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"He would sit down and consider the situation carefully. Not only did this help to identify the solution to the problem, but it also gave him the opportunity to remind himself that things were not really as bad as they seemed; it was all a question of perspective. Sitting down and looking up at the sky for a few minutes--not at any particular part of the sky, but just at the sky in general--at the vast, dizzying, empty sky of Botswana, cut human problems down to size."
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Exlpore more Perspective quotes
"Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans."
"Mountains, according to the angle of view, the season, the time of day, the beholder's frame of mind, or any one thing, can effectively change their appearance. Thus, it is essential to recognize that we can never know more than one side, one small aspect of a mountain."
"Every eye makes its own perception."
"When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy."
"An artistic perspective will jab at you from a different angle, its logic comes like a pitcher with a curveball."
"Danger is opportunity's seer."
"Adversity or opportunity is university."
"Beautiful gifts sometimes come wrapped in ugly paper."
"Is your life story the truth? Yes, the chronological events are true. Is it the whole truth? No, you see and judge it through your conditioned eyes and mind - not of all involved - nor do you see the entire overview. Is it nothing but the truth? No, you select, share, delete, distort, subtract, assume and add what you want, need and choose to."
"I've never lost perspective on who I am. Well, maybe briefly, but generally I'm pretty balanced."
Explore more quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
"The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven " Bertie's age " the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. (All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.)"
"It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it."
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."
"That was what counted, she told herself: those unexpected moments of appreciation, unanticipated glimpses of beauty or kindness - any of the things that attached us to this world, that made us forget, even for a moment, its pain and its transience."
"The only thing that makes me sad is that I shall be leaving Africa when I die. I love Africa, which is my mother and my father. When I am dead, I shall miss the smell of Africa."
"There is a tidal wave of ignorance, Mma Ramotswe. It is a great tidal wave and it will drown all of us if we are not careful."
"A moral dilemma is equally absorbing whether the stakes are the destiny of nations or the happiness of one or two people - at the most."
"If she was going to remain an engaged lady, then she would make the most of it, and one of the ways to do this would be to enjoy her free time."
"Sociopaths are attracted to politics because the see it as a sphere in which you can be ruthless and step all over people. That fact that some politicians can tell such awful lies is another example of sociopathy. Sociopaths lie-they see nothing wrong with it."
"The ordinary people of Africa tended not to have room in their hearts for hatred. They were sometimes foolish, like people anywhere, but they did not bear grudges, as Mr Mandela had shown the world."
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