Quotes about understanding

A collection of quotes on the topic of understanding, can, doing, people.

Best quotes about understanding

„If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

„To understand is to forgive.“

— Blaise Pascal French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher 1623 - 1662

„If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

Variant: If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

„Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.“

— Aristotle Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy -384 - -321 BC

This and many similar quotes with the same general meaning are misattributed to Aristotle as a result of Twitter attribution decay. The original source of the quote remains anonymous. The oldest reference resides in the works of George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903): "Maxims for Revolutionists", where he claims that “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”. However, the related quote, "Those who can, do. Those who understand, teach" likely originates from Lee Shulman in his explanation of Aristotlean views on professional mastery: Source: Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4 - 14. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1175860
Misattributed
Variant: Those who can, do, those who cannot, teach.

„He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.“

— Elbert Hubbard American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul 1856 - 1915

„The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.“

— Leonardo Da Vinci Italian Renaissance polymath 1452 - 1519

„As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.“

— Ernest Hemingway American author and journalist 1899 - 1961

„I have not the pleasure of understanding you.“

— Jane Austen, book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

„I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.“

— Confucius Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551 - -479 BC

Xunzi in the Xunzi (book)
Misattributed, Chinese

„Any fool can know. The point is to understand.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

All quotes about understanding

Total 7382 quotes understanding, filter:

„Modern paintings are like women, you'll never enjoy them if you try to understand them. “

— Freddie Mercury British singer, songwriter and record producer 1946 - 1991

Women, Painting

„Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.“

— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

Love, Art

„Education is the result of self-learning, being taught by one or more people. Learning is the key word here. Schools, colleges and universities only divide you into CLASSES according to your level of understanding.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Learning, People, Universe, Education

„I understand that you are claiming it is almost impossible to forgive, but only easier to forget. The truth is that, you can only forgive that which you have forced your mind to forget. We must forget first, then forgiveness will come by itself.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Forgiveness, Forgetting, Truth

„I have a problem when people say something's real or not real, or normal or abnormal. The meaning of those words for me is very personal and subjective. I've always been confused and never had a clearcut understanding of the meaning of those kinds of words.“

— Tim Burton American filmmaker 1958

People, Problem, Personality

„When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.“

— John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980

Variant: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

Life, School, Happiness, Inspirational

„I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics ever since.“

— Robert Downey Jr. American actor 1965

Quoted in David Carr, "Been Up, Been Down. Now? Super." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/movies/20carr.html?_r=4&pagewanted=2&8dpc&oref=slogin&, New York Times (2008-04-20)

Education, Night

„Percy, let me go" she croaked. "You can't pull me up."
His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.
"Never," he said. He looked up at Nico, fifteen feet above.
"The other side, Nico! We'll see you there. Understand?"
Nico's eyes widened. "But-"
"Lead them!" Percy shouted. "Promise me!"
"I-I will."
Below them, the voice laughed in the darkness. Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess.
Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth's wrist. His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her, she thought he had never looked more handsome.
"We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again."
Only then did she understand what would happen. A one-way trip. A very hard fall.
"As long as we're together," she said.
She heard Nico and Hazel still screaming for help. She saw sunlight far, far above- maybe the last sunlight she would ever see.
Then Percy let go of his ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Annabeth fell into the endless darkness.“

— Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Beauty, Way, Effort, Help

„Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.“

— Freddie Mercury British singer, songwriter and record producer 1946 - 1991

Statement to the press (23 November 1991), the day before his death, as quoted at The Biography Channel http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/338:294/1/Freddie_Mercury.htm.

Truth, World, Disease, Hope

„The beginning of purpose is found in creating something that only you understand.“

— Tyler Joseph American singer-songwriter and record producer 1988

„When you have empathy toward your opponents, it helps you destroy them quicker. Because you understand exactly who they are. You understand what buttons to push. You understand if they're insecure, if they fear embarrassment. And you can really hit those buttons to strike a nerve.“

— Kobe Bryant American basketball player 1978 - 2020

Fear, Help

„Just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper.“

— Christine de Pizan Italian French late medieval author 1365 - 1430

Women, Men

„Every one interprets everything in terms of his own experience. If you say anything which does not touch a precisely similar spot in another man's brain, he either misunderstands you, or doesn't understand you at all.“

— Aleister Crowley, book Diary of a Drug Fiend

Source: Diary of a Drug Fiend

„But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.“

— Bodhidharma Chinese philosopher and Buddhist Monk 483 - 540

Source: The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

People

„Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.“

— Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934

Reported in Patti Denys, Mary Holmes, Animal Magnetism: At Home With Celebrities & Their Animal Companions (1998), p. 106
Source: Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe

Help, Motivational, Back To Work

„There's no way I could pay you back but my plan is to show you that I understand, you are appreciated“

— Tupac Shakur rapper and actor 1971 - 1996

Way

„I used to get upset by people not understanding me, but I’ve made a career out of it now.“

— Ozzy Osbourne, book I Am Ozzy

Source: I Am Ozzy

People

„Friendship is a priceless gift that cannot be bought nor sold, but its value is far greater than a mountain made of gold; for gold is cold & lifeless - it can neither see nor hear, in time of trouble its powerless to cheer — it has no ears to listen, no heart to understand, it cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand. So when you ask God for a gift, be thankful if sends not diamonds, pearls or riches but the love of real true friends.“

— Muhammad Ali African American boxer, philanthropist and activist 1942 - 2016

Response to Harold Bell, question about his view on friendship in an Interview (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSFYdFaS3E.

Love, God, Friendship, Mountain

„We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them. Our Air Force’s military work in Syria must not simply be continued. It must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that vengeance is inevitable.“

— Vladimir Putin President of Russia, former Prime Minister 1952

2015-11-17, vowing to retaliate against the Islamic militants responsible for the destruction of a Russian airliner over the Sinai on October 31, 2015. Tribune India, http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/russians-up-strikes-in-french-fury/159736.html (17 November 2015)
2011 - 2015

Way

„We cannot underestimate the power of love in our lives. Only those who have been there will truly understand your feelings.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Feeling, Love

„The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.“

— Kurt Gödel logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics 1906 - 1978

People, Thinking

„I don't understand how people can stand next to you one year, and next year, they cannot. They're going crazy, screaming. They can't take it that you're there. But last year I was in the same club, walking around, lonely. Couldn't get a date or a dance. I was too skinny, too something, and now, "He's just adorable. He's just, oh!“

— Tupac Shakur rapper and actor 1971 - 1996

Source: Resurrection, 1971-1996

People, Dance

„I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.“

— Franz Kafka, book The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis (1915)

Sad

„A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.“

— Bertrand Russell, book A History of Western Philosophy

Source: 1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Stupidity

„An osteopath is only a human engineer, who should understand all the laws governing his engine and thereby master disease.“

— Andrew Taylor Still Founder of Osteopathic Medicine 1828 - 1917

Autobiography of A.T. Still, page 253.

Disease, Law

„The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put into the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the field.“

— Bartolomé de las Casas Spanish Dominican friar, historian, and social reformer 1474 - 1566

History of the Indies (1561)

Freedom

„Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarly, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody.“

— Osamu Dazai, book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part Two
No Longer Human

People, World, Way, Fight

„Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.“

— Chrysippus ancient Greek philosopher -281 - -208 BC

As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.

People, Fools

„The worker in a capitalist state—and that is his deepest misfortune—is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker. He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces.“

— Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945

Written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932).Translated as “Those Damned Nazis: Why a Workers Party?

“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We a Workers’ Party?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932)
1930s

Sense

„I can't relate to lazy people. We don't speak the same language. I don't understand you. I don't want to understand you.“

— Kobe Bryant American basketball player 1978 - 2020

People, Relation ships

„Persevere in prayer without ceasing.. to understand and live according to his will, not to change it.“

— Charbel Makhlouf Lebanese Maronite monk and saint 1828 - 1898

Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel (2019)

Perseverance, Change

„Photography is not only an art, it is an international language that everybody understands.“

— NasserTone Nasser Ali Albahrani is a director, cinematographer, photographer, producer, & YouTuber, who was born on April 3, 1994,… 1994

Amasi Program, Sharjah TV Interview (March 1, 2016)

Art

„The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.“

— George Orwell English author and journalist 1903 - 1950

This is often attributed to George Orwell book 1984. We cannot find it inside. Perharps this is post-mortem paraphrase of his quote "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past".

People, Way, History

„In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them…. I destroy them.“

— Orson Scott Card, book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Love, Way, Thinking

„We are born to live, we are born to understand, we are born to carry a cursed pattern and be transformed by pain.“

— Jeff Buckley American singer, guitarist and songwriter 1966 - 1997

Pain

„What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…“

— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943

My Inventions (1919)
Context: While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.

World, Peace, Communication, Nature

„I love a lot of people, understand none of them…“

— Flannery O’Connor American novelist, short story writer 1925 - 1964

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Love, People

„Physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an attempt by an atom to understand itself.“

— Michio Kaku American theoretical physicist, futurist and author 1947

Source: Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos

„I understand, and not knowing how to express myself without pagan words, I’d rather remain silent“

— Arthur Rimbaud French Decadent and Symbolist poet 1854 - 1891

Source: A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

„My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more intelligent and more educated than college professors.“

— Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014

People, Education, School, Intelligence

„You always admire what you really don't understand.“

— Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962

„Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you're being right now.“

— Neale Donald Walsch American writer 1943

Source: Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1

„You have to know the past to understand the present.“

— Carl Sagan American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator 1934 - 1996

Past

„It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up -- that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.“

— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross American psychiatrist 1926 - 2004

Way, Time, Deep

„First of all, we have to understand what communism is. I mean, to me, real communism, the Soviet communism, is basically a mask for Bolshevism, which is a mask for Judaism.“

— Bobby Fischer American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer 1943 - 2008

Press Conference, September 1 1992 http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/92fs$$.htm
1990s

Communication

„I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy. We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our old and our young, our women as well as our men.
I see nothing inconsistent between being proud of oneself and one's ancestors and, at the same time, seeing oneself first and foremost a member of the commonwealth of all races and creeds.“

— Arthur Ashe American tennis player 1943 - 1993

Source: Days of Grace: A Memoir (1994), p. 186

Love, Women, Men, God

„I started with an impulse of my heart, with that instinct of defense which even the least of the worms has, not with the instinct of personal self-preservation, but of defense of the race to which I belong. This is why I have always had the feeling that the whole race rests on our shoulders, the living, and those who died for the Fatherland, and our entire future, and that the race struggles and speaks through us, that the hostile flock, however huge, in relation to this historical entity, is only a handful of human detritus which we will disperse and defeat… The individual in the framework and in the service of his race, the race in the framework and in the service of God and of the laws of the divinity: those who will understand these things will win even though they are alone. Those who will not understand will be defeated.“

— Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Romanian politician 1899 - 1938

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

God, Hostility, Law, Feeling

„The speaker must choose a comprehensible [verständlich] expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another.“

— Jürgen Habermas German sociologist and philosopher 1929

Habermas (1979) cited in: Werner Ulrich (1983) Critical heuristics of social planning. p. 123

„The things that change are not our real life. Within us there is another body, another beauty. It belongs to that ray of light which never changes. We must discover how to mingle with it and become one with that unchanging thing. We must realize and understand this treasure of truth. That is why we have come to the world.“

— Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Sri Lankan Sufi leader 1900 - 1986

Life, Truth, World, Beauty

„We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.“

— Jean-Claude Juncker Luxembourgian politician 1954

referring to his colleagues in the European Council
Jean-Claude Juncker, quoted by Dirk Von Kock 'Die Brüsseler Republik' http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-15317086.html in Der Spiegel (2000), then by Florian Eder 'Junckers Tricks in den langen Brüsseler Nächten' http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article112948572/Junckers-Tricks-in-den-langen-Bruesseler-Naechten.html in Die Welt (2012).
1999

People, Lying, Waiting

„A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal – of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a “free good”) or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but…who knowingly act wrongly… [B]esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future.“

— Hans-Hermann Hoppe, book Democracy: The God That Failed

Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P.173

Nature, Future, Animals, Personality

„When you speak in His presence about your past sins, He does not even understand your language. Only the present and the future have any interest for Him... I have committed crimes and have blood on my conscience. I told Jesus about it again and again. But because He had long ago washed all this away, there was no possibility of communication between us. He did not understand what I was talking about.“

— Richard Wurmbrand Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent 1909 - 2001

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

Communication, Past, Future

„There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.“

— Cannonball Adderley American jazz alto saxophonist 1928 - 1975

Interviewed by the "Chicago SEED", November 1968

Past, Future

„Brooklyn saw me, empty at the news
There's no water inside this swimming pool
Almost over, had enough from you
And I've been praying, I never did before
Understand I'm talking to the walls
I've been praying ever since New York“

— Harry Styles English singer, songwriter, and actor 1994

"Ever Since New York", written by Harry Styles, Mitch Rowland, Jeff Bhasker, Ryan Nasci, Alex Salibian, Tyler Johnson
Lyrics, Harry Styles (2017)

Water

„I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people…I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.“

— Grigori Rasputin Russian mystic 1869 - 1916

Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

Life, Death, Hate, Children

„If children fail to understand one another, it is because they think they understand one another.“

— Jean Piaget Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic 1896 - 1980

The Language and Thought of the Child (1923) Tr. Marjorie and Ruth Gabain (1926)
Context: If children fail to understand one another, it is because they think they understand one another. The explainer believes from the start that the reproducer will grasp everything, will almost know beforehand all that should be known, and will interpret every subtlety. Children are perpetually surrounded by adults who not only know much more than they do, but who also do everything in their power to understand them, who even anticipate their thoughts and desires. Children, therefore... are perpetually under the impression that people can read their thoughts, and in extreme cases, can steal their thoughts away. It is obviously owing to this mentality that children do not take the trouble to express themselves clearly... This mentality does not contradict ego-centric mentality. Both arise from the belief of the child, the belief that he is the centre of the universe. These habits of thought account... for the remarkable lack of precision in the childish style.

Children, Thinking

„It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.“

— Steve Jobs American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc. 1955 - 2011

As quoted in Fortune (9 November 1998); also quoted in "TIME digital 50" in TIME digital archive (1999) http://web.archive.org/web/20000612103032/http://www.time.com/time/digital/digital50/08.html
1990s
Context: Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.

Money, People

„True love is so strong and at the same time confusing to understand—Perhaps, the force that move the planets is the same force that moves two lovers. Only God knows!“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

God, Time, Strong, Lovers

„: A philosopher is a man in the street who speaks the same street language. He has to speak from personal experience and try to make simple spirits understand his way of life.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

Personality, Way, Life

„Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.“

— Marie Curie French-Polish physicist and chemist 1867 - 1934

As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v

Life, Fear, Time, Courageous

„Lies don't fix things. They don't even make things easier, at least not in the long run. Best to tell the truth then clean up an honest mess" P. C. Cast ( Grandma Redbird)… So wish People would understand this!!“

— P. C. Cast American writer 1960

People, Truth, Grandma

„Not one word," Kel warned. "Tobe and I have reached an understanding."
Neal's lips twitched. "Why do I feel you did most of the understanding.“

— Tamora Pierce American writer of fantasy novels for children 1954

Feeling

„What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing.“

— Andrei Tarkovsky, book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 217

Love

„Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.“

— Jean Piaget Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic 1896 - 1980

Time

„We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.“

— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018

Der Spiegel (17 October 1988)

Star, Universe

„I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!“

— Dr. Seuss American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books 1904 - 1991

„Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.“

— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

World, Soul, Time, Madness

„Liberals can understand everything but people
who don't understand them.“

— Lenny Bruce comedian and social critic 1925 - 1966

People

„I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.“

— Haruki Murakami, book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)

Love, Learning, Personality

„A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and
understanding.“

— Marshall McLuhan, book The Gutenberg Galaxy

Source: The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man

„(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.“

— Mary Oliver American writer 1935 - 2019

Variant: Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.
Source: Thirst

Love, Dreams, Sleep, Box

„I have good reason to be content,
for thank God I can read and
perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths.“

— John Keats English Romantic poet 1795 - 1821

God, Reading

„I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.“

— John Cage American avant-garde composer 1912 - 1992

Quoted in Richard Kostelanetz (1988) Conversing with Cage
1980s

People, Idea

„Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.“

— Dan Brown, book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

Religion, Science

„Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.“

— Sylvia Plath American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932 - 1963

Love, Time

„Aphrodite makes us understand why women have drowned their babies.“

— P. C. Cast, book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Women, Baby

„Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.“

— Stephen R. Covey, book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), p. 239
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

People, Deep, Powerful

„I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

- Chinese proverb“

— Alvin Toffler American writer 1928 - 2016

Forgetting

„Eragon looked back at him, confused. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't," said Brom impatiently. "That's why I'm teaching you and not the other way around.“

— Christopher Paolini, book Eragon

Source: Eragon

Way

„Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.“

— C.G. Jung, book Memories, Dreams, Reflections

ii. America: The Pueblo Indians http://books.google.com/books?id=w6vUgN16x6EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jung+Memories+Dreams+and+Reflections&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LLxKUcD0NfSo4APh0oDABg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false (Extract from an unpublished ms) (Random House Digital, 2011).
Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963)
Context: We always require an outside point to stand on, in order to apply the lever of criticism. This is especially so in psychology, where by the nature of the material we are much more subjectively involved than in any other science. How, for example, can we become conscious of national peculiarities if we have never had the opportunity to regard our own nation from outside? Regarding it from outside means regarding it from the standpoint of another nation. To do so, we must acquire sufficient knowledge of the foreign collective psyche, and in the course of this process of assimilation we encounter all those incompatibilities which constitute the national bias and the national peculiarity. Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. I understand England only when I see where I, as a Swiss, do not ﬁt in. I understand Europe, our greatest problem, only when I see where I as a European do not ﬁt into the world. Through my acquaintance with many Americans, and my trips to and in America, I have obtained an enormous amount of insight into the European character; it has always seemed to me that there can be nothing more useful for a European than some time or another to look out at Europe from the top of a skyscraper. When I contemplated for the ﬁrst time the European spectacle from the Sahara, surrounded by a civilization which has more or less the same relationship to ours as Roman antiquity has to modem times, I became aware of how completely, even in America, I was still caught up and imprisoned in the cultural consciousness of the white man. The desire then grew in me to carry the historical comparisons still farther by descending to a still lower cultural level.

On my next trip to the United States I went with a group of American friends to visit the Indians of New Mexico, the city-building Pueblos...

Deep, Happy, Motivational, Relationship

„Never break a promise to an animal. They're like babies—they won't understand.“

— Tamora Pierce, book Wild Magic

Source: Wild Magic

Animals, Baby

„Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.“

— Paulo Freire, book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2

Past, Future

„Do you understand? Man needs entertainment simply to hide his madness. If he was perfectly sane, he would not need entertainment. He could just sit and watch this bamboo grow. He does not really need entertainment.“

— Sadhguru Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian 1957

Source: Mystic's Musings

Madness

„All around us lies what we neither understand nor use. Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed.“

— Margaret Fuller American feminist, poet, author, and activist 1810 - 1850

"Good Sense" in a dialogue between Free Hope, Old Church, Good Sense, and Self -Poise. p. 127.
Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 (1844)
Context: All around us lies what we neither understand nor use. Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us confine ourselves to that till the lesson be learned; let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. I never see any of these things but I long to get away and lie under a green tree and let the wind blow on me. There is marvel and charm enough in that for me.

„Can you join, ask sincerely for affection
without sweaty hand of expectation,
understanding and accepting
if it never is given?“

— Viggo Mortensen American actor 1958

Sincerity

„To understand is to perceive patterns.“

— Isaiah Berlin Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas 1909 - 1997

„You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.“

— Edward O. Wilson American biologist 1929

Forgetting

„Understanding is a kind of ecstasy“

— Carl Sagan, book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

„I don't pretend to understand the universe — it's much bigger than I am.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

Universe

„Well, now you can see for yourself that she was delicate", said Davey triumphantly. "She's dead. It killed her. Doesn't that show you? I do wish I could make you Radletts understand that there is no such thing as imaginary illness. Nobody who is quite well could possibly be bothered to do all the things that I, for instance, am obliged to, in order to keep my wretched frame on its feet.“

— Nancy Mitford, book Love in a Cold Climate

Source: Love in a Cold Climate

Dead

„The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.“

— Stephen King, book The Body

Different Seasons (1982), The Body

Love, People, Lie, Secret

„The new profession of public relations has grown up because of the increasing complexity of modern life and the consequent necessity for making the actions of one part of the public understandable to other sectors of the public. It is due, too, to the increasing dependence of organized power of all sorts upon public opinion. Governments, whether they are monarchical, constitutional, democratic or communist, depend upon acquiescent public opinion for the success of their efforts and, in fact, government is government only by virtue of public acquiescence. Industries, public utilities, educational movements, indeed all groups representing any concept or product, whether they are majority or minority ideas, succeed only because of approving public opinion. Public opinion is the unacknowledged partner in all broad efforts.
The public relations counsel, then, is the agent who, working with modern media of communications and the group formations of society, brings an idea to the consciousness of the public.“

— Edward Bernays, book Propaganda

Source: Propaganda (1928), p. 63

Life, Education, Communication, Idea

„You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

Earliest published version found on Google Books with this phrasing is in the 1993 book The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking by Tracy L. LaQuey and Jeanne C. Ryer, p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?id=sP5SAAAAMAAJ&q=meowing#search_anchor. However, the quote seems to have been circulating on the internet earlier than this, appearing for example in this post from 1987 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/msg/cc89abb5e065d23f?hl=en and this one from 1985 http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources.games/browse_thread/thread/846af15b5a38c35/3d6d5a639c24bba3. No reference has been found that cites a source in Einstein's original writings, and the quote appears to be a variation of an old joke that dates at least as far back as 1866, as discussed in this entry from the "Quote Investigator" blog http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/02/24/telegraph-cat/#more-3387. A variant was told by Thomas Edison, appearing in The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 216 http://books.google.com/books?id=NXtEAAAAIAAJ&q=edinburgh#search_anchor: "When I was a little boy, persistently trying to find out how the telegraph worked and why, the best explanation I ever got was from an old Scotch line repairer who said that if you had a dog like a dachshund long enough to reach from Edinburgh to London, if you pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in London. I could understand that. But it was hard to get at what it was that went through the dog or over the wire." A variant of Edison's comment can be found in the 1910 book Edison, His Life and Inventions, Volume 1 by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, p. 53 http://books.google.com/books?id=qN83AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false.
The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.
Variant, earliest known published version is How to Think Like Einstein by Scott Thorpe (2000), p. 61 http://books.google.com/books?id=9yrYQxBgIYEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false. Appeared on the internet before that, as in this archived page from 12 October 1999 http://web.archive.org/web/19991012152820/http://stripe.colorado.edu/%7Ejudy/einstein/advice.html
Misattributed

Angels, Way, Cats

„The aims of social science with respect to human organizations are like those of any other science with respect to the events and phenomena of its domain. Social scientists wish to understand human organizations, to describe what is essential in their form, aspects, and functions.“

— Daniel Katz American psychologist 1903 - 1998

18
The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966)

Science

„The Jew must clearly understand one thing at once, he must get out!“

— Hermann Göring German politician and military leader 1893 - 1946

Speech in Vienna after the Austrian Anschluss (1938); when asked at the Nuremberg trials whether he meant what he said in this speech he replied "Yes, approximately." As reported from testimony in the Imperial War Museum, Folio 645, Box 156, , (20 October 1945), pp. 5-6