“… we
do not admire what
we cannot understand.”
Source: Complete Poems
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Marianne Moore59
American poet and writer 1887–1972Related quotes
“If we do not understand furniture we cannot understand the city”
Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect
Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 6, The furniture, p. 70
“It is inherent to the human condition to admire precisely what you do not understand.”
Daniel Salamanca (1863–1935) President of Bolivia (1863-1935)
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Organic and Inorganic
Source: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter
“We all fear what we do not understand.”
Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol
Variant: Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand.
Source: The Lost Symbol
Source: Who Fears Death (2010), Chapter 21, “Gadi” (p. 139)
“Our dignity is not in what we do, but in what we understand. The whole world is doing things.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism
Source: Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion (1913), p. 199
“We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire.”
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Nous aimons toujours ceux qui nous admirent; et nous n'aimons pas toujours ceux que nous admirons.
Maxim 294.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“We need to understand what we can do and how. Otherwise we will never do it.”
Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect
Preface, p. x
Building Entopia - 1975