Dual Perspective Quotes

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.

Every hero is the villain of his own story.

To be a foreigner may be an advantage but disadvantage as well. It was advantage for me for sure.

I am mentally bifocal.

How do you know what it's like to be stupid if you've never been smart?

One eye looks within, the other eye looks without.

I like someone who's suffered from both sides.

The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.

Ive said its a little bit like a magician performing for a convention of magicians... all the magicians in the audience watching this illusion-Do they see the illusion, or do they see the device that made the illusion? Probably they see a little of both.

There are two versions to every poem – the crying version and the straight version

One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.

Destiny is the prison and chain of the ignorant. Understand that destiny like the water of the Nile: Water before the faithful, blood before the unbeliever.

Americans - not just starting thirty years ago but going back to the beginning, when we were rebelling against King George - we've always been of two minds about the government, which is why the framers wrote the Constitution the way they did.

the best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it.

When I write a song, the music comes from my spirit, which is very playful and optimistic, but then the lyrics come from my head, which is in a different space.

A philosopher is a person who doesn't care which side his bread is buttered on; he knows he eats both sides anyway.

Perception is a tool that's pointed on both ends.

I tend to have an odd split in my mind: I tend to look at it as a writer and when the writing thing is OK and I'm happy with it, then I put on my actor's hat.

I tell people I live in Atlanta. Georgia's outside of Atlanta, absolutely. But my family's from the very rural south. My family's from Tuskegee, Alabama. And they're from Eatonton, Georgia. Places like Greenwood, Georgia, my family is from... so I've seen it both ways.

Speak with the speech of the world; think with the thoughts of the few.

American history contains much matter for pride and congratulation, and much matter for regret and humiliation.

I grew up half in South Central and half in the San Fernando valley.

Our American past always speaks to us with two voices: the voice of the past, and the voice of the present. We are always asking two quite different questions. Historians reading the words of John Winthrop usually ask, What did they mean to him? Citizens ask, What do they mean to us? Historians are trained to seek the original meaning; all of us want to know the present meaning.

My misfortune is my ability to see both sides even of the fundamental religious question.

With the one eye that is closed, one looks within, with the other eye that is open, one looks without.