Quotes about understanding

„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

„Expectations on the performance of race and gender are simultaneously high and low, depending on who is looking or asking. I prefer to keep all the options in the air, to try and better understand the conundrum that inequality creates---not just in culture, but internally.“

—  Kara Walker African American artist 1969

On the expectations for an African American artist in “Art Talk with Kara Walker” https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2012/art-talk-kara-walker (National Endowment of the Arts; 2012 Feb 1)

„We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to make all people understand that animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves… The basis for peace is respecting all creatures… That's the basis, the beginning for peace. …We know we cannot defend or be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them - exploiting them in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.“

—  Cesar Chavez American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist 1927 - 1993

Accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award from In Defense of Animals in 1992.

„Wounded and fleeing, heroes passed you by, while your face remained bright and your lips, smiling.
You surpassed the bounds of courage and understanding, until people claimed that you knew the unseen.
To you belongs the praise for these pearls I pronounce; you are the giver, I the arranger.
Oh, Sword never sheathed, whom none can doubt and from whom there is no refuge.
Blessed are warfare, glory and eminence; blessed are your subjects and all of Islam, for you are safe!“

—  Al-Mutanabbi Arabic poet from the Abbasid era 915 - 965

From the poem "To Sayf Al-Dawla"
Here 'Sword never sheathed' refers to 'Sayf Al-Dawla', whose name is a laqab meaning 'Sword of the Dynasty'. http://samarmedia.tv/en/video/295/al-mutanabi-arabic-poem-with-english/

„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.

„Be not judges yourselves of your own fantastical opinions and vain expositions; and although you be permitted to read Holy Scriptures and to have the Word of God in your mother tongue, you must understand it is licensed so to do only to inform your conscience and inform your children and families, not to make Scripture a railing and taunting stock against priests and preachers. I am very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same.“

—  Henry VIII of England King of England from 1509 until 1547 1491 - 1547

Last speech to parliament, December 24, 1545.
English Church History from the Death of King Henry VII to the Death of Archbishop Parker, Rev. Alfred Plummer, 1905, Edinburg, T. & T. Clark, p. 85. http://books.google.com/books?id=ofMOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA85&dq=%22+you+be+permitted+to+read+holy+scriptures%22

„We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. . . . In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding.“

—  Buckminster Fuller American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist 1895 - 1983

1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), The Wellspring of Reality
Context: We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief.... In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war.

„Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.“

—  Ali, book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

„They're looking for something dirty in everything, and if you're looking for something, you'll find it. You have to put up some kind of face for them, and that's the only face they understand.“

—  Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017

Rolling Stone interview (June 1970)

„Pain's not bad, it's good. It teaches you things. I understand that.“

—  Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017

„Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.“

—  Donald Ervin Knuth, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

Foreword to the book A=B http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~wilf/AeqB.html (1996)
Source: Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

„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

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

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

„Those who understand the way it is, rather than the way they wish it were, are on the path to freedom.“

—  Noah Levine American Buddhist teacher 1971

Against the Stream (2007)

„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

„When we inquire about the general forms of economic phenomena, about their uniformities, or about a key to understanding them, we ipso facto indicate that we wish at that moment to consider them as something to be investigated, to be sought for, as the “unknown”; and that we wish to trace them to the relatively “known,” just as any science deals with its object of inquiry.“

—  Joseph Alois Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development

The Theory of Economic Development (1934), Ch. 1 : The Circular Flow of Economic Life as Conditioned by Given Circumstances

„More attention to the History of Science is needed, as much by scientists as by historians, and especially by biologists, and this should mean a deliberate attempt to understand the thoughts of the great masters of the past, to see in what circumstances or intellectual milieu their ideas were formed, where they took the wrong turning or stopped short on the right track.“

—  Ronald Fisher English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist 1890 - 1962

Natural selection from the genetical standpoint. Australian Journal of Science 22, 16-17, 1959.
1950s

„No practical biologist interested in sexual reproduction would be led to work out the detailed consequences experienced by organisms having three or more sexes; yet what else should he do if he wishes to understand why the sexes are, in fact, always two?“

—  Ronald Fisher, book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

Preface, p. ix.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

„You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.“

—  Harper Lee, book To Kill a Mockingbird

Variant: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)