Perspective Quotes
More Perspective Quotes
The people who do make big discoveries are the ones who somehow manage to free themselves from conventional ways of thinking and to see the subject from a new perspective.
anthony james leggett— Interview 2003 Nobel Laureates in Physics, 9 December 2003 (8:02).
In our time of ever-increasing specialization, there is a tendency to concern ourselves with relatively narrow scientific problems. The broad foundations of our present-day scientific knowledge and its historical development tend to be forgotten too often. This is an unfortunate trend, not only because our horizon becomes rather limited and our perspective somewhat distorted, but also because there are many valuable lessons to be learned in looking back over the years during which the basic concepts and the fundamental laws of a particular scientific discipline were first formulated.
— in Einstein's Researches on the Nature of Light, Emil Wolf (2001). Selected works of Emil Wolf: with commentary. World Scientific. p. 536. ISBN 9810242042.
There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.
douglas adams— Speech at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, (1998)
From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with--and have the power and wherewithal to not go along with--the perceived entitlement.
derrick jensen— p. 106 (The Culture of Make Believe (2003))
But of course their doctrine states that the purpose of a suit is to harass, not to win, so from that perspective they hurt us all. They've had a real chilling effect on journalism, both before and after my piece.
Richard Behar— Interview in Marr, David (January 19, 2008). "Print and be damned - CULT". The Age: p. 3, First Edition, Section: Insight.
Grattan-Guiness's uniformly interesting and valuable account of the interwoven development of logic and related fields of mathematics . . . between 1870 and 1940 presents a significantly revised analysis of the history of the period. . . . [His] book is important because it supplies what has been lacking: a full account of the period from a primary mathematical perspective.
ivor grattan-guinness— From James W. Van Evra's review in Isis of The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870-1940
It’s amazing to me that not only can we put a probe around Saturn and get images of its moons, but our math and physics are so freaking accurate we can say, "Hey, you know what? On this date at this time if we turn Cassini that way we’ll see a moon over 2 million kilometers away pass in front of another one nearly 3 million kilometers away."Every morning, I have a 50/50 chance of finding my keys. That kinda puts things in perspective.
phil plait— "A marvelous night for a (Saturn) moon dance" (10 February 2010)
"No critic, not even a topical analyst, can escape seeing the musical past from a present perspective. But...the common-language approach of the topical-analyst critics permits a separation between present sensibility and the general sensibilities of the late eighteenth century, allowing for an ever-evolving dialogue between the vanished past and the evanescent present."
harold powers— Harold Powers, "Reading Mozart's Music", p.43.
Western civilization presents one of the most difficult tasks for historical analysis, because it is not yet finished, because we are a part of it and lack perspective, and because it presents considerable variation from our pattern of historical change.
carroll quigley— Chapter 10, Western Civilization, p. 333-334
In the midst of events there is no perspective.
barbara tuchman— p. 454 (A Distant Mirror (1978))
It was not my intention to make such a production of the emptiness between us, playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano to try to keep some dead singer's perspective alive. It's just that I could have swore you had sung me a love song back there; and that you meant it.
buddy wakefield— "Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars"
There is a strong strain of Protestant masochism in this [Nietzsche’s] assault on morality and ideology. … Framing this perspective is the Protest image of the utterly self-reliant, responsible individual.
john carroll— p. 39 (Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974))
We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction.
rachel carson— Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91.
It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars .
arthur c. clarke— The Exploration of Space (1951), p. 187
Only he who is capable of a genuine encounter with the other is capable of an authentic encounter with himself, and the converse is equally true…From this perspective, every spiritual exercise is a dialogue, insofar as it is an exercise of authentic presence, to oneself and to others.
pierre hadot— trans. Michael Chase (1995), p. 91
Some people do not understand us correctly and believe that the goal of our effort is to return to our land. Our ideal is going forwards then that - our ideal is the vision of the Great eternal truth; it is an ideal that always goes forward; it is an ideal that never ends, it is always growing, so that every step forward that we take, our horizon keep going ahead of us, and in perspective we see before us the purpose that is greater and more noble, which we’ll try to put our selves towards.
theodor herzl— From: Zionism - an ideal that never ends - speech, 26 June 1899
The IPCC WG1 Chapter 3 Report clearly cherrypicked information on the robustness of the land near-surface air temperature to bolster their advocacy of a particular perspective on the role of humans within the climate system. As a result, policymakers and the public have been given a false (or at best an incomplete) assessment of the multi-decadal global average near-surface air temperature trends.
roger a. pielke— "Documentation of IPCC WG1 Bias by Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Dallas Staley - Part I," Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog (2007-06-20) [3]
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
carl sagan— Cosmos (1980, p. 339)
Futurism and Cubism are comparable in importance to the invention of perspective, for which they substituted a new concept of space. All subsequent movements were latent in them or brought about by them.. .. the two movements cannot be regarded as in opposition to each other, even though they started from opposite points; I maintain (an idea approved by Appolinaire and later by Matisse) that they are two extremes of the same sign, tending to coincide at certain points which only the poetic instinct of the painter can discover: 'poetry' being the content and 'raison d’être' of art.
— Gino Severini, quote on the differences between Cubism & Futurism in understanding modern prerception, from Letters of the great artists, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, pp. 248 + 249
Space is as infinite as we can imagine, and expanding this perspective is what adjusts humankind’s focus on conquering our true enemies, the formidable foes: ignorance and limitation.
vanna bonta— Vanna Bonta, The Impact of Space Activities Upon Society (ESA Br) European Space Agency (2005)
Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) results in a high-level blueprint of data, applications, and technology that is a cost-effective, long-term solution; not a quick fix. Management participation provides a business perspective, credibility, and de-mystifies the systems planning process. EAP can be labeled as business-driven or data -driven because
— a stable business model (independent of organizational systems, and procedures) is the foundation for the architectures,
— data is defined before applications, and
— data dependency determines the sequence for implementing application systems...
There is a revolutionary scientific perspective (stemming) from the General Systems Research movement and (with a) wealth of principles, ideas and insights that have already brought higher degree of scientific order and understanding to many areas as of biology, psychology and some physical sciences... Modern systems research can provide the basic of a framework more capable of doing justice to the complexities and dynamic properties of the socio-cultural system.
— Walter F. Buckley (1967) Sociology and modern systems theory, p. vii; As cited in: cited in: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968) General System Theory. p. 7-8
There is a key trait in people who do polyamory well, and it's this: They are good at regulating their strong emotions. By that I mean, when something emotionally intense is happening to you, either good or bad, you're able to see it as part of a larger whole and keep it in perspective.
— "Control Tower: Not Too Emo". The Stranger. January 31, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-04-05.
Palestine is an Arab and Islamic land, and nobody is allowed to forsake any part of Palestine. Any agreement or negotiations that grant the Jews any rights in Palestine are null and void from the perspective of Islamic law. Our religion does not accept such an agreement, and nor do our national interest or the interest of humanity.
— Hamed Al-Bitawi, head of the Palestinian Islamic Scholars Association, on Al-Aqsa TV (15 May 2007) ; also in transcript at Free Republic (7 June 2007)
When talking about the methodology in the particular fields mentioned - about which I am supposed to have a little more than second hand knowledge - I have always found it utterly inadequate to focus attention only on these special fields without seeing them in a much broader perspective.
— Ragnar Frisch "From Utopian Theory to Practical Applications: The Case of Econometrics," Prize Lecture, June 17, 1970; Republished at Nobelprize.org.
For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity , nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of the mathematics , of which sort are perspective, music , astronomy , cosmography , architecture , engineery, and divers others.
— Sir Francis Bacon, in Tom Sorell, et al., Scientia in Early Modern Philosophy: Seventeenth-Century Thinkers on Demonstrative Knowledge from First Principles, Springer, 28 October 2009, p.4
perspective is the bridle and rudder of painting.
— Quoted in Irma A Richter (ed) Selections from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1977).
