis
No two persons ever read the same book.
Edmund Wilson
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
A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.
Richard Avedon
All people at root are time optimists. We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.
Fredrik Backman
It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.
George Eliot
The body is our general medium for having a world.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.
Brooks Atkinson
We begin to learn wisely when we’re willing to see world from other people’s perspective.
Toba Beta
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
John Lubbock
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Samuel Johnson
I don’t pretend reality is the same for everyone.
Diane Setterfield
You have the ability to choose your reactions.
Steve Maraboli
The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.
Chuck Palahniuk
You meet a new person, you go with him and suddenly you get a whole new city…you go down new streets, you see houses you never saw before, pass places you didn’t even know were there. Everything changes.
Samuel R. Delany
In fact, the more each person can remove his or her ego from the discussion and focus on the subject matter, the more fruitful the conversation will be for all involved.
Matthew Kelly
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.
Charles Dickens
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.
Irving Berlin
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
Marcus Aurelius
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe
To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.
Stephen R. Covey
Humans see what they want to see.
Rick Riordan
Distance lends enchantment to the view.
Mark Twain
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Aldous Huxley
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
One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.
Tim Burton
It’s all in the mind.
George Harrison
Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.
José Saramago
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Always focus on the front windshield and not the rearview mirror.
Colin Powell
The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.
Oscar Wilde
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
Steven Wright
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
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.
William Blake
When it seems like the sky is about to collapse, relax, that’s just the roof caving in.
Jarod Kintz
If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions. Learn to see great things great and small things small.
Corrie Ten Boom
What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, criscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.
Margaret Atwood
Parting Words
By evolving in our perspectives, we can connect more dots, solve more important problems, and connect with more people.
This way of being has many benefits that overlap with our business pursuits, career ambitions, and relationships.
What are some your favorite quotes about perspective? I’d be curious to know how they’ve helped shape your way of seeing the world.
P.S. If you liked this, you might also like these related quote collections:
- Quotes About Imagination for Those Who Dream Big
- Quotes About Experience
- Quotes About Exploration
- Quotes About Following Your Own Path
- Quotes About Change and Growth
Originally Published: May 22, 2023. The date of the last significant edit is reflected at the top of the post.
