Quotes about understanding
page 18

“Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.”

Source: Status Anxiety

“1lb beefstak, with
1pt bitter beer
every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don't stuff your head with things you don't understand.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

Beer, Night

“Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to.”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Variant: Science tells me God must exist.
My mind tells me I'll never understand God.
My heart tells me I'm not meant to.

[Vittoria Vetra]
Source: Angels & Demons

God, Science, Heart

“He likes driving very fast on the wrong side of the road," said Sarah. "Which I can completely understand.”

Hilary McKay book Saffy's Angel

Source: Saffy's Angel

“Do you understand this is serious?"

"I understand you think it's serious.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Thinking

“The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

“If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Learning

“She was an alien, really - a sort of eating, pooping, tantrum machine - and he didn't understand anything about her species.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

“I have come to understand something about novels," Tessa said.
"And what is that?"
"They are not true.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

People

“No one will understand you. It is not, ultimately, that important. What is important is that you understand you.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

“You'll see, you'll come to understand. These big things, these terrible things, are not the important ones. If they were, how could one go on living? No, it is the small, little things that make up a day, that bring fullness and happiness to a life.”

Benedict Freedman book Mrs. Mike

Source: Mrs. Mike

Life, Happiness

“It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not
to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is
against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.”

George Sheehan Irish footballer

Idea, Learning

“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

“She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Secret, World, Intelligence, Dead

“The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. That is what I now recognize as the most important thing.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Truth, Idea

“They chose the olive"
"They must really like olives"
"Forget it"
"Now if she invented pizza that i can understand"
-Percy to Annabeth in the lightning theif”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Forgetting

“This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Meniti Bianglala

Life, God, Peace, Search

“The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Books, Way, Reading

“I taught him, 'he quavered, "to trust in love. I said:'when love comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Love, Reality, Passion, Personality

“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

World

“I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

People, Imagination, Thinking, Personality

“And I think that you do not understand that sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.
Source: Clockwork Angel

Thinking, Madness

“… we
do not admire what
we cannot understand.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Source: Complete Poems

“See, Colie, it's all about understanding. We're all worth something.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

“I understand better than she'd imagine that history is indelible. You can mask it; you can patch it smooth and clear; but you always know what's hidden underneath.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Imagination, History

“Bear in mind, children, that they listen to you because you are kids—not because you are right. That's how our Father listens to us … We never understand what we're praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Lufkin, Texas http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/lufkin-texas-jul1997-full.html (July 19, 1997) <br class="br">In Concert

Wisdom, God, Children

“In three days," he continued, "I will be your husband. I will take a solemn vow to protect you until death do us part. Do you understand what that means?"
"You'll save me from marauding minotaurs?”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton

Death, Parting

“We all fear what we do not understand.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Variant: Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand.
Source: The Lost Symbol
Source: Who Fears Death (2010), Chapter 21, “Gadi” (p. 139)

Fear

“I told you, everyone understands a quest.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Life, World, Soul

“Understanding requires insight. Insight must be anchored.”

Brian Greene (1963) American physicist

Source: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

“And now Rocky is begging me to watch Dora the Explorer with him. I understand that millions of kids love Dora and have learned to read or whatever from her show. But I wouldn't mind if Dora fell off a cliff and took her little pals with her”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Forever Princess

Love, Learning, Reading

“I am thrilled to be alive at time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding. Even better, we may eventually discover that there are no limits.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Time

“He had that hungry mind, constantly turning things over, looking not for answers but for understanding.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Bingo Palace

Life, Heart

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

People

“I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe… but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“Everything matters. Everything you do touches someone in some way, even though you might not understand that.”

Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author

Source: The Duke's Perfect Wife

Way

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

History, Question, Problem

“I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Love, Suffering

“No. But I understand her. Life makes people what they are.”

Lisa Kleypas book Dreaming of You

Source: Dreaming of You

Life, People

“To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Love, Thinking, Christ

“Dear Lord, please show me everything I need to understand about forgiveness and surrender”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Forgiveness

“And the Bastard grant us... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. In darkness, understanding.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Paladin of Souls

Source: Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 44

Mountain, Kiss, Despair

“We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said.”

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) German philosopher

Source: Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964), p. 101 http://books.google.com/books?id=7RP-TggufEEC&pg=PA101 <br class="br">Context: We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said. It would be an inadmissible abstraction to contend that we must first have achieved a contemporaneousness with the author or the original reader by means of a reconstruction of his historical horizon before we could begin to grasp the meaning of what is said. A kind of anticipation of meaning guides the effort to understand from the very beginning.

“The world has a soul and whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of many things.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things.
Source: The Alchemist

World, Soul

“Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

Truth, Faith, Search, Study

“You exist in a place that is beyond all rules for me. Do you understand that? - JZB”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world.”

Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children

Variant: To understand just one life you have to swallow the world... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?
Source: Midnight's Children

Life, World

“I don't think you understand," he said. "I'm going to have you, at any cost. Any cost, Jenny, even if you have to suffer on the way. If I can't force you, I'll persuade you— and I can be very persuasive.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Hunter

Way, Thinking, Suffering

“Oh, we do not understand death, we never understand it; creatures are only truly dead when everyone else has died who knew them.”

Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) Austrian writer

Source: Selected Short Fiction

Death, Dead

“Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

World

“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Mountain, Dead

“This world has been connected… tied to the darkness… soon to be completely eclipsed… there is very much to learn… you understand so little… a meaningless effort… one who knows nothing cannot understand nothing.”

Shiro Amano (1976) Japanese manga artist

Source: Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1

World, Effort, Learning

“A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Thinking

“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Lectures on Philosophy

Feeling, Personality

“A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

People, Heart

“No, I don't think you understand just how stupid goblins are. Let me give you an example. One of the B'wa Kell generals, and this is their top fairy, was caught caught trying to pass off forged credit slips by signing his own name.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Arctic Incident

Stupidity, Thinking

“We must recognize and nurture the creative parts of each other without always understanding what will be created.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Parting

“If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, "This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing.”

Yvon Chouinard (1938) American mountain climber

Source: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

Study

“We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood.”

Isaac Asimov book The Caves of Steel

Source: The Caves of Steel

“Everyone is always going through tough things, the irony in it is that everyone thinks what they're going through is just as hard as what you are. Life isn't about surviving this, it's about understanding this.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Life, Thinking

“The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Learning, Change

“Before you hate something you should try to understand it.”

Martha Grimes (1931) American crime writer and literature professor

Source: Dakota

Hate

“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”

Donald A. Norman book The Design of Everyday Things

Source: The Design of Everyday Things

Communication, Personality

“For the life of her, she couldn't understand how such an obstinate, boneheaded chauvinist could make her pulse race and her insides turn to jelly.”

Joanne Fluke (1943) writer

Source: Blueberry Muffin Murder

Life

“It’s Adrian Ivashkov logic. Don’t try to understand it. Just roll with it.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Quoted in Henry More: The Rational Theology of a Cambridge Plattonist (1962) by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, page 100.

Peace, Peaceful

“People want to ignore what they can't understand. They're looking for logic at any cost.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

People

“I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Cooking

“I'm very good at the past. It's the present I can't understand.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Past

“Any human face is a claim on you, because you can't help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. But this is truest of the face of an infant. I consider that to be one kind of vision, as mystical as any.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Courage, Help, Loneliness

“The baby understands that its mother loves it. […] Words have their origin in baby talk, so words have their origin in love.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Source: First Snow on Fuji

Love, Baby

“Doubt begets understanding, and understanding begets compassion. Verily, it is conviction that kills.”

R. Scott Bakker book The Thousandfold Thought

Source: The Thousandfold Thought

“Because for all the changes, some things were immutable truths: friendship transcends all barriers, understanding trumps fear, and great power can always be surmounted by determination.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Witch With No Name

Friendship, Truth, Fear, Change

“Meraa mitra yahaan aaiye," he murmurs. I understand only a little Hindi, enough to know what he has said: Come here, my friend.
I've never known a braver girl," he says.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Girl

“You’re a human, you should understand self-obsession.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Can I…I mean, do you mind if I sleep up here? If you don't, I, um, understand. I just—"
"Yes." The word bolted out of me. "Yes, please. Maybe I'll be able to sleep if you're here.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Jealousy

Sleep

“It is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.”

Lois Lowry book A Summer to Die

Source: A Summer to Die

Time, Cry

“Myrnin, drive carefully. Understand?"
"Of course."
He didn't.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

“It's not finding what's lost, it's understanding what you've found.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: The Museum of Extraordinary Things

“I want to live happily in a world I don't understand.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 4
Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

World

“I still don't understand what a sea god would be doing in Atlanta."
Leo snorted. "What's a wine god doing in Kansas? Gods are weird.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

God, Wine, Sea

“If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can’t be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the trade-off is fair.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Ira Levinson, Chapter 17, p. 237
Source: 2009, The Longest Ride (2013)
Context: My marriage brought great happiness into my life, but lately there's been nothing but sadness. I understand that love and tragedy go hand in hand, for there can't be one without the other, but nonetheless I find myself wondering whether the tradeoff is fair. A man should die as he had lived, I think; in his final moments, he should be surrounded and comforted by those he's always loved.

Love

“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Country

“You've never been in love," she said. "You don't understand."

"If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities," Caitlin said, "Then I haven't missed anything.”

Judy Blume Summer Sisters

Source: Summer Sisters

Love, Freedom

“You're Mac," he says. "And I'm Jericho. And nothing else matters. Never will. You exsist in a place that is beyond all rules for me. Do you understand that?"
"I do.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“For me, I think the greatest achievements of science is to allow humanity to realize that our world is comprehensible. Through science, rational thinking, we can understand how the universe works.”

Jim Al-Khalili (1962) British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster

World, Thinking, Universe, Science

“Finding someone you love and loves you back is a wonderful feeling. But finding a true soulmate is an even better feelin. A soulmate is someone who understands you like no other will be there for you forever no matter what.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Love, Feeling

“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

World, Chance

“There was no twinkle in his eyes.
"Maybe I just love some of you. Maybe not enough."
Tiger Lily blinked at him, and she didn't understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn't work that way.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Way, Heart, Parting

“I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Justice, Drawing

“A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

God, Children, Teachers, Distant

“It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.”

Joseph Conrad Lord Jim

Source: Lord Jim

Art, Knowledge

“I hate how the people who reallyyou are the ones you can never hold on to for very long. And the ones who don’t understand youstick around.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Hate, People

“that's the funny thing about mazes: what's baffling on the ground begins to makes sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself". (p. 717)”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: The Hour I First Believed

History, Sense

“Sadie," he said forlornly, "when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children's.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Children, Dreams, Parent

“What I don't understand is how women can pour hot wax on their bodies, let it dry, then rip out every single hair by its root and still be scared of spiders.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

I'm Telling You for the Last Time (1998)
Context: Men and women will never understand each other; my advice is to just stop trying. Just forget it. I know I will never understand women. I will never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root... and still be afraid of a spider.

Women

Quotes about understanding page 18

Quotes about understanding
page 18