Viewpoints Quotes

An irenic approach to expounding Christian beliefs is one that attempts always to understand opposing viewpoints before disagreeing, and when it is necessary to disagree does so respectfully and in love. An irenic approach to doctrine seeks common ground and values unity within diversity and diversity within unity. An irenic approach does not imply relativism or disregard for truth, but it does seek to live by the motto "in essentials unity, ~ Roger E. Olson

It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo

No one can have two viewpoints about terrorism. There is no religion of terrorism. I am often asked my viewpoint on this, maybe because i am very proud to be a Muslim ~ Shahrukh Khan

A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Science is not about what's true or what might be true, science is about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by the weight of public evidence. ~ Lee Smolin

The goal of higher education should be to champion the airing of all honest viewpoints. Nothing less is acceptable. ~ Bill O'Reilly

We approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world ... It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has moulded us. ~ J.I. Packer

When conformity is required, as it is in Christianity, what are the results? To begin with, the sacrifice of truth inevitably follows. One can be committed to conformity or one can be committed to truth, but not both. The pursuit of truth requires the unrestricted use of one's mind
the moral freedom to question, to examine evidence, to consider opposing viewpoints, to criticize, to accept as true only that which can be demonstrated
regardless whether one's conclusions conform to a particular creed. ~ George H. Smith

War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace. ~ Benito Mussolini

Living organisms were not independently created, but have descended and diversified over time from common ancestors. And thus, no other biological theory so elegantly explains this. Evolutionary theory has withstood the test of time - by way of vicarious experimentation, observation, analysis, and relentless criticism, though opposing viewpoints still cling to the concept of "design." As a person of the biological sciences, I cannot subscribe to such misguided notions that suggest static biological states. Clearly, proper examination of the natural world reveal evolutionary trajectories - some random, others nonrandom - and all having observable genetic implications. It is only when we apply evolutionary explanations to living systems that it becomes ever so clear. The world was not specifically designed with us in mind, but rather we long since adapted and conformed to our surroundings, only giving it the illusionary appearance of "design. ~ Tommy Rodriguez

Be warned! From Satan's viewpoint you are a pawn in his game of cosmic chess. ~ Adrian Rogers

Think for a moment about the process that humans have used to record events throughout history. The first evidence we know of is paintings on cave walls. A little further along in time, after many intermediate steps, we see the development of writing. In the more recent past, we see the invention of the camera, audio recording devices, and ultimately video. The manner in which humans have recorded history (and to a lesser extent our own lives) has evolved. We've come a long way. Consider the implications of time. Much of the technology we take for granted today was pure science fiction 50-100 years ago, a dream 200 years ago, and inconceivable 500 years ago. Using these groupings of viewpoints, we can project into the future and categorize the possibilities. In ~ Todd William

It's clear that if we use the mind attentively, mental power is increased, and if we concentrate the mind in the moment, it is easier to coordinate mind and body. But in terms of mind and body unity, is there something we can concentrate on that will reliably aid us in discovering this state of coordination?

In Japan, and to some degree other Asian countries, people have historically focused mental strength in the hara (abdomen) as a way of realizing their full potential. Japan has traditionally viewed the hara as the vital center of humanity in a manner not dissimilar to the Western view of the heart or brain. I once read that years ago Japanese children were asked to point to the origin of thoughts and feelings. They inevitably pointed toward the abdominal region. When the same question was asked of American children, most pointed at their heads or hearts. Likewise, Japan and the West have commonly held differing views of what is physical power or physical health, with Japan emphasizing the strength of the waist and lower body and Western people admiring upper body power. (Consider the ideal of the sumo wrestler versus the V-shaped Western bodybuilder with a narrow waist and broad shoulders.)

However, East and West also hold similar viewpoints regarding the hara, and we're perhaps not as dissimilar as some might imagine. For instance, hara ga nai hito describes a cowardly person, "a person with no hara." Sounds similar to our saying that so-and-so "ha ~ H.E. Davey

How often has an inspired notion been misinterpreted and obscured by later scribes and interpreters … who then created stodgy traditions and rigid dogmas? This happens to religions, cultures and teachings and, as we will see, to individuals on their own interpretations of what is true or not. From the trivial to the profound, opinions have their say, and short sighted viewpoints have their sway. Fanatics have been shortened to fans. It is always good to know the origins of words, ideas and beliefs. ~ Stephen Poplin

There are a thousand viewpoints in the viewtiful city. ~ Herb Caen

And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground. ~ Lara Flynn Boyle

The most effective learning takes place in the classroom, where you can easily raise your hand, engage in spontaneous discussions with classmates and faculty, turn to the person next to you to ask for clarification, or approach the professor after class or during office hours to ask questions or exchange viewpoints in a way that practically guarantees an instant response and is not constrained by typing, software interfaces, or waiting for a response. ~ Ian Lamont

The psychedelic viewpoint is becoming more and more legitimate, but psychedelic drugs are not. That's the odd paradox of it. ~ Terence McKenna

Liberate yourself from unconstructive beliefs forced upon you by others for imprisonment sake. Allow into this space a new-fangled reality which warrant viewpoints increasing a new understanding. ~ Michaelson Williams

A person's actions could be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on who was watching. Their viewpoints were simply skewed by their beliefs, their prejudices, and their private desires. Their personal kaleidoscopes. I couldn't judge them, of course. I was the same way. ~ Kirsten Hubbard

Others don't want to listen to viewpoints that members of the church have. ~ William P. Leahy

I have approached the buildings as psychological and poetic manifestations - rather than from the more technical viewpoints of the architect and historian (which mostly miss the living spirit behind the forms). ~ Clarence John Laughlin

I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

We shall have to stop looking askance on trends in relation to sex merely as a reproductive capability, i.e. that it is normal to make babies. Society will have to change in its assessment of what the proclivities of humanity may be. Our viewpoints on homosexuality, for example, may have to be reconsidered and more wisely adjusted. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Wisdom is the thin conduit between two opposing viewpoints ~ Val Uchendu

To understand a cat, you must realize that he has has own gifts, his own viewpoint, even his own morality ~ Lilian Jackson Braun

Viewpoints and skin color don't matter to the Savior. He brought salvation to all manking. ~ Andrea Boeshaar

Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se. ~ Jim Wright

Together with the patient, a therapist looks at the nature of the pain. Often, the therapist can uncover causes of suffering that stem from the way the patient looks at things, the beliefs he holds about himself, his culture, and the world. The therapist examines these viewpoints and beliefs with the patient, and together they help free him from the kind of prison he has been in. But the patient's efforts are crucial. A teacher has to give birth to the teacher within his student, and a psychotherapist has to give birth to the psychotherapist within his patient. The patient's "internal psychotherapist" can then work full-time in a very effective way. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

This sounds simple enough - honor the viewpoints of others! - ~ Ed Catmull

The present Western civilization ... is dominated by the extravert viewpoint. There are plenty of reasons for this domination: extraverts are more vocal than introverts; they are more numerous, apparently in the ratio of three to one; and they are accessible and understandable, whereas the introverts are not readily understandable, even to each other, and are likely to be thoroughly incomprehensible to the extraverts. ~ Isabel Briggs Myers

No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~ Harry S. Truman

I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present. ~ Doris Lessing

Minority viewpoints are important, not because they tend to prevail but because they stimulate divergent attention and thought, " finds Berkeley psychologist Charlan Nemeth, one of the world's leading experts on group decisions. "As a result, even when they are wrong they contribute to the detection of novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, are qualitatively better".
Dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong. ~ Adam Grant

NECK: I am flexible. I welcome other viewpoints. ~ Louise L. Hay

The secret of success is to understand the viewpoint of others. ~ Henry Ford

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together. ~ Hannah Arendt

The present is only understandable through the past, with which it forms a living continuity; and the past is always grasped from our own partial viewpoint within the present. ~ Terry Eagleton

Not even Sen. [Joseph] McCarthy was able to repress ideas he opposed as effectively as Harvard's hiring committees have suppressed the conservative viewpoints they despise and fear. ~ David Horowitz

The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value. ~ Sri Aurobindo

From a dramatic viewpoint, there are few professions that grant their members entry into other lives, high among them cops, doctors, clergymen, journalists and prostitutes. Perhaps that explains why they figure in so much television and cinema. Their lives are lived in the midst of human drama. ~ Roger Ebert

When money enters in - then, for a price, I become a liar - and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work. ~ Edward Weston

The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest. ~ Romain Rolland

Producer and consumer are always one and the same person, merely considered from two different viewpoints. ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

[T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness. ~ Alain De Botton

Society is not homogeneous, and those who do not deliberately close their eyes have to recognize that men differ greatly from one another from the physical, moral, and intellectual viewpoints. ~ Vilfredo Pareto

The world is bad but not without hope. It is only hopeless when you look at it from an ideal viewpoint. ~ Friedrich Durrenmatt

Those that regularly come into contact with people having diverse interests and viewpoints are more likely to come up with innovative ideas. ~ Steven Johnson

We don't stoop to the level of our worst critics, no matter how much we may find them to be annoying. ~ Jimmy Wales

Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal. ~ Dalai Lama

All heartache is caused by wrong viewpoints. ~ Vernon Howard

Being inclusive means to appreciate differences and enjoy the diverse viewpoints. ~ Pearl Zhu

One of the interesting things about Twitter is looking how famous people choose to use it. Take someone like Steve Martin, who I follow: it's all sorts of comic gems, nothing private, nothing personal - all jokes. Other celebrities are overtly personal - like Charlie Sheen. I do a mix of observations and updates. ~ Rob Lowe

From a hologrammatic viewpoint, ... you are one little physical image that reflects all of humanity when projected spiritually upon the cosmic screen. ~ Wayne Dyer

I have spent a great deal of my life being part of minorities. Some of the people I admire the most in the world have had the courage to defend, against wind and tide, minority viewpoints in those frightening times when any disagreement with universal conformity is identified as treason. ~ Antonio Munoz Molina

The act of photography is that of phenomenological doubt to the extent that it attempts to approach phenomena from any number of viewpoints. ~ Douglas Huebler

Political thought is representative. I form an opinion by considering a given issue from different viewpoints, by making present to my mind the standpoints of those who are absent; that is, I represent them. ... The more people's standpoints I have present in my mind while I am pondering a given issue, and the better I can imagine how I would feel and think if I were in their place, the stronger will be my capacity for representative thinking and the more valid my final conclusions, my opinion. ~ Hannah Arendt

When a woman is exhorted to be compliant, cooperative, and quiet, to not make upset or go against the old guard, she is pressed into living a most unnatural life- a life that is self-blinding.. without innovation. The world-wide issue for women is that under such conditions they are not only silenced, they are put to sleep. Their concerns, their viewpoints, their own truths are vaporized. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Ever since the field of biology emerged in the United States and Europe at the start of the nineteenth century, it has been bound up in debates over sexual, racial, and national politics. And as our social viewpoints have shifted, so has the science of the body. ~ Anne Fausto-Sterling

We've got very large freshman class, it's historic in its size, so there's people that are extremely diverse in their backgrounds and their viewpoints. I think that we're going to see a conservative group of people coming together, focused on some real ideals that are going to be extremely important. ~ Kristi Noem

I'm not the only person who carries a lot of assumptions when I read the Bible, and it can be tough to entertain the idea that the Word of God has different perspectives in it. Biblical apologists spend all their time weaving these different viewpoints into a single frame, in an effort that often looks like squids playing Twister: fascinating, appalling, and hard to follow. We've seen what this approach to history can sow: a destructive oversimplification of the Church's past.
Americans treat their national narrative in much this way, too. We simplistically teach a single story in our history classrooms, of brave rebels who left cultures of tyranny and heroically crossed the Atlantic to found a nation built on freedom and justice. When we speak of our national sins, such as the genocide committed on Nation Americans or the brutal, longterm economic extraction of wealth from black bodies via slavery and segregation, we seem to dismiss these troubling matters as things that happened in the remote past but that have been resolved today. ~ Mike McHargue

Learning to think for yourself is how you separate yourself from your parents and make the transition from being a child to being an adult, though part of maturity is being able to take opposing viewpoints into consideration. ~ Belle Blackburn

So many of the stories are about perspective and viewpoint. It's not just about seeing and revelation. The idea of having many different stories from many different perspectives has something to do with me trying to deal with the impossibility of having a wide enough view to say anything really convincing on that scale. ~ Lucy Corin

The next time you make a snap judgment about a situation, take a few moments to understand an opposing viewpoint. ~ David J. Lieberman

The criticisms that are often presented to us by some in the conservative Jewish community about our Palestinian version are: first, that the U.S. is not in conflict with "Palestine" (quotes are theirs) and second, that Conflict Kitchen should counter the Palestinian viewpoints it presents with pro-Israeli viewpoints, otherwise we are spreading dangerous propaganda. ~ Jon Rubin

It is a strange fact, characteristic of the incomplete state of our current knowledge, that totally opposite conclusions are drawn about prehistoric conditions on Earth, depending on whether the problem is approached from the biological or the geophysical viewpoint. ~ Alfred Wegener

The Civil Rights Commission should never have been brought into existence. It has been most prejudiced in its viewpoint, and has fomented trouble and racial disturbance since its inception. It should be abolished, not extended. ~ John Sparkman

…95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it's supposed to be about. Meaning it's become totally ideological and reductive: The writer/speaker has certain political convictions or affiliations, and proceeds to filter all reality and spin all assertion according to those convictions and loyalties. Everybody's pissed off and exasperated and impervious to argument from any other side. Opposing viewpoints are not just incorrect but contemptible, corrupt, evil […] Political discourse is now a formulaic matter of preaching to one's own choir and demonizing the opposition. Everything's relentlessly black-and-whitened…. Since the truth is way, way more gray and complicated than any one ideology can capture, the whole thing seems to me not just stupid but stupefying… How can any of this possibly help me, the average citizen, deliberate about whom to choose to decide my country's macroeconomic policy, or how even to conceive for myself what that policy's outlines should be, or how to minimize the chances of North Korea nuking the DMZ and pulling us into a ghastly foreign war, or how to balance domestic security concerns with civil liberties? Questions like these are all massively complicated, and much of the complication is not sexy, and well over 90 percent of political commentary now simply abets the uncomplicatedly sexy delusion that one side is Right and Just and the other Wrong and Dangerous. Which is of course a pleasant ~ David Foster Wallace

Stars - spectacular representations of living human beings - project this general banality into images of permitted roles. As specialists of apparent life, stars serve as superficial objects that people can identify with in order to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations that they actually live. The function of these celebrities is to act out various lifestyles or sociopolitical viewpoints in a full, totally free manner. They embody the inaccessible results of social labor by dramatizing the by-products of that labor which are magically projected above it as its ultimate goals: power and vacations - the decisionmaking and consumption that are at the beginning and the end of a process that is never questioned. On one hand, a governmental power may personalize itself as a pseudostar; on the other, a star of consumption may campaign for recognition as a pseudopower over life. But the activities of these stars are not really free, and they offer no real choices. ~ Guy Debord

There is no society that protects freedom of religion more than secular democracies, because in societies where one religion rules, different viewpoints will be labelled as heresy and blasphemy. Why? Because the society is built on religion - not freedom for all points of view. ~ Flemming Rose

There was always something to learn from listening to and understanding people´s viewpoints. ~ Michelle Madow

People kill and a re killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. [ ... ] The second precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the was in Vietnam, is about letting go of views: Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Through taxation, pacifists are forced at gunpoint to pay for killing machines; vegetarians are forced at gunpoint to subsidize grazing land for cattle; nonsmokers are forced at gunpoint to support both the production of tobacco and the research to counter its impact on health. These minorities are the victims, not the initiators of aggression. Their only crime is not agreeing with the priorities of the majority. Taxation appears to be more than theft; it is intolerance for the preferences and even the moral viewpoints of our neighbors. Through taxation we forcibly impose our will on others in an attempt to control their choices. ~ Mary J. Ruwart

Different versions of a true story ~ Margi Preus

Anger must be dealt with. It cannot be ignored. Anger is a very strong emotion and, if left to itself, will trap us in destructive attitudes and viewpoints. ~ James R. White

Truth is often a multiplicity of perspectives, and sometimes the more viewpoints and versions of events there are, the closer the reader gets to an overarching truth. ~ Susan Barker

In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against one another, in the final analysis the thing that will strike you the most, is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish ... but who would go to the greatest lengths in considering the other's perspective. ~ Mike Dooley

I don't have clear-cut positions. I get baffled by things. I have viewpoints. Sometimes they change. ~ Annie Lennox

Multiple species, with multiple viewpoints and racial philosophies, simply cannot hold power together for long. The dominant voice must certainly be wise enough to adopt ideas and methods from its allies and member peoples. But there must be a dominant voice, or there is only chaos. In this part of the galaxy, that voice is the Empire.
-Thrawn ~ Timothy Zahn

The therapist does not treat patients by simply giving them another set of beliefs. He or she tries to help them see which kinds of ideas and beliefs have led to their suffering. Many patients want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings. ~ Nhat Hanh

War cannot eliminate differing ideas and viewpoints, and partisans of the defeated side do not disappear. Though subjugated, they become a sizable political constituency in the postwar period. A dictator may be able to repress them, and in democracies a numerical majority may outvote them, but neither can change their thoughts. Since civil wars are, by nature, deep and fundamental conflicts, the competition between the views that led to war is likely to resurface. The defeated side may be chastened or subdued, but its values and ways of seeing the world reappear, in some form, in politics [107]. ~ Paul D. Escott

You limit yourself by reducing the number of viewpoints you see. ~ Meir Ezra

At some point, you realize you can't provide a perfectly monolithic description of a foreign culture's future any more than you can provide a monolithic description of your own hometown's future. Your choices about what to emphasize and what to leave out make all the difference, and ultimately, your fingerprints and biases and viewpoints are going to be all over the story. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

When judging modernity, it is all too tempting to take the viewpoint of a twenty-first-century middle-class Westerner. We must not forget the viewpoints of a nineteenth-century Welsh coal miner, Chinese opium addict or Tasmanian Aborigine. Truganini is no less important than Homer Simpson. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. ~ Bob Etheridge

policy discussion usually means pitting one model against another. Viewpoints and policy prescriptions that aren't backed by a model typically don't have standing. ~ Dani Rodrik

The way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine you're lying in your coffin ... Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn't it? ~ Anthony De Mello

The average artist, if he chooses, could render an exact drawing of what he sees. Artistic work not only allows but demands some deviation from form and line. Just how far this may go depends on the viewpoint of each painter. ~ Edgar Alwin Payne

Dare to challenge your current view of your world. ~ Nityananda Das

I think painting has that unique potential to project opposing viewpoints. ~ Joe Bradley

Since I've written many of my books from a less-than-sympathetic viewpoint, I think that being able to see things from all sides is a useful talent. ~ Alex Flinn

On religions and viewpoints: He who knows one, knows none. ~ Friedrich Max Muller

Every one of my books is written from the viewpoint of cops, with the exception of my book Killer on the Road, which is written from the viewpoint of a serial killer. ~ James Ellroy

Every viewpoint is a view from a point. ~ Richard Rohr

That's why we have senators and members of congress from every state. That's why we have elections. Because the people speak and there are different viewpoints out there. It doesn't mean just because we're members of one party or another, doesn't mean that we behave monolithically. It means that we will express our view points. ~ Mike Lee

Beyond our perceptional distortions, there is a problem with logic itself. How can someone have no clue yet be able to hold a set of perfectly sound and coherent viewpoints that match the observations and abide by every single possible rule of logic? Consider that two people can hold incompatible beliefs based on the exact same data. Does this mean that there are possible families of explanations and that each of these can be equally perfect and sound? Certainly not. One may have a million ways to explain things, but the true explanation is unique, whether or not it is within our reach. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It is the freedom to blaspheme, to transgress, to move beyond the pale, that is at the heart of all intellectual, artistic and political endeavor. Far from censoring offensive speech, a vibrant and diverse society should encourage it. In any society that is not uniform, grey and homogeneous, there are bound to be clashes of viewpoints. ~ Kenan Malik

Listen to people; nothing is accomplished if you dismiss other viewpoints. And of most importance: be confident. Have confidence in yourself. Have confidence in your resume - in your skills and in your qualifications. Be willing to learn. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

Alan was always interested in politics in a major way. He actually believes that anarchy is a politically viable system, but I don't. I was always interested in putting forward the ideas that represented my viewpoint. I feel the same about anything I'm doing. ~ David Lloyd

Science is not about what's true. It's about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by way of public evidence. ~ Lee Smolin