"Look at a man the way he..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Look at a man the way he is and he only becomes worse, but look at him as if he were what he could be, then he becomes what he should be.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
More on Potential
“He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion.”
“Never underestimate your power to change yourself.”
“Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.”
More on Perception
“What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent”
“I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ]”
“Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by”