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"The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically."
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Exlpore more Perspective quotes
"Joblessness does not necessarily mean idleness."
"If you want to know the value of a second, ask the person who just crossed the road at the wrong time and barely escaped being hit by a speeding car."
"Build your life not on the things of today, but on the things of tomorrow."
"How you see the world may not be how others view it."
"To have wealth does not mean you love money, you can love money and not even have a cent."
"Three weeks ago, he'd seen hail fall from the sky, onlyto be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it's important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion."
"What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one's glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of search, of looking, that enlarges the private and the public world. And yet, in our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins."
"You have the beach but not the sea? No use! You have the sea but not the beach? No use!"
"Future dreams distract you from present nightmares."
"I can only see life as this most miserable accident that I have been forced to endure simply because I refuse to see it as the most astounding plan that I have been privileged to engage."
Explore more quotes by Leo Tolstoy
"The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions."
"I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it."
"As a house can be only be built satisfactorily and durably when there is a foundation, and a picture can be painted only when there is something prepared to paint it on, so carnal love is only legitimate, reasonable, and lasting when it is based on the respect and love of one human being for another."
"Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the pause of happiness."
"I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,-that is, in debauchery. And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality."
"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added."
"But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else."
"The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience."
"I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgements must be based on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart."
"Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man."
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