Quotes about understanding
page 34

“The only way to give finality to the world is to give it consciousness. For where there is no consciousness there is no finality, finality presupposing a purpose. And… faith in God is based simply upon the vital need of giving finality to existence, of making it answer to a purpose. We need God, not in order to understand the why, but in order to feel and sustain the ultimate wherefore, to give a meaning to the Universe.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity

God, World, Faith, Way

“They [great works of literature] are invalidated not because of their literary obsolescence. Some of these images pertain to contemporary literature and survive in its most advanced creations. What has been invalidated is their subversive force, their destructive content—their truth. In this transformation, they find their home in everyday living. The alien and alienating oeuvres of intellectual culture become familiar goods and services. Is their massive reproduction and consumption only a change in quantity, namely, growing appreciation and understanding, democratization of culture? The truth of literature and art has always been granted (if it was granted at all) as one of a “higher” order, which should not and indeed did not disturb the order of business. What has changed in the contemporary period is the difference between the two orders and their truths. The absorbent power of society depletes the artistic dimension by assimilating its antagonistic contents. In the realm of culture, the new totalitarianism manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference. Prior to the advent of this cultural reconciliation, literature and art were essentially alienation, sustaining and protecting the contradiction—the unhappy consciousness of the divided world, the defeated possibilities, the hopes unfulfilled, and the promises betrayed. They were a rational, cognitive force, revealing a dimension of man and nature which was repressed and repelled in reality.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 60-61

Truth, World, Hope, Art

“Cicero bent Greek ideas to his vision of the idealized Roman Republic, and his understanding of the mores—the morality and social attachments—of the gentlemanly statesmen who would hold power in a just republic. Readers familiar with Machiavelli’s Prince will hear curious echoes of that work in Cicero’s advice; curious because the pieties of Cicero’s advice to the would-be statesman were satirized by Machiavelli sixteen hundred years later. If his philosophy was Greek and eclectic, Cicero owed his constitutional theory to Polybius; he was born soon after Polybius died, and read his history. And Cicero greatly admired Polybius’s friend and employer Scipio the Younger. There are obvious differences of tone. Polybius celebrated Rome’s achievement of equipoise, while Cicero lamented the ruin of the republic. Cicero’s account of republican politics veers between a “constitutional” emphasis on the way that good institutions allow a state to function by recruiting men of good but not superhuman character, and a “heroic” emphasis on the role of truly great men in reconstituting the state when it has come to ruin. Cicero’s vanity was so notorious that everyone knew he had himself in mind as this hero—had he not saved the republic before when he quelled the conspiracy of Catiline?”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 4 : Roman Insights: Polybius and Cicero

Men, Way, History, Idea

“Those with hard temperaments like to win through struggle; they don't like to be defeated. Inferior hard temperaments are explosive and rash, fierce and violent. Soft temperaments are placid and earnest. Inferior soft temperaments are weak-willed and do not seek a thorough understanding of the skills. Tai chi chuan stresses that hardness and softness complement each other. Training teaches one to be hard, but not excessively so, soft, yet not weak. This is to truly absorb the teachings.Those with soft temperaments easily improve. Those with inferior hard temperaments always mistake slowness and lack of force for sluggishness and weakness. Actually, slowness and forcelessness are fundamental aspects of training. Just as steel is produced by applying heat to iron, tempering it, skills of tai chi chuan are refined gradually over a long time.”

Wu Kung-tsao (1902–1983) Chinese martial artist

Wu Family T'ai Chi Ch'uan (1980)

Time, Training

“The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticism of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Adams (5 July 1814). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 11 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-11_Bk.pdf, pp. 397–398 1810s

Christ

“A while ago there was an article in the New York Times about some women in Tennessee who wanted the middle grade text books removed from the school curriculum, not because they were inadequate educationally, but because these women were afraid that they might stimulate the childrens' imaginations.
What!?!
It was a good while later that I realized that the word, imagination, is always a bad word in the King James translation of the Bible. I checked it out in my concordance, and it is always bad.
Put them down in the imagination of their hearts. Their imagination is only to do evil.
Language changes. What meant one thing three hundred years ago means something quite different now. So the people who are afraid of the word imagination are thinking about it as it was defined three centuries ago, and not as it is understood today, a wonderful word denoting creativity and wideness of vision.
Another example of our changing language is the word, prevent. Take it apart into its Latin origin, and it is prevenire. Go before. So in the language of the King James translation if we read, "May God prevent us," we should understand the meaning to be, "God go before us," or "God lead us."
And the verb, to let, used to mean, stop. Do not let me, meant do not stop me. And now it is completely reversed into a positive, permissive word.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)

Women, God, Children, People

“Ariana Huffington is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man- he made a good decision.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/240462265680289792, quoted in * 2019-10-26 Jeva Lange The 65 worst Trump tweets of the 2010s TheWeek.com https://theweek.com/articles/870368/65-worst-trump-tweets-2010s Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / Donald Trump on social media / Twitter 2010s, 2012

Decision

“Prostrating myself mentally before my Guide, I cried, "How is it, O divine ideal of consummate loveliness and wisdom that I see thy inside, and yet cannot discern thy heart, thy lungs, thy arteries, thy liver?" "What you think you see, you see not," he replied; "it is not given to you, nor to any other Being to behold my internal parts. I am of a different order of Beings from those in Flatland. Were I a Circle, you could discern my intestines, but I am a Being, composed as I told you before, of many Circles, the Many in the One, called in this country a Sphere. And, just as the outside of a Cube is a Square, so the outside of a Sphere presents the appearance of a Circle."Bewildered though I was by my Teacher's enigmatic utterance, I no longer chafed against it, but worshipped him in silent adoration. He continued, with more mildness in his voice. "Distress not yourself if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland. By degrees they will dawn upon you. Let us begin by casting back a glance at the region whence you came.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 18. How I came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There

Wisdom, Thinking, Teachers, Appearance

“I just can't understand why they carried on with the name. It did them no favours, and however it can be defended, it spoils the memory. It's not so much that it's unforgivable, but it is a pity that we don't see each other and never talk to each other.”

Ian McCulloch (1959) singer, musician

Referring to Echo & the Bunnymen continuing after he left the band.
Q magazine (1992)

Memory

“14:06> …Of course I made it quite clear to the women that I thought that that the way that they had been abused was terrible and completely unjustifiable. However, I thought that it was very important that they should understand their own complicity in it; so that, for example, they understood that the way they chose men, and their refusal to see signs (which they were capable of seeing) resulted in their misery… <14:40> To give you a concrete example, I would say to them, ‘This man of yours, who’s very nasty to you, and drags you across the floor, and puts your head through the window, and sometimes even hangs you out of the window by your ankles: How long do you think it would take me to realise he was no good, as he came through the door? Would it take me a second, or half a second, or an eighth of a second, or would I not notice that there was anything wrong with him at all?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, an eighth of a second, you’d know immediately.’ And I would say to them, ‘Well, if you know that I would know immediately, then you knew immediately as well.’ It’s a logical consequence, really. And they would accept that. ‘And yet, you chose to associate with him, knowing full well that he was no good; and I tell you this, because it’s very necessary you should understand your own part in the predicament you now find yourself in, because if you don’t understand it, or don’t think about it, you’re just going to repeat it.’ which is of course, a very, very common pattern.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Daniels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Daniels_(psychiatrist) on helping victims of abuse understand how they can help to break the cycle. CBC Ideas Interview (podcast) (September 25, 2006)

Women, Men, Way, Thinking

“In appearance and behaviour, Norbert Wiener was a baroque figure, short, rotund, and myopic, combining these and many qualities in extreme degree. His conversation was a curious mixture of pomposity and wantonness. He was a poor listener. His self-praise was playful, convincing and never offensive. He spoke many languages but was not easy to understand in any of them. He was a famously bad lecturer.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Norbert Wiener (2008)

Appearance

“Surely only correct understanding could lead to correct action.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 369

“As well as tackling isolation, there is one other area we must look at if we are to build a truly cohesive society – and that is segregation. It cannot be right, for example, that people can grow up and go to school and hardly ever come into meaningful contact with people from other backgrounds and faiths. That doesn’t foster a sense of shared belonging and understanding – it can drive people apart.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

People, School, Faith, Sense

“Hayek’s work in philosophy can be considered from another perspective than its methodology. When Hayek wrote that his philosophical studies should precede his political studies, he meant that in order to explain the sort of political system he favored, it was necessary to have greater understanding of the transmission and communication of information and knowledge. This is why he wished to travel to Italy and Greece. He thought that he might understand nonverbal knowledge better in doing so and might better understand the role of institutions in transmitting knowledge and information.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Travel, Communication, Knowledge, Study

“Many intellectuals here [in South Korea] admire the North for standing up to the world. It’s a right-wing sort of admiration, really, for a resolute state that does what it says. More common than admiration are feelings of shared ethnic identity with the North. We are perhaps too blinkered by our own globalism to understand how natural they are.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with The Conversation (September 2017)

World, Feeling, Nature

“I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty.... but only vaguely. At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

(c. 1890); as quoted in Painting Outside the lines, Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 30 Jun 2009, p. 84
1890's

Age, Idea

“Rather than positing design and use as disconnected moments or stages in a technology's lifecycle, the structurational model of technology posits artifacts as potentially modifiable throughout their existence. In attempting to understand technology as continually socially and physically constructed, it is useful to discriminate analytically between human action which affects technology and that which is affected by technology. I suggest that we recognize human interaction with technology as having two iterative modes: the design mode and the use mode. I emphasize that this distinction is an analytical convenience only, and that in reality these modes of interaction are tightly coupled.”

Wanda Orlikowski American computer scientist

Source: "The duality of technology" 1992, p. 408

Reality

“To gain a better understanding, I'm just trying to make it real/reel. Like a fisherman,
Pon De River fam. I Pon My Bank, deposit my thoughts. Till my mind draws a blank
and I withdraw from checking. I'll leave that with ya'll for a second…”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

"Run Down"
Mixtapes, Fahrenheit 1/15 Part I: The Truth Is Among Us (2006)

Drawing

“What concerns me right now is that with the actions of Dr Mahathir, who is a lauded statesman and a beloved international icon, the country could become unstable, driving away foreign investors from this nation at the same time. As a former Prime Minister, he should be more understanding of what democracy is, which cannot be achieved the way Dr Mahathir is going about it now.”

Mahathir bin Mohamad (1925) Prime Minister of Malaysia

Malaysia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Anifah Aman said in a statement on Saturday (Mar 5) that he was both surprised and disappointed with Dr Mahathir, quoted on Channel News Asia, "Dr Mahathir movement will be bad for country: Malaysia Foreign Affairs Minister" http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/dr-mahathir-movement-will/2575782.html, March 5, 2016.

Way, Democracy, Time, Country

“Then our Courteous Lord answered in shewing full mistily a wonderful example of a Lord that hath a Servant: and He gave me sight to my understanding of both. Which sight was shewed doubly in the Lord and doubly in the Servant: the one part was shewed spiritually in bodily likeness, and the other part was shewed more spiritually, without bodily likeness.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 51

Parting

“We venture to say a few words in explanation of the plan of this work. Its object is not to force upon the public the personal views or theories of its author; nor has it the pretensions of a scientific work, which aims at creating a revolution in some department of thought. It is rather a brief summary of the religions, philosophies, and universal traditions of human kind, and the exegesis of the same, in the spirit of those secret doctrines, of which none — thanks to prejudice and bigotry — have reached Christendom in so unmutilated a form, as to secure it a fair judgment. Since the days of the unlucky mediaeval philosophers, the last to write upon these secret doctrines of which they were the depositories, few men have dared to brave persecution and prejudice by placing their knowledge upon record. And these few have never, as a rule, written for the public, but only for those of their own and succeeding times who possessed the key to their jargon. The multitude, not understanding them or their doctrines, have been accustomed to regard them en masse as either charlatans or dreamers. Hence the unmerited contempt into which the study of the noblest of sciences — that of the spiritual man — has gradually fallen.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Introduction
Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I

Men, Secret, Religion, Knowledge

“There is a world of visual beauty open to the one willing to undergo the practice and striving necessary to the understanding of its language.
This world is a important as culturally as is the world of words or of music. My ideal is to form and to paint as Schubert sings his songs and as Beethoven creates his world in sounds. That is to say, creation of one’s own inner world through the same human and artistic discipline.
An inner sensation can find external expression only through spiritual realization.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Painting and Culture' p. 58
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

World, Beauty, Music, Singing

“Diogenes of Sinope … was also the first to recognize the danger embodied in Plato, that the school will subjugate life, that the artificial psychosis of "absolute knowledge" wants to destroy the vital connection between perception, movement, and understanding.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 535

Life, School, Knowledge

“It happens that all those who have something of mine, painting, mobile, or static statue, say that it makes them very happy. For example, children adore mobile statues and understand their meaning immediately. I have seen children, here in France, in America or in Great Britain, run and shout with joy in my exhibitions. They like it instinctively.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

Calder, quoted in Calder: Gravity and Grace, eds. Giménez, Carmen, and Alexander S.C. Rower; Phaidon Press, New York 2004, p. 54
1950s - 1960s

Happiness, Children, Joy, Painting

“My definition of "good" is that you understand that this is a question of power, that you be willing to give up some power, that you be willing to give up some resources, that you be willing to pay black people reparations for our years and years of service in this country, that you be willing to go home and tell your white mother and father about white racism and how it affects and kills black people in our communities. That's my definition of good white people and I haven't met any like that.”

Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer

Television special, The Issue is Race: A Crisis in Black and White (1992)

People, Home, Communication, Question

“I can understand Spanish but I can't understand Puerto Ricans.”

Giannina Braschi book Yo-Yo Boing!

Yo-Yo Boing! (Spanglish novel, 1998)
Variant: We have a similar problem. I can understand English, but I cannot understand Americans.

“Understand that this is the last physical format there will ever be.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

On Blu-ray. interview The Daily Princetonian (14 Oct 2005) https://archive.is/20130628234752/www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/10/14/news/13474.shtml 2000s

“Don't lose sight of the essential objectives of painting, which are expression, emotion, delectation; to understand the means, to paint decoratively, to exalt form and color.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

Quote from Denis' Journal, 1930; as cited on Wikipedia: Maurice Denis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis - reference [43] 1921 and later

Color, Painting

“The social sciences, ultimately, are about patterns, rules, and phenomena available to certain objective forms of explanation; the humanities, especially the study of literature, are about exceptional cases, singular works, and individuals that require subjective understanding.”

Russell Berman (1950) American academic

Source: Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007), p. 23.

Literature, Study, Science

“You have to see VVS Laxman bat to understand his magic.”

V. V. S. Laxman (1974) former Indian cricketer

Ian Bishop http://www.scrolldroll.com/quotes-about-vvs-laxman-that-show-he-is-truly-very-very-special/

“You really have to let me fight my own battles. You can't constantly second-guess me and try to protect me. It's stifling, Christian. I'll never flourish with your incessant interference. I need some freedom. I wouldn't dream of meddling in your affairs.
…if we are to have any hope of a future together, you have to trust me and trust my judgment. Yes, I'll get it wrong sometimes--I'll make mistakes, but I have to learn.
…I know you want to control everything, and I understand why, but you can't. It's an impossible goal…you have to learn to let go.”

E. L. James book Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Darker (2011) Anastasia Steele, Chapter 11, p. 273-274.

Dreams, Hope, Freedom, Learning

“I thought of how many places there are in the world that belong in this way to someone, who has it in his blood beyond anyone else's understanding.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The devil in the hills (1949), Chapter 9, p. 319

World, Way

“And the traditional religions worry me. Their long history proves that they have not understood the meaning of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill. If we want to save this world from unimaginable destruction we should concentrate not on the faraway God, but on the heart of the individual. We live now in an international anarchy in which a Third World War with nuclear weapons lies before our door. We must make the individual man aware of his conscience so that he understands what it means that only a few will survive the next war.”

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

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 98

God, War, World, Religion

“Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Family

“The correct understanding of life, let me tell you, is love despite everything. Love despite everything, that is the aim and object of life. Love, you see, is the only thing that pays in the long run, even though it might seem a dead loss in the short run.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Pétur Þríhross
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Love, Life, Loss, Dead

“All men are my children. What I desire for my own children, and I desire their welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, that I desire for all men. You do not understand to what extent I desire this, and if some of you do understand, you do not understand the full extent of my desire.”

Ashoka (-304–-232 BC) Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty

Edicts of Ashoka (c. 257 BC)

Men, Happiness, Children, World

“The idea of Islamic renewal, which understands Islam as capable not only of educating human beings but also of ordering the world, will always have two types of people as its opponents: conservatives who want the old forms, and modernists who want someone else's forms.”

Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003) Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: The Islamic Declaration (1970), p. 8.

People, World, Education, Idea

“In a way, your law school becomes part of your extended family. I say this because once you graduate with your Juris Doctor degree you are essentially married to that particular institution. No matter what your experience or opinion of the place, your alma mater is a name you cannot escape. The individuals that attend law school with you will be your life-long partners as you progress from a common starting point. Understanding the basic principles of professional networking, and utilizing the knowledge while on your law school campus, will reap a lifetime of rewards and provide you with many genuinely enhancing relationships.”

Don West, Jr.

in [Ann K. Levine, Esq., The Law School Admission Game: Play Like An Expert http://www.lawschoolexpertbook.com/, Abraham Publishing, Inc, 2009, 978-0-615-27183-5, 148-149]

Life, School, Family, Law

“[Television] may teach self-interest rather than philanthropy, violence rather than gentleness, a disregard for human dignity rather than a respect for it. It may not always teach the truth but teach it does, and it is more than time that responsible people both within and outside the broadcasting professions said boldly what is so obvious in commonsense terms — we cannot understand what is happening in international, cultural, economic, political and social affairs without coming to grips with the way in which television influences virtually all our behavioural and thought processes.”

Mary Whitehouse (1910–2001) British activist

Television: Controlling the Explosive Influence http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/28th-december-1974/14/television, The Spectator archive (28 December, 1974).

People, Truth, Way, Time

“People of intelligence often treat business in the way ignorant people treat books: they understand nothing.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

People, Books, Way, Intelligence

“Another important point which you so very accurately sensed concerns the idea that the glass in actual fact is not meant to be looked at (with 'aesthetic' eyes). It should be accompanied by a 'literary' text, as amorphous as possible, which never took shape. And the two elements, glass for the eyes, text for the ears and understanding, should complement each other and above all prevent one or the other from taking on an aesthetic-plastic or literary form. All in all, I am hugely indebted to you for having stripped bare my Bride stripped bare”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

the complete title is: The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), c. 1915 – 1923
Quote from a letter to fr:Jean Suquet (art historian), New York 25 December 1949; as quoted in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 p. 163
1921 - 1950

Idea, Sense

“Crouching down inside a deep ravine,
Those angry cries pass quickly by, he can't be seen.
So many ways spent hiding in so many undone plans;
Forgetting what it's like to fight when no one understands.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Out of the Shadows
Song lyrics, Touch (1988)

Way, Fight, Forgetting

“Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Rousseau http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14052/14052-h/14052-h.htm (1876)

“He gave special understanding and teaching of working of miracles, as thus: — It is known that I have done miracles here afore, many and diverse, high and marvellous, worshipful and great. And so as I have done, I do now continually, and shall do in coming of time.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 36

Time

“I tried. I tried so hard to empathize with all of your weaknesses. I implored every single one of you to just say "no," and all my empathy got was for you to love Jeff Hardy that much more than you already did. But this will not deter me. I will stay the course; I still believe in teaching you people the difference between right and wrong. (Audience chants "Hardy!") Oh, obviously it's gonna be challenging, listening to you people, and by the looks of some of you, it's gonna be a big challenge. But just like any other challenge that's come down the pipe in my lifetime, I'm gonna meet that challenge head on like a man, just like I did last week. Let's take a look. (Recap of Punk's assault on Hardy) See, now I know why you people love Jeff Hardy so much. It's because you are all just like him; and, in turn, Jeff Hardy is just like all of you. The reality is, none of you have the strength to be straight-edge. (Audience resumes chant) You gravitate towards Jeff because it's the easy way out: it's easier to weak like Jeff, because you sure can't be strong like me. Oh, you can boo all you want. I know why you boo, you know why you boo. It's because I tell the truth. And the truth sometimes hurts, doesn't it? For instance, what does it say on your prescription bottle of pills? "Take one every four hours"? Well, don't tell me you people don't gobble four, six, eight at a time like they were Pez. That is drug abuse—I don't do that. I also don't smoke, and those who do are stupid. You gotta be stupid to not listen to the Surgeon General, especially when he prints the warning label on the package of smokes. You gotta be a fool. And we can talk about those funny cigarettes, and you obviously know what I'm talking about because you cheer, and that's utterly sad. That's pathetic. I…I can't even wrap my head around you people cheering, 'cause when you smoke those funny cigarettes, not only is that hazardous to your health, it's also illegal. So those who have taken a puff, not only are you poisoning yourself, you're also breaking the law, so the vast majority of everybody here in this arena is a criminal. I am not a criminal—I never have been, and I never will be. Now let's talk about alcohol. I've saved the best poison for last, see because this is a gateway drug. Don't tell me not a single one of you here has ever said, "I'm gonna go out for one drink," and one leads to two, and two drinks leads to three, and then it's a double of this, and a shot of that, and then your head winds up in the toilet, night in and night out. Congratulations, that is alcoholism. And in my book, if you even take one drink, you're an alcoholic. So I understand why you people love Jeff Hardy so much, I understand why Jeff loves you—it's because you're all weak. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you deserve better. This entire world deserves better. What you need is a leader. You need a strong leader who's gonna stand up in the face of adversity and just say "no."”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

You need a strong leader that's gonna carry the banner of the World Heavyweight Championship with honor, with pride, respect, dignity, integrity, and class. What you people need is a straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion. You need CM Punk.
August 7, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Love, People, Health, Alcohol

“My soul, so far as I understand it, has very kindly taken colour and form from the many various modes of life that self-will and an impetuous temperament have forced me to indulge in. Therefore I may say that I am free from original qualities, defects, tastes, etc. What is mine I have acquired, or, to speak more exactly, chance bestowed, and still bestows, upon me. I came into the world apparently with a nature like a smooth sheet of wax, bearing no impress, but capable of receiving any; of being moulded into all shapes.”

George Moore (novelist) (1852–1933) Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist

Source: Confessions of a Young Man http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12278/12278-h/12278-h.htm (1886), Ch. 1.

Life, World, Soul, Nature

“Now we got a lawyer, we got civilization, which I understand to mean that a man has a chance to get rich without working.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 17

Chance

“I address myself to the young. They alone will have to listen to me, they alone will be able to understand me. Some people are born already old, drooling specters from the past, cryptograms tumid with poisons: to them, no words or ideas except a single injunction: the end.”

Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880–1955) Italian composer

Poggi et al (2009, p. 75)
Original text:
Io mi rivolgo ai giovani. Essi soli mi dovranno ascoltare e mi potranno comprendere. C’è chi nasce vecchio, spettro bavoso del passato, crittogama tumida di veleni: a costoro, non parole, nè idee, ma una imposizione unica: fine.
Manifesto of Futurist Musicians (1910)

People, Idea, Past

“With hindsight, the Samoa system with appropriate modifications ought to have been adopted. The complete acceptance of western democratic structures, apart from the appointment of Bose Levu Vakaturaga appointees in the Senate, in some respect was in advance of the understanding of democratic principles, particularly in the rural areas.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Our Country at the Crossroads - 2001 Parkinson Memorial Lecture Series, 15 August 2001 http://www.usp.ac.fj/journ/docs/news/wansolnews/wansol1508013.html.

“Today's secularists too often have very little accurate knowledge about religion, and even less desire to learn. This is problematic insofar as their sense of self is constructed in opposition to religion. Above all, the secularist is not a Jew, is not a Christian, not a Muslim, and so on. But is it intellectually responsible to define one's identity against something that one does not understand?”

Jacques Berlinerblau (1966) Associate Professor, Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service,…

Source: The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously (2005), p. 1

Religion, Knowledge, Sense, Learning

“The more I see - the more I know,
The more I know, the less I understand.”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

The Changingman, from Stanley Road (1995)

“Doing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 229

“There is no study more difficult than that of physic: it exceeds, as a science, the comprehension of the human mind: and those who blunder onwards, without attempting to understand what they see, are often very nearly on a level with those, who depend too much on imperfect generalisations, applied to facts, which can scarcely be subjected to any well marked analogy. Hence it may happen, that talents and labour may become useless for want of a proper direction… To assist in furnishing the student with a sufficient direction… is the principal object of this work.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Source: An Introduction to Medical Literature, Including a System of Practical Nosology (1823), p. 2

Study, Science, Dependency

“The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas’s true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange—a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Gold Bug Variations", Originally published in Slate (Nov. 23, 1996)
The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From The Dismal Science (1998)

God, People, Imagination, Failure

“If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.”

R. Scott Bakker book The Darkness That Comes Before

AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN
The Darkness That Comes Before (2004)

Soul

“!-- This is my most misunderstood book, and I have devoted some attention to trying to understand why. … --> I have been accused of having believed when I wrote Sex and Temperament that there are no sex differences … This, many readers felt, was too much. It was too pretty. I must have found what I was looking for. But this misconception comes from a lack of understanding of what anthropology means, of the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder, that which one would not have been able to guess.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Preface of 1950 edition of Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. xxvi 
[Anthropology demands] the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.
As quoted in Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012) by Carl C. Gaither and Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither
1950s

Books, Sex

“To fight against this lack of understanding, against a whole world of non-understanding, was impossible.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

"A Hunger Artist"
The Complete Stories (1971)

World, Fight

“The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 12, 1892)
Letters

Idea, Dependency

“Every seminar should involve at its conclusion the assignment of a short composition in which students would attempt to state how their understanding of the book discussed in the seminar was increased by their participation in the discussion.”

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

Source: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 316

Books

“In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ, I am not referring to a literal return of Jesus to earth. He came two thousand years ago and, after imparting a universal path to God's kingdom, was crucified and resurrected; his reappearance to the masses now is not necessary for the fulfillment of his teachings. What is necessary is for the cosmic wisdom and divine perception of Jesus to speak again through each one's own experience and understanding of the infinite Christ Consciousness that was incarnate in Jesus. That will be his true Second Coming.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

Wisdom, God, Universe, Christ

“The lack of freedom suffered by those who advise the powerful may of course be due to coercion or force. But the slavish behavior typical of such counselors may equally well be due to their basic condition of dependence and their understanding of what their clientage demands of them. As soon as they begin to ‘slide into a blind dependence upon one who has wealth and power’, they begin to desire ‘only to know his will’, and eventually ‘care not what injustice they do, if they may be rewarded’.”

Quentin Skinner (1940) British historian

(describing the view of Algernon Sidney) p. 93
Liberty Before Liberalism (1998)

Behavior, Freedom, Suffering, Dependency

“Our sense of free will results from a failure to appreciate this: We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 13

People, Way, Failure, Sense

“We can understand Greek religion because, it operates on the same internal dynamic that fuels all (or certainly almost all) religion. The aboriginal Christian prayer Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy) is a Greek prayer far more ancient than Christianity.”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.VII The Way They Went: Greco-Roman Meets Judeo-Christian

Religion

“We understand the mentality Taiwan compatriots have developed under special historical conditions. We respect their identification with the current social system, values and lifestyle and we know that some friends still harbor misgivings on the development of the cross-strait relations.”

Yu Zhengsheng (1945) Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

Yu Zhengsheng (2014) cited in " Top political advisor vows understanding on Taiwan http://english.cntv.cn/2014/06/15/ARTI1402811332174644.shtml" on English CCTV.com, 15 June 2014.

“Our program was a scientific one it must be constantly changed at minor points to meet the continuous advance of science. And I maintain that no man – Marx, in spite of his comprehensive and deep intellect, as little as any other – can bring science to final perfection; and this position is for everyone who understands the nature of science a foregone conclusion. No socialist, therefore, has the right to condemn attacks on the theoretical ideas of the Marxian teachings or to excommunicate any one from the party because of such attacks. But it is wholly different when such attacks imply a complete overturning of our whole conception of society, as, for example, is the case with Bernstein. Then vigorous defense is in order. Far more dangerous than theoretical assaults are practical disavowals of our principles. Theoretical discussions interest only a comparatively small portion of our membership; whereas practical disavowal of principles and tactical offenses against the party program touch every party comrade and arouse the attention of every party comrade; and when they are not quickly checked and corrected they bring confusion into the whole party.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Idea, Nature, Science, Change

“Compared with Brancusi, Matisse, Miro, I'm a barbarian. If people would understand the barbaric force of my paintings, instead of always pointing out how well I understand Picasso. I'm a Viking who has read French literature.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

as cited by Grace Glueck, in 'Robert Motherwell, Master of Abstract, Dies', by Grace Glueck, 'New York Times, 18 July 1991 https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/18/obituaries/robert-motherwell-master-of-abstract-dies.html Undated

People, Literature, Reading, Painting

““I don’t know.” That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed.”

Alastair Reynolds book Revelation Space

Source: Revelation Space (2000), Chapter 18 (p. 357).

People

“When closed societies collapse but fail to make the transition to openness the reason need not be that they languish in anarchy or suffer a return to dictatorship. It may be that they adopt an illiberal form of democracy. Along with the liberal democratic tradition that goes back to Locke and the English civil war there is a tradition, originating in the French Revolution and formulated theoretically by Rousseau, which understands democracy as the expression of popular will. The elective theocracy that is emerging in much of post-Saddam Iraq is a democratic polity in the latter sense, as is the current regime in Iran; so is the Hamas government in Palestine… To be sure, these regimes often lack freedom of information and expression and legal limitations on government power, which are essential features of democracy in the liberal tradition. In these respects they are closed societies, but they are not dictatorships. It is often forgotten that democracy, defined chiefly by elections and the exercise of power in the name of the majority, can be as repressive of individual freedom and minority rights as dictatorship - sometimes more so.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

'George Soros and the Open Society' (p.116-7)
Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)

War, Exercises, Democracy, Sense

“Ultimately, taxes are being paid for by your and my freedom because we have to spend more time to make the money to pay for those taxes. The current reality is that with a deficit that is going to double in the next eight years is that taxes, currently, as it stands right now, taxes are going up, unless there becomes a real movement to understand that we should be reducing taxes and not allowing taxes to increase.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement on Taxes
YouTube
2011-08-23
http://youtu.be/227YyBf7-KQ
2012-02-24
2011

Money, Reality, Freedom, Time

“Haiku reading and writing can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of life and our environment.”

William J. Higginson (1938–2008) American writer

Haiku Handbook Mcagraw Hill Books 1985 ISBN 0070287864

Life, Reading

“It is a notorious fact that many prominent Hindus who had offended the religious susceptibilities of the Muslims either by their writings or by their part in the Shudhi movement have been murdered by some fanatic Musalmans…. This is, of course, a very short list and could be easily expanded. But whether the number of prominent Hindus killed by fanatic Muslims is large or small matters little. What matters is the attitude of those who count towards these murderers. The murderers paid the penalty of law where law is enforced. The leading Moslems, however, never condemned theses criminals. On the contrary, they were hailed as religious martyrs and agitation was carried on for clemency being shown to them. As an illustration of this attitude, one may refer to Mr. Barkat Ali, a Barrister of Lahore, who argued the appeal of Abdul Qayum. He went to the length of saying that Qayum was not guilty of murder of Nathuramal because his act was justifiable by the law of the Koran. This attitude of the Moslems is quite understandable. What is not understandable is the attitude of Mr. Gandhi.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Source: Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946), p. 157

Law, Penalty, Parting

“You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the Left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, so long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

" Limbaugh: The Left Sends Out "The Rape Police" Whenever There's Sex With "No Consent" (Also Known As Rape) http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/10/12/limbaugh-left-sends-out-rape-police-whenever-theres-sex-no-consent-also-known-rape/213787", Media Matters (October 12, 2016).

Sex, Sense, Parting

“Understanding the total impact of the patriarchy on the female experience is endlessly elusive. … It is a constant process, perpetually blurred by the ebb and flow of so many epiphanies clouded by self-doubt.”

Lauren Duca (1991) American journalist

Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017)

“Every day I make more progress in technique: understanding of color, the material and the line. [I] can even give better theoretical explanations. And moreover, gradually I live more and more connected with the matter of the profession. What I mean is that my thinking and feeling are more directly, more fundamentally connected with painting itself. No longer so much thinking and feeling get lost.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

Steeds ga ik vooruit wat betreft tecniek: begrip van kleur, matérie, lijnen. Kan zelfs beter téoretisch uitleggingen geven. En wat meer is ik leef langs om meer méé met de materie van de stiel. Ik wil zeggen dat mijn denken en voelen directer, en wezenlijker in kontakt staat met schilderen. Er gaat niet meer zoveel denken en voelen verloren.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, 5 March 1950; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 118 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

Color, Feeling, Thinking, Painting

“Probability and statistics are now so obviously necessary tools for understanding many diverse things that we must not ignore them even for the average student.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

“I make the most outrageous demands on my imagination and leave aside everything else, theory and nature study, as other people understand them. This is the only way I can work, drawing on nothing but my own faculty of imagination with I feed without stint – except in working hours.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

Quote in Marc's letter to August Macke, 1910; as cited by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, pp. 127-28
1905 - 1910

People, Way, Imagination, Nature

“Each scientific institute in my opinion should have a public outreach program…all the research you are doing is funded by the government. The government gets MONEY from the people, so you owe something to the people. You are shutting yourself in an ivory tower, saying that all these people outside the scientific community do not understand it. That is not the right attitude.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Jayant Narlikar's Cosmology

Money, People, Communication

“This world and the Otherworld are full of curiosities and mysteries. It would take many lifetimes to understand them all. And disappointingly, it seems to me we only have one.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun

World

“I remember once saying that I'd like to go to university. My father told me: 'I would rather see you dead at my feet than have you go to a university.' I'm laughing about it now, but at the time I was terribly upset. I didn't even understand what going to university meant.”

Fenella Fielding (1927–2018) English actress

Interview: Independent, Sunday 24 February 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-lady-vanishes-what-ever-happened-to-fenella-fielding-785265.html

Universe, Time, Dead

“There are certain basic, known principles about how people's minds go about the business of understanding, and communicating understanding by means of language, which have been known and used for many centuries. No matter how these principles are addressed, they always end up with hierarchic decomposition as being the heart of good storytelling. Perhaps the most relevant formulation is the familiar: "Tell 'em whatcha gonna tell'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em whatcha told 'em."”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

This is a pattern of communication almost as universal and well-entrenched as Newton's laws of motion.
Source: Structured analysis (SA): A language for communicating ideas (1977), p. 17.

People, Law, Communication, Business

“The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.
In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther's version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness. But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").
He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,
The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther's New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome's Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of the nineteenth century are an advance upon the versions of the sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency. A future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original text in its purity and integrity. If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not before then, may we expect perfect versions of the oracles of God.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

How Luther's theology may have influenced his translating

Love, God, Books, Faith

“But when we have reached this conclusive conviction that the roots of our experience and our experimental knowledge are parts of our own spontaneous life, we then readily come to see, further, that the system of our several elements of consciousness a priori is precisely what we must really understand by our unifying or enwholing self, — is exactly what we try to express when we say we have a soul, and that this soul possesses real knowledge; that is, a hold upon eternal things. The realm of the eternal, in short, then becomes for us just the realm of our self-active intelligence; and this it is which, if we can show its reality in detail, will prove to be the clue to our immortal being.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Human Immortality: its Positive Argument, p.298

Life, Soul, Intelligence, Knowledge

“Here's the way I wrote in one of the things I wrote a while back: "But since he had been in the army, he had come to understand his ungraspable longing and his phantasmal and belly-shrinking dissatisfaction: there were such things he wanted to be, to do, to write: He wanted to be the voice that shrieked out the agony of frustration and lostness and despair and loneliness, that all men feel, yet cannot understand; the voice that rolled forth the booming, intoxicating laughter of men's joy; the voice that richly purred men's love of good hot food and spicy strong drink; men's love of thick, moist, pungent tobacco smoke on a full belly; men's love of woman: voluptuous, throaty voiced, silken-thighed, and sensual."”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

I suppose that sounds an awful lot like Wolfe, but if it does, it's exactly the way I feel.
Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 13
To Reach Eternity (1989)

Love, Men, Food, Way

“Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)

People, Truth

“If one understands that the only thing that remains timeless is the richness of one’s own buddha nature, one can relax even with regard to death.”

Lama Ole Nydahl (1941) Danish lama

Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom on the Art of Dying (2012)

Death, Nature

“Two understandings of tradition as well as their relation to one another need to be distinguished here. On the one hand, the conservative sense of tradition against which the new or the modern is unfailingly opposed, and, on the other, tradition as the mark of a seriousness in which an essential questioning takes place.”

David Ferris

"Truth Is the Death of Intention: Benjamin's Esoteric History of Romanticism," Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 31, No. 4, Winter 1992, p. 458

Question, Sense

“[B]y Natura naturans we must understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, or such attributes of substance as express an eternal and infinite essence, that is … God, insofar as he is considered as a free cause.
But by Natura naturata I understand whatever follows from the necessity of God's nature, or from God's attributes, that is, all the modes of God's attributes insofar as they are considered as things which are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived without God.”

Baruch Spinoza book Ethics

Part I, Prop. XXIX, Scholium (trans: Edwin Curley, London: Penguin, 1996)
Ethics (1677)

God, Nature

“You actually can’t understand American history without understanding slavery.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ibid. (May 30, 2014) Part 2, Democracy Now!

History

“Roper: This was not practical; this was moral!
More: Oh, now I understand you, Will. Morality's not practical. Morality's a gesture. A complicated gesture learned from books.”

Robert Bolt A Man for All Seasons

Act II
A Man for All Seasons (1960)

Books, Learning

“I'll tell you what the most important and enjoyable thing for me is: getting notes. A director that enhances my performance by seeing things onscreen and then telling me, "Why don't we do that? Why don't we do this?" Directors who understand a little bit more of the psyche of what he's looking for and can put that in words. I work great with notes. I really am able to elevate with getting notes from other people and hearing other people's opinion and I think that's for me the best thing about working with a great director.”

Oded Fehr (1970) Israeli-American actor

Interview: Oded Fehr http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/08/15/interview-oded-fehr?page=2 (August 15, 2007)

People, Thinking

“New knowledge is only useful in so far as it opens up new vistas for the imagination, and no more so than the old forms which the artist must understand only in order to reject.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

Nano Reid (1950)

Imagination, Knowledge

“He didn’t think he would understand the strangeness of life if he lived to be a hundred years old.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 4 “The Price of Blood”, Chapter 14 (p. 443)
Tigana (1990)

Life, Thinking

“Donald Trump is the steadfast leader our nation needs. He has spoken passionately to me of his belief in our American system of justice, and he speaks to the values that are at the foundation of our social contract. Throughout his campaign, and over many years before, he has consistently and constantly raised his voice — not only in defense of the character of the American police officer, but the need for all people to feel they are being treated fairly and respectfully by law enforcement. You see, Donald Trump understands that what can make our nation safe again is a recommitment to a system of justice in which no government official, not even those who have fought their way to the marble and granite halls of Washington; no private citizen, not even Hillary Clinton; and no group of people, despite the fervor with which they press forward their grievances, can claim privilege above the law. It cannot happen in the United States.”

David A. Clarke Jr.

Speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention (July 19, 2016)

People, Justice, Law, Way

“I hope it is clear…that the ways in which pitches represent pitch classes, and the ways pitch classes abstract pitch, must be examined in order to describe any kind of musical sense or progression, and that if one steps back into abstracted considerations derived without respect to such concerns, an understanding of the qualities of musical uniqueness will continue to be suppressed in favor of generalizations, which at best evoke a vague sense of what a piece may be doing, perhaps in common with some other pieces, but not what one piece is doing, all by itself.”

Paul Lansky (1944) American composer

Lansky, Paul (1975). Pitch-Class Consciousness, Perspectives of New Music XIII/2 (Spring-Summer).

Hope, Music, Way, Sense

“No, no, lot of things are going on folks, lot of things. I think she's actually getting pumped up, if you want to know the truth, she's getting pumped up, you understand? In fact we're going to be talking about that in a few minutes. She's getting pumped up for Wednesday night. Let's see. You know, I don't know, maybe, we're like athletes, right? Hey, look, I beat seventeen senators, governors, I beat all these people, we're like athletes. Hillary beat Bernie, although it looks like Bernie got a little bit of a bad deal based on Wikileaks, right? If you look at Wikileaks. But we're like athletes, right? So athletes, they're making them more and more, but athletes, they make them take a drug test, right? I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate, I do. I think we should, why don't we do that? We should take a drug test, prior, because I don't know what's going on with her. But at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning, and at the end it was like, "Uh, take me down."”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

She could barely reach her car. So I think we should take a drug test, I'm, er, anyway I'm willing to do it. At a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about his rival Hillary Clinton's performance during the presidential debates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mE7YkeasOA (15 October 2016) 2010s, 2016, October

People, Truth, Cars, Thinking