In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.
I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.
I try to read all news sources - not just CNN or FOX, but worldwide papers and journals, to get opinions from every end of the spectrum - and then I like to try to find out the cut and dried facts - and go from there.
My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.
I am neither left wing nor right wing. I am middle-of-the-bird.
My problem is not that I see all 17 sides of any issue, but I'm equally passionate about all 17 sides simultaneously.
A well-balanced person is one who finds both sides of an issue laughable.
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.
Neutrality in things good or evil is both odious and prejudicial; but in matters of an indifferent nature is safe and commendable. Herein taking of parts maketh sides, and breaketh unity. In an unjust cause of separation, he that favoreth both parts may perhaps have least love of either side, but hath most charity in himself.
In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue - it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues.
The best version of comedy is when you can get to an issue where, at some point, you're not firmly on one side or the other, and you can see both sides. The more we become about the issues, the more successful we are.
Sometimes, if you really don't know how you feel about a topic, reading how both sides argue it can help.
Sometimes a song becomes rhetoric, but you have to really empathise. You also have to leave room for both sides of the argument: even if you're not telling the other side, you have to put that part in parentheses and make sure it's understood.
If I'm going to talk about something, I need to be educated about it, and I need to have seen all the perspectives.
A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.
I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.
I was expecting it to be cynical because I'm like that myself. I wouldn't want it to be all roses because life isn't like that.
The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.
To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time.
Read things to not just know what's going on, but see it from different varying viewpoints.
I don't want to say that in a place that's negative about what the fear is. I just want to be a realist.
No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.
You try to - you want to fly on both sides of the political fence because that's where the - where the comedy is.
If you just say that, look at all the good stuff and you don't acknowledge the toxic stuff, you're wrong. If you're only looking at toxic stuff and don't recognize there's going to be some good stuff if you're for infrastructure or whatever, you're wrong.
I'd like to think at some point instead of it being a woman's film or a man's film, it is just a great story, and both sexes can go and get the same enjoyment out of it.
