
„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
A collection of quotes on the topic of understanding, can, doing, people.
„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
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
— 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.
— 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)
— 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.
„The beginning of purpose is found in creating something that only you understand.“
— Tyler Joseph American singer-songwriter and record producer 1988
„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
— Bodhidharma Chinese philosopher and Buddhist Monk 483 - 540
Source: The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
— 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
— 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.
— 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
— Bertrand Russell, book A History of Western Philosophy
Source: 1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
— Andrew Taylor Still Founder of Osteopathic Medicine 1828 - 1917
Autobiography of A.T. Still, page 253.
— Bartolomé de las Casas Spanish Dominican friar, historian, and social reformer 1474 - 1566
History of the Indies (1561)
— Chrysippus ancient Greek philosopher -281 - -208 BC
As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.
— 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
— Charbel Makhlouf Lebanese Maronite monk and saint 1828 - 1898
Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel (2019)
„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)
— 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".
— 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.
„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
„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
„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
— 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
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross American psychiatrist 1926 - 2004
— 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
— Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Romanian politician 1899 - 1938
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture
— Jürgen Habermas German sociologist and philosopher 1929
Habermas (1979) cited in: Werner Ulrich (1983) Critical heuristics of social planning. p. 123
— 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
— Hans-Hermann Hoppe, book Democracy: The God That Failed
Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P.173
— Richard Wurmbrand Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent 1909 - 2001
If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)
— Cannonball Adderley American jazz alto saxophonist 1928 - 1975
Interviewed by the "Chicago SEED", November 1968
— 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)
— Grigori Rasputin Russian mystic 1869 - 1916
Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916
„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.
„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.
— Marie Curie French-Polish physicist and chemist 1867 - 1934
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
— Stephen Hawking British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942 - 2018
Der Spiegel (17 October 1988)
„Liberals can understand everything but people
who don't understand them.“
— Lenny Bruce comedian and social critic 1925 - 1966
„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
— 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
„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
„Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.“
— Dan Brown, book Angels & Demons
Source: Angels & Demons
„Aphrodite makes us understand why women have drowned their babies.“
— P. C. Cast, book Untamed
Source: Untamed
„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
„I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
- Chinese proverb“
— Alvin Toffler American writer 1928 - 2016
„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...
„Never break a promise to an animal. They're like babies—they won't understand.“
— Tamora Pierce, book Wild Magic
Source: Wild Magic
— Paulo Freire, book Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 2
— 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.
„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
„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
— 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
— Daniel Katz American psychologist 1903 - 1998
18
The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966)
„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
— Yuval Noah Harari, book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
— Ali, book Nahj al-Balagha
Nahj al-Balagha
— Adam Weishaupt German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati 1748 - 1830
Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden (1794) pp. 20-21.
— Peter Handke Austrian writer, playwright and film director 1942
my hatred of history as a refuge for be-nothings
Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 11