“One should tell oneself how fruitful misunderstandings are. One shouldn’t despise them. One of the wisest people was a collector of misunderstandings.”

“No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities

“I'm so misunderstood that people misunderstand me even when I tell them I'm misunderstood.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

“What if the chosen one misunderstands what he’s been chosen for?”

China Miéville book The Tain

“The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

“Facts are God’s arguments : we should be careful never to misunderstand or pervert them.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

“The very word "Christianity" is a misunderstanding — in truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Antichrist

“Nothing is more natural than mutual misunderstanding; the contrary is always surprising. I believe that one never agrees on anything except by mistake, and that all harmony among human beings is the happy fruit of an error.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

“The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one from another.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

“There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer