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"Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree."
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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."

"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."

"Life is more valuable than money."
Explore more quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Then the man smiled, and his smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in the right cheek and down in the left.There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone about this. Many people have this nervous trick of a crooked smile, and in many it is even attractive. But in all Syme's circumstances, with the dark dawn and the deadly errand and the loneliness on the great dripping stones, there was something unnerving in it. There was the silent river and the silent man, a man of even classic face. And there was the last nightmare touch that his smile suddenly went wrong."

"When I had a look at the lights of Broadway by night, I said to my American friends : "What a glorious garden of wonders this would be, to any who was lucky enough to be unable to read."

"Men of science offer us health, an obvious benefit; it is only afterwards that we discover that by health, they mean bodily slavery and spiritual tedium."

"Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If our civilization goes on like this, only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest."

"But the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between the humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than there is between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover. The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy. There never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strained every nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. And there never was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not to have it."
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