Quotes about understanding

„Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.“

—  Leo Tolstoy, book War and Peace

Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

„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

„There is a 360-degree difference between our understanding of Islam and that of IS.“

—  Ahmet Davutoğlu Turkish politician 1959

Oct. 14, 2016 [Tremblay, Pinar, November 1, 2015, Forget online dating, now the Turkish government will find you a spouse, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/turkey-election-pledges-davutoglu-offers-matchmaking.html, Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East]

„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

„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

„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

„During the 1960s, large groups of people who are normally passive and apathetic began to try to enter the political arena to press their demands.… The naive might call that democracy, but that's because they don't understand. The sophisticated understand that that's the crisis of democracy.“

—  Noam Chomsky, book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Manufacturing Consent, lecture at the University of Wisconsin (15 March 1989) https://chomsky.info/19890315/.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s

„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

„Aren’t these liberals, those reprobate defenders of individualism, ashamed to see the tears of the mothers and wives, or don’t these cold-blooded accountants even notice? Have they already grown so inhuman that they are no longer capable of feeling? It is understandable why bolshevism simply removed such creatures. They were worthless to humanity, nothing but an encumbrance to their Volk. Even the bees get rid of the drones when they can no longer be of service to the hive. The Bolshevik procedures are thus quite natural.“

—  Adolf Hitler Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party 1889 - 1945

Source: Disputed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (1978), pp.16-17

„Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.“

—  Hayao Miyazaki Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka 1941

At the New York Film Festival http://www.slate.com/id/43805/

„The villains are all parts of me. For years I've been wondering what it would be like if all those negative elements were forced onto the main character's side. I can understand a character with that kind of anger.“

—  Hayao Miyazaki Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka 1941

„You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.“

—  Terence McKenna American ethnobotanist 1946 - 2000

„“The dominance hierarchy is a mechanism that selects heroes and breeds them. And so then we watch that for six million years. We start to understand what it means to be the hero. We start to tell stories about that, and so then not only are we genetically aiming at that with the dominance hierarchies - the selection mechanism mediated by female choice - but our stories are trying to push us in that direction. And so then we say, 'Well, look, that person is admirable.' We tell a story about him. And then we say, 'This person is admirable,' and we tell a story about him. And at the same time we talk about the people who aren't admirable. And then we start having admirable and non-admirable as categories. And out of that you get something like good and evil. And then you can start to imagine the perfect person. You take ten admirable people and you pull out someone who is meta-admirable. And that's a hero. That becomes a religious figure across time. That becomes a savior or a messiah across time as we conceptualize what the ideal person is. In the West here's how we figured it out: we said that the ideal man is the person that tells the truth. And what that means is that it's the best way of climbing up any possible dominance hierarchy in the way that's most stable and most lasting. That's the conclusion of Western culture."“

—  Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962

Concepts

„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

„Man knows much more than he understands.“

—  Alfred Adler Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist 1870 - 1937

As quoted in A Primer of Adlerian Psychology: The Analytic-Behavioural-Cognitive Psychology of Alfred Adler (1999) by Harold H. Mosak and Michael P. Maniacci

„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

„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

„Now I'm really trying not to cry, but one of the best things, for all the kids who are watching tonight, who don't understand that Kurt Hummel is a character… they saw him win and that's great." -Chris Colfer, when asked about being a gay rights figure.“

—  Chris Colfer actor, singer, book author 1990

Interview Quotes, 68th Golden Globes Speech (2011)

„… what is there in the subject of psychology to demand the attention of the manager?
Psychology, in the popular phrase, is " the study of the mind." It has for years been included in the training of all teachers, and has been one of the first steps for the student of philosophy; but it has not, usually, been included among the studies of the young scientific or engineering student, or of any students in other lines than Philosophy and Education. This, not because its value as a " culture subject " was not understood, but because the course of the average student is so crowded with technical preparation necessary to his life work, and because the practical value of psychology has not been recognized. It is well recognized that the teacher must understand the working of the mind in order best to impart his information in that way that will enable the student to grasp it most readily. It was not recognized that every man going out into the world needs all the knowledge that he can get as to the working of the human mind in order not only to give but to receive information with the least waste and expenditure of energy, nor was it recognized that in the industrial, as well as the academic world, almost every man is a teacher.“

—  Lillian Gilbreth American psychologist and industrial engineer 1878 - 1972

Source: Psychology of management, 1914, p. 1-2