Quotes about understanding
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“The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Happiness, People, Way, Problem

“Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Double Comfort Safari Club

Source: The Double Comfort Safari Club

Joy

“And who understands? Not me, because if I did I would forgive it all.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Forgiveness

“I write to understand as much as to be understood.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Love, Hope

“and that is what heaven is for, for understanding your life on Earth.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Life

“God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Source: Ava: My Story

God, Forgiveness

“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Truth, Thinking

“Your children will smash your understanding, knowledge and reality. You will be better off. Then they will leave. You'll miss them forever.”

Tibor Kalman (1949–1999) American graphic designer

Children, Knowledge, Reality

“Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a Person where I see no way.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Faith, Way, Intelligence, Personality

“He understands now why kisses in movies are filmed the way they are, with the camera endlessly circling, circling: the ground is unsteady under his.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Way, Kiss

“Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Nature

“You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will make you free.”

Paul Rand (1914–1996) American graphic designer

Learning, Reading

“In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Soul

“I don't understand the point of being together if you're not the happiest.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“It doesn’t take time to change once you understand the problem… Somebody hands you a rattlesnake, it doesn’t take long to drop it, does it?”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

Problem, Change, Time

“I’m afraid of love, because it involves things that are beyond our understanding; it sheds such a brilliant light, but the shadow it casts frightens me.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Love, Light

“You must understand the following: In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

Love, Feeling

“She's a woman, you're a dude. You're notto understand her. That'swhat she's after…. She doesn't want you to understand. She knowsimpossible. She just wants you to understand. Everything else is negotiable.”

Neal Stephenson book Snow Crash

Source: Snow Crash

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Love, Wedding

“A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly.”

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch book Venus in Furs

Source: Venus in Furs

“When a person knows and can't
make the others understand, what does he do?”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Personality

“If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

“I know the difference between right and wrong. I understand the rules. But today I feel that the rules have been blurred, because today they were literally on my front doorstep.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: Flawed

Feeling

“Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I’d rather not talk about it, because I didn’t understand it.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

“A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Knowledge, Teachers

“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Attributed to Greenspan by Rupert Cornwell, "Alan Greenspan: The buck starts here" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/alan-greenspan-the-buck-starts-here-595789.html, The Independent, 27 April 2003, citing an unspecified Capitol Hill hearing. However, as Ralph Keyes notes in The Quote Verifier (2006, p. 233), "This popular tongue twister gets attributed to the obfuscator du jour." The earliest known print attribution is to Robert McCloskey, U.S. State Department spokesman, by Marvin Kalb, CBS reporter, in TV Guide, 31 March 1984, citing an unspecified press briefing during the Vietnam war. <br class="br">Earlier attributions include: "a high government official", Annual Report, North American Gas Tax Conference, Federation of Tax Administrators, 1967; Jerry Lewis (a sign pasted on the camera during a movie shoot), by Dick Kleiner, Hollywood Correspondent, Sumter Daily Item, Feb. 4, 1970; a sign on the desk of Suzanne Schroeder, collector of bureaucratic gobbledygook, AP wire story, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 3, 1973; Jack Nicklaus paraphrasing Richard Nixon, by Larry Dorman, The Palm Beach Post, Dec. 8, 1979; and "a Hollywood film director", by J.D. Douglas, The Third Way, 29 December 1977. Additionally, a thesis monograph by Michael David Katz, Georgia State University, 1973 is titled with the quote. <br class="br">On the back of the first Stealers Wheel album, a very similar statement attributed to band member Rod Coombes is found: "We know that you believe you understand what you think we said, but we are not sure you realize that what you heard is not what we meant." The album was released in 1972. <br class="br">See Richard Nixon: "Now, when individuals read the entire transcript of the [March] 21st [1973] meeting, or hear the entire tape, where we discussed all these options, they may reach different interpretations, but I know what I meant, and I know also what I did" <br class="br">Misattributed

Thinking

“This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

“I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Books, Learning

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.

Courage

“You touch me again, you arrogant Ardenine swine, and I swear on the blood of Hanalea the warrior, I will geld you. Do you understand?”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

Swine

“We understand more than we know.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

“Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of "wrong" ideas.”

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred

Idea

“How was it that Adrian Ivashkov, who never seemed to take anything seriously was the only one among these "responsible" people who paid attention to such small details? How was he the only one to really understand the magnitude of what I was feeling?”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

People, Feeling

“If I wanted death, Edward would give it to me. Because we both understand that it isn't death that we fear. It's living.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Obsidian Butterfly

Source: Obsidian Butterfly

Death, Fear

“Against his own will, almost, Will felt himself understanding; he would have done anything, he thought, told any lie, taken any risk, to make Tessa love him.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Lie

“I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Love, Lovers

“I'm starting to understand that fear is like cancer - you can beat it back, but if it returns, it can be worse than ever.”

Darren Shan Slawter

Source: Slawter

Fear

“And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

Soul, Passion

“But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God, World, Soul, Help

“Gruff,” I said, “I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what’s in a fae woman’s mind.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

Women

“She wondered why they didn't understand that their true selfs were good enough, and if they weren't, then the someones they weren't good enough for, were really the ones not good enough.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

“Isabelle," she said, lightening her tone with an obvious effort, "your loyalty to your friend is understandable --"
"He's not my friend." Isabelle looked over at Jace, who was staring at her in a sort of daze. "He's my brother.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Effort, Loyalty

“That thing that looks like me but isn't? He'll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he's doing it. That's what you're saving, Clary.. Don't you understand? I'd rather be dead”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World, Dead

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Love, Way, Thinking

“In all your getting, get understanding.”

Jacqueline Woodson (1963) American writer

Hush

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)

“So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the West today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

"Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization, The Guardian, February 20, 2011.

Sense, Freedom

“Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to die. (…) What you can't understand, you destroy.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Wisdom, Time, Patience

“There is no such thing as a weird human being. It's just that some people require more understanding than others.”

Tom Robbins book Another Roadside Attraction

Another Roadside Attraction (1971)

People

“And you will understand all too soon
That you, my children of battle, are your heroes”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Source: The Collected Poetry, 1968-1998

Children

“It’s not a lie,” Shallan said, “if everyone understands and knows what it means.”
“Mm. Those are some of the best lies.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Lie

“Though there are things beyond our understanding, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness.”

Yasmina Khadra book What the Day Owes the Night

Source: Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

Parting

“My life has a mysterious purpose that I don't understand, and day by day, conflict by conflict, I learn by going where I have to go.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: Odd Interlude: A Special Odd Thomas Adventure

Life, Learning

“He knew what 'I love you' meant, and he knew it was good, but he didn't understand why it was an explanation for anything.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love

“The farmer has patience and trusts the process. He just has the faith and deep understanding that through his daily efforts, the harvest will come. And then one day, almost out of nowhere, it does.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

Faith, Effort, Patience

“With few words I shall make thee understand my soul.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Soul

“Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Knowledge, Learning, Memory

“But fates are connected in ways we don’t understand.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Variant: Mankind is connected in ways it does not understand - even in dreams.
Source: The Time Keeper

Fate, Way

“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

God

“I can understand bitchiness in any language.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Gameboard of the Gods

“I don't think you fully understand the public, my friend; in this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Way, Thinking, Country

“I never could understand why some writers treat women as helpless. Every woman I know is strong in her own unique way.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Women, Way, Strong

“Light came into the darkness, but the darkness didn't understand it," Susan said. "Look to the light. Only the light can save you from yourself.”

Ted Dekker book House

Variant: The light came into the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it, but that no longer mattered because the light was now obliteration the darkness.
Source: House

Light

“All is love… All is love. With love comes understanding. With understanding comes patience. And then time stops. And everything is now.”

Brian L. Weiss

Love, Time, Patience

“It's a fact that people are afraid of what they don't understand. And most are too lazy or ignorant to find out more.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

People