Balanced Perspective Quotes

I read the paper every day and the Bible every day; that way I know what both sides are up to.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

Wisdom is not the province of only one party.

Failure isn't so bad if it doesn't attack the heart. Success is all right if it doesn't go to the head.

When people ask me if I'm liberal or conservative, I say, 'Yeah.' I'm both of them. To be a liberal means to be open-minded and generous and open to new ideas. And to be conservative means to hold onto things that are important, things that shouldn't be cast aside.

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess commitment to some special or constricting idea.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them, accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I'm a realist.

I believe politicians should always remain realistic.

Patriotism without criticism has no head; criticism without patriotism has no heart..

I'm an eternal optimist with a small degree of cynicism.

I do try to speak of positive things. I still try to, like, present two sides of the story, and I do try to relate to life in a 360 degree and not be one-dimensional. But by all means, manage expectations.

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

In everything the middle road is best.

Readers forget that one can critique yet still admire.

To see both sides of a quarrel, is to judge without hate or alarm

The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; ... the wise does neither.

All players want nice things to be said and written about them and you have to take the reverse in equal measure.

Frankly, I’m suspicious of anyone who has a strong opinion on a complicated issue.

As leaders, we become whole when we see that our focused, singular commitment to making the numbers and the metrics cannot be effective on its own, but only when it is part of the whole picture - only when we see that it takes more than metrics to make up the whole.

It's not always like I'm right, and you're wrong. It's both ways.

What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.