Quotes about Perspective
Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says, 'Oh dear, things can't possibly get any worse.' An optimist says, 'Don't be so sad. Things can always get worse.
— Philip Yancey
Faith, I've concluded, means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.
— Philip Yancey
Are we concentrating more on the kingdom of this world than on the kingdom that is not of this world?
— Philip Yancey
Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.
— Philip Yancey
Virtually every passage on suffering in the New Testament deflects the emphasis from cause to response.
— Philip Yancey
Can we live now "as if" God is loving, gracious, merciful, and all-powerful, even while the blinders of time are obscuring our vision? The
— Philip Yancey
Lord, if you can't make me thin, then make my friends look fat," humorist Erma Bombeck once prayed.
— Philip Yancey
What is faith, after all, but believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse
— Philip Yancey
How differently will I relate to the uncommitted if I view them not as evil or unsaved but rather as lost.
— Philip Yancey
one East European Christian observed, "You Western Christians often seem to consider material prosperity to be the only sign of God's blessing. On the other hand, you often seem to perceive poverty, discomfort, and suffering as signs of God's disfavor. In some ways we in the East understand suffering from the opposite perspective. We believe that suffering may be a sign of God's favor and trust in the Christians to whom the trial is permitted to come.
— Philip Yancey
When I am tempted to complain about God's lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.
— Philip Yancey
Unless we can grasp our own beliefs as truly good news, we cannot easily communicate them to a thirsty world.
— Philip Yancey