Perspective Quotes

Amid the vastness of the things among which we live, the existence of nothingness holds the first place; its function extends over all things that have no existence, and its essence, as regards time, lies precisely between the past and the future, and has nothing in the present.

I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.

The three centuries of contact between the peoples of Africa, Europe and Asia on these shores have for too long been regarded as purely negative; as an object lesson in the incompatibility of peoples from different races, religions and cultures. Yet when viewed from another perspective, conflict can be a creative force through which the latent potential of a society is released.

I don't think I was fundamentally different from what I was before I went to jail, except that in jail I had a lot of time to think about problems and to see the mistakes that we had committed. I came out mature.

If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced; the imagination is stirred, the wits become more nimble.

One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.

It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back.

People get very thoughtful when they are in cars. I no longer care for cars. I don't collect them.

It's kind of limiting using your intellect to write songs like Brown Sugar, isn't it? The only thing I'm really interested in is comparative religion and ancient history.

I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.

I think there's a reason why wine figures into so many religions. There's something transcendent about it. It's sort of the way that music is more than the sum of its parts. You have all these elements that make up the terroir that wine can communicate.

I thought I was grounded. I thought from my kinda blue-collar outlook on life that I would call myself a grounded person. I was not. I was like a balloon flying around in the air. And as soon as our first child was born, boom - my feet came right down to the ground.

In my songs, I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.

I think the best duets are those where there's a dialogue back and forth, and then the two singers go into a thing together.

It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.

I think The Grateful Dead kind of represents the spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large.

Rap is not music, it's talking.