Quote by George Eliot

Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.

Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing.

Summary

This quote highlights the human tendency to be drawn to the aesthetic or artistic depiction of unpleasant situations when they are observed from a distance or filtered through a foreign lens. It suggests that we may find beauty or fascination in the suffering of others when it is detached from our own lived reality. However, the quote also points out the contradiction in our repulsion towards personally experiencing pain or discomfort, showing how our perception and response to different circumstances can be influenced by our perspective and level of distance from them.

Topics

Perspective

By George Eliot

Liked the quote? Share it with your friends.

Random Quotations

Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the wa

Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow.

Faith

I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but

I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.

Life Philosophy

To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained ca

To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained can accept the results of science only on authority.

Morris Raphael Cohen

Results Science People Majority

Success is like a liberation or the first phrase of a love s

Success is like a liberation or the first phrase of a love story.

Success

If someone were to pay you $.10 for every kind word you ever

If someone were to pay you $.10 for every kind word you ever spoke and collect $.05 for every unkind word, would you be rich or poor?

Kindness

She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell

She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.

Humor Funny Women Zealousness

Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she

Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humi

Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humility.

Dejan Stojanovic

Men Poetry Humility Quotes Thoughts Literature Literature Quotes Sun Poetry Quotes Dejan Stojanovic Great Men Hubris Melting

The more you are getting older, you lose a little something.

The more you are getting older, you lose a little something. Of course there is another advantage, because of your long experience you can use it.

Haile Gebrselassie

Experience

Having a thirteen-year-old in the family is like having a ge

Having a thirteen-year-old in the family is like having a general-admission ticket to the movies, radio and TV. You get to understand that the glittering new arts of our civilization are directed to the teen-agers, and by their suffrage they stand or fall.

Youth

Conservatives are winning offices, and champions of big gove

Conservatives are winning offices, and champions of big government are cleaning out their desks right now.

Government

So foolish is the heart of man that he ever puts his hope in

So foolish is the heart of man that he ever puts his hope in the future, learning nothing from his past errors and fancying that tomorrow must be better than today.

Future