Quotes about understanding
page 54

“Hobbes’s understanding of the dangers of anarchy resonates powerfully today. Liberal thinkers still see the unchecked power of the state as the chief danger to human freedom. Hobbes knew better: freedom’s worst enemy is anarchy, which is at its most destructive when it is a battleground of rival faiths. The sectarian death squads roaming Baghdad show that fundamentalism is itself a type of anarchy in which each prophet claims divine authority to rule. In well-governed societies, the power of faith is curbed. The state and the churches temper the claims of revelation and enforce peace. Where this kind is impossible, tyranny is better than being ruled by warring prophets. Hobbes is a more reliable guide to the present than the liberal thinkers who followed. Yet his view of human beings was too simple, and overly rationalistic. Assuming that humans dread violent death more than anything, he left out the most intractable sources of conflict. It is not always because human beings act irrationally that they fail to achieve peace. Sometimes it is because they do not want peace. They may want the victory of the One True Faith – whether a traditional religion or a secular successor such as communism, democracy or universal human rights. Or – like the young people who joined far-Left terrorist groups in the 1970s, another generation of which is now joining Islamist networks – they may find in war a purpose that is lacking in peace. Nothing is more human than the readiness to kill and die in order to secure a meaning in life.”

John Gray book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

Post-Apocalypse: After Secularism (pp. 262-3)
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

Life, Death, War, People

“For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. … In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

2 Facebook posts http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=129786343731298&id=66435815451 at 13:41 (28 July 2010) http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=113868381998571&id=66435815451; quoted in "Anne Rice: 'I Quit Being A Christian' " by Jessie Kunhardt in The Huffington Post (29 July 2010) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/29/anne-rice-i-quit-being-a_n_663915.html

Life, Hostility, Birth, Science

“I have been to [gallery] Hagen, saw two Matisses, which enchanted me. A large collection of Japanese masks. Sublime! 'Neue [Künstler] Vereinigung' were hung in a bad light.... Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Bechteleff and Erbslöh have immense artistic sensibility. But the means of expression are to big for what they have to say. The sound of their voice is so good, so fine, that what is being said get lost. Consequently a human element is missing. They concentrate, too much, I think, on form. There is much to be learnt from their efforts. But early things by Kandinsky, and a few by Jawlensky too, seem a little empty to me. And Jawlensky's heads looked at me a little bit too much with colors. With blue and green. I hope you understand what I mean.”

August Macke (1887–1914) German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter

in a letter to Franz Marc, 26 December 1910; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 137

Hope, Color, Thinking, Effort

“A core part of my argument is that wealth, as distinct from income, offers the key to understanding racial stratification. … The difference between the two is often muddled in the public mind, and only recently have the social sciences begun to treat wealth as an intrinsically important indication of family well-being that is quite different from income. … Wealth represents a more permanent capacity to secure advantages in both the short and long term, and it is transferred across generations.”

Thomas Shapiro (1947) American sociologist

Source: The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (2005), pp. 32-33

Family, Science, Parting, Wealth

“I don't think anyone understands anyone's job … We all have the same hang-ups. I get jealous if I know Laurence is kissing someone else.”

Billie Piper (1982) English singer, dancer and actress

Guardian interview (2008)

Kiss, Thinking

“To solve these problems one needs as much an understanding of politics as an understanding of man - and the one cannot be derived from the other.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 38

Problem

“Evans wanted his photographs to be "literate, authoritative, transcendent." The moral universe of the 1930s being no longer ours, these adjectives are barely creditable today. Nobody demands that photography be literate. Nobody can imagine how it could be authoritative. Nobody understands how anything, least of all a photograph, could be transcendent.”

Susan Sontag book On Photography

"America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly", p. 31
On Photography (1977)

Imagination, Universe

“…understanding information entropy in the power grid per kilowatt of power delivered or the radio frequency communication power expended within the power grid per kilowatt of power delivered will be more valuable than understanding the detailed packet structure of a half-dozen supervisory control and data acquisition protocols.”

Stephen F Bush

Bush, Stephen F., Smart Grid: Communication-Enabled Intelligence for the Electric Power Grid, ISBN: 978-1-119-97580-9, 576 pages, March 2014, Wiley-IEEE Press.

Communication

“Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything.”

Greg Bear book Eon

Source: Eon (1985), p. 73

Feeling, Hell

“Bill Manders: I, too, am pro life but I'm also pro choice, do you understand what I say when I mean that.
Sharron Angle: I'm pro responsible choice. There is choice to abstain, choice to do contraception. There are all kinds of good choices.
Bill Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?
Sharron Angle: Not in my book.
Bill Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?
Sharron Angle: You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

interview with talk radio host Bill Manders, January 2010
Sharron Angle Opposes Abortion Even With Rape, Incest: 'God Has A Plan'
2010-06-29
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/sharron-angle-opposes-abo_n_629371.html

Life, God, Books, Faith

“‘ He doesn't understand. The navy is my life. My only life, now. The war will not last for ever, but until it ends I shall stand in the line-of-battle as I have been entrusted to!’”

Douglas Reeman (1924–2017) British author

For My Country's Freedom, Cap 13 "Loneliness"

Life, War

“I was beginning to understand, a little. “Is that why you’re a usurer?”
Madding chuckled. “I prefer the term investor. And my rates are perfectly fair, thank you.”
“Drug dealer, then.”
“I prefer the term independent apothecary—””

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 4 “Frustration” (watercolor) (p. 68)

Madness

“We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.”

P. D. James book The Children of Men

The Children of Men (1992)

Life, Time

“You must understand that ordinary efforts do not count; only superefforts count.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

Effort

“Only the surface of reason is rational. I don't mean that understanding emotion is easy, only that understanding reason is probably harder.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Music, Mind, and Meaning (1981)

“If you were going to turn to only one economist to understand the problems facing the economy, there is little doubt that the economist would be John Maynard Keynes. Although Keynes died more than a half-century ago, his diagnosis of recessions and depressions remains the foundation of modern macroeconomics. His insights go a long way toward explaining the challenges we now confront.”

N. Gregory Mankiw (1958) American economist

N. Gregory Mankiw, "What Would Keynes Have Done?" in New York Times (November 28, 2008).
2000s -

Way, Problem

“Before we can apply the tools of anthropology to reconstruct the real history of money, we need to understand what's wrong with the conventional account.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Two, "The Myth of Barter", p. 22

Money, History

“I am not religious, but I am a pious man… A religious man has a definite religion. He says "God is there" or "God is there," "God is there." "Your god is not my god, and that's all." But the pious man, he just looks out with awe, and says, "where is God?" And "well, I don't understand it and I would like to know what this creation really means." That is a pious man, who is really touched by the greatness of nature and of the creation.”

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937

In a television interview, ca. 1980. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi discusses religion http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/ResourceMetadata/WGBBMF, National Library of Medicine.

God, Religion, Nature

“Radical hope anticipates a good for which those who have the hope as yet lack the appropriate concepts with which to understand it.”

Jonathan Lear (1948) American philosopher

Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Harvard University Press: 2008), p. 103

Hope

“Even in earliest youth my fondest desire was to understand Nature, and thus to come closer to the truth; a truth that I was unable to discover either at school or in church.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Jane Cobbald: Viktor Schauberger - A Life of Learning from Nature (2006)

Truth, Youth, School, Nature

“I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987)
1970s

Love, Sex

“The three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, aided by the highest and most sublime gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as understanding, wisdom, knowledge, and counsel, unite the creature, the human spirit, with his God, the souls with the Word of God. It is this sacred union that you must seek, hold and possess; in it lie the spiritual life, health and strength, and from it originate all the other virtues.”

Francisco Palau (1811–1872) Beatified Spanish Discalced Carmelite friar and priest

Letter to Juana Gratia (1857)

Life, Wisdom, God, Health

“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

Page 191
The Doors of Perception (1954)

“How do we teach a child — our own, or those in a classroom — to have compassion: to allow people to be different; to understand that like is not equal; to experiment; to laugh; to love; to accept the fact that the most important questions a human being can ask do not have — or need — answers.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.16
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)

Love, People, Question

“Where do you think I was today? I stood straight in front of him (Himmler) for a whole hour and talked, and he… he played with a puzzle the whole time – you know, this glass cube with three balls on the inside… When I finished, he took off his pince-nez, wiped it with a handkerchief – he has a skull even on his handkerchief – and said, "Listen, Ernst! Have you by any chance, ever had a dream, where you're riding in the back of a ragged truck to who knows where, and some monsters are sitting around you?" I didn’t say anything. Then he smiled and said, "Ernst, you know, I know as well as you that no astral exists. But what do you think, if you, and even Canaris, have your own people in 'Annenerbe', shouldn’t I have my own people there as well?" I did not understand what he meant. "Think Ernst, think!" he said. I kept silent. Then he smiled and asked, "Whose man do you think is Kröger?" …Yes, Emma… It seems I'm too simple for all these intrigues… But I know that while the Führer needs me, my heart will keep beating… You know, Emma… Sometimes it seems to me, that it's not me who is alive, but it's the Führer who is living inside me…”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Emma, recorded by secret spy listening device WS-M/13 located in Kaltenbrunner's bedroom, 1/14/1935. Quoted in "Kröger's Revelation" - by Viktor Pelevin - 1991 - Page 277

People, Smile, Dreams, Thinking

“Art must unquestionably have a social value; that is, as a potential means of communication it must be addressed, and in comprehensible terms, to the understanding of mankind.”

Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) American artist

It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent (1955)

Art, Communication

“People in Russia say that those who do not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union have no heart, and those that do regret it have no brain. We do not regret this, we simply state the fact and know that we need to look ahead, not backwards. We will not allow the past to drag us down and stop us from moving ahead. We understand where we should move. But we must act based on a clear understanding of what happened..”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Interview with German television channel ARD and ZDF, May 2005. Kremlin, RU, http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/05/05/2355_type82912type82916_87597.shtml (May 2005) 2000 - 2005

People, Past, Heart

“Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?”

William Least Heat-Moon book Blue Highways

Part Five, Chapter 6.
Blue Highways (1982)

“I am not sure it can ever be used… I don't think we ought to use this thing unless we absolutely have to. It is a terrible thing to order the use of something that is so terribly destructive, destructive beyond anything we have ever had. You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Regarding nuclear weapons, as quoted in Harry S. Truman: A Life https://books.google.com/books?id=7UXSMj3OF4oC&pg=PA344&lpg=PA344&dq=%22It+is+used+to+wipe+out+women+and+children+and+unarmed+people,+and+not+for+military+uses.+So+we+have+got+to+treat+this+differently+from+rifles+and+cannon+and+ordinary+things+like+that.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=xoePU9q9JU&sig=Lxl_x7toU7Y3oD_zKKSZQ2zD29k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCgQ6AEwA2oVChMIw7D1wb6dxwIVSjI-Ch3ibAd2#v=onepage&q=%22It%20is%20used%20to%20wipe%20out%20women%20and%20children%20and%20unarmed%20people%2C%20and%20not%20for%20military%20uses.%20So%20we%20have%20got%20to%20treat%20this%20differently%20from%20rifles%20and%20cannon%20and%20ordinary%20things%20like%20that.%E2%80%9D&f=false, by Robert H. Ferrell, p. 344

Women, Children, People, Thinking

“It cannot be said that at the time these inscriptions were set up at ANhilwãD Pãtan, Prabhas Patan, Khambat, Junagadh and other places, the Hindus of Gujarat had had no taste of what Islam had in store for them, their women, their children, their cities, their temples, their idols, their priests, and their properties. The invasion of Ulugh Khãn that was to subjugate Gujarat to a long spell of Muslim rule, was the eighth in a series which started within a few years after the Prophet’s death at Medina in AD 632. Five Islamic invasions had been mounted on Gujarat before Siddharãja JayasiMha ascended the throne of that kingdom in AD 1094 - first in AD 636 on Broach by sea; second in AD 732-35 by land; third and fourth in AD 756 and 776 by sea; and fifth by Mahmûd of Ghazni in AD 1026. Two others had materialised by the time the Muslim ship-owner set up his inscription in AD 1264 on a mosque at Prabhas Patan. The sixth invasion was by Muhammad Ghûrî in AD 1178, and the seventh was by Qutbu’d-Dîn Aibak in AD 1197. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence is that either the Hindus of Gujarat had a very short memory or that they did not understand at all the inspiration at the back of these invasions. The temple of Somnath which stood, after the invasion of Mahmûd of Ghazni in AD 1026, as a grim reminder of the character of Islam, had also failed to teach them any worthwhile lesson. Nor did they visualize that the Muslim settlements in their midst could play a role other than that of carrying on trade and commerce.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Death, Women, Children, Memory

“People need to understand that while Christmas is a Christian holiday, the season belongs to everyone.”

David Silverman (1957) American animator and director

People, Holiday, Christmas, Season

“He [ Hans Hofmann one of her art teachers] would come up to me [1937-38], look at my work, and do a critique half in English and half in German, but certainly nothing I could understand. When he left the room I would call George McNeil, who was then the monitor, over and I would ask: 'What did this man say to me?' Hoffman was teaching Cubism and that was pretty exciting. Matisse and Picasso were my highlights. It was as though I was swinging between them. First I started to work with color and then there was a heavy swing toward the linear.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 73.

Art, Color, Teachers

“Understand me well. My appeal is to observation — observation that each of you must make for himself.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Lecture II : The Universal Categories, § 2 : Struggle, CP 5.53
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)

“As that little child in the spacesuit in The Seven year Itch grew up, three things would become obvious to him. He would be aware that he hadn’t been trained to really understand the history of mechanization, and was insufficient in that regard; that he hadn’t been trained to be anything like Winston Churchill, and was going to be permanently insufficient in that regard; and that he wasn’t actually going to be able to look a mine worker in the eye, and was going to be insufficient in that regard. He was going to be aware that he had been a Video Ranger from the start, and that he was going to have to keep on being a Video Ranger, and that he was going to have to learn to laugh about that. And, also, because he wanted to get married, to be a man in some sense, he was going to have to be serious about something. He was going to have to touch base with some real thing going on in his father, and what he got hold of was the irony in his father…. And the evolution of that process is toward David Letterman…. We were going to have to grow up to be entirely ironic in our visceral reactions to our own manhood.”

George W. S. Trow (1943–2006) American writer

My Pilgrim’s Progress (1999)

History, Sense, Learning, Training

“When you believe in things that you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Superstition
Song lyrics, Talking Book (1972)

Way, Suffering

“Maybe I still am, but I also understand more the problems involved with rock, how close-minded it sometimes is, how male.”

Mattin (1977) Spanish musician

Interview by Dan Warburton (July 2009)

Problem

“Everyone cheats. Only artists don’t. They don’t fool people and they aren’t fooled. They are outside all that. Nobody can understand them.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

People, Fools, Cheating

“My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: ‘Shame on Me.’, 2011

People, Art, Way, Communication

“The first and most important thing to understand about politics is this: forget Right, Left, Center, socialism, fascism, or democracy. Every government that exists — or ever existed, or ever will exist — is a kleptocracy, meaning 'rule by thieves'. Competing ideologies merely provide different excuses to separate the Productive Class from what they produce. If the taxpayer/voters won't willingly fork over to end poverty, then maybe they'll cough up to fight drugs or terrorism. Conflicting ideologies, as presently constituted, are nothing more than a cover for what's really going on, like the colors of competing gangs.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Why Aren't We There Yet?"

Color, Democracy, Fight, Forgetting

“The physicians in Celle were fifteen years behind in their practice; they had heard of a new style of practice, but regarded it as a mere chimera. When I ventured to say a word or two, they did not understand me: when I appealed to some great authority, they were ignorant of it: when I spoke from my own practical experience, they looked at me, from head to foot, and said sneeringly, "Well, well; experience will come in time." But when by chance I ventured to make some proposal, they turned round, and wondered where they should find room enough in the churchyards to bury my patients. The great applause with which my Dissertations had been received in all the learned journals, even in England as well as in France, gave me courage, hoping that this circumstance would make some impression on the mind of the public; but it was generally thought I had ill employed my time, and knew little or nothing. Being obliged to frequent society, I was so disgusted with the general tone and the topics of their conversation, that I was almost in despair; at last, some young ladies treated me with more attention.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Hope, Courage, Learning, Chance

“When evenly matched, you cannot win against your enemy unless you understand them. And if you truly understand, why are you fighting and not talking?”

Greg Bear (1951) American writer best known for science fiction

Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 69

Fight

“As you watch the developments in Baghdad, it's important to understand that we will not be able to prevent every al Qaeda attack. When a terrorist is willing to kill himself to kill others, it's really hard to stop him. Yet, over time, the security operation in Baghdad is designed to shrink the areas where al Qaeda can operate, it's designed to bring out more intelligence about their presence, and designed to allow American and Iraqi forces to dismantle their network.We have a strategy to deal with al Qaeda in Iraq. But any time you say to a bunch of cold-blooded killers, success depends on no violence, all that does is hand them the opportunity to be successful. And it's hard. I know it's hard for the American people to turn on their TV screens and see the horrific violence. It speaks volumes about the American desire to protect lives of innocent people, America's deep concern about human rights and human dignity. It also speaks volumes about al Qaeda, that they're willing to take innocent life to achieve political objectives.The terrorists will continue to fight back. In other words, they understand what they're doing. And casualties are likely to stay high. Yet, day by day, block by block, we are steadfast in helping Iraqi leaders counter the terrorists, protect their people, and reclaim the capital. And if I didn't think it was necessary for the security of the country, I wouldn't put our kids in harm's way.…Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed. And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not, no violence. There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it. But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives. And that's what we're trying to achieve.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

President Bush Discusses War on Terror, Economy with Associated General Contractors of America http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070502-2.html (May 2, 2007) 2000s, 2007

Life, People, Way, Feeling

“I hope you will understand my hesitation in writing to one whom I admire as the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Letter to H.L. Mencken July 28, 1934.

Life, Hope

“To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

“I am not speaking, obviously, to the laughing hyenas who enjoy seeing images of the wreckage and snicker good–it–serves–the–Americans–right. I am speaking to those who, though not stupid or evil, are wallowing in prudence and doubt. And to them I say: "Wake up, people. Wake up!!" Intimidated as you are by your fear of going against the current—that is, appearing racist (a word which is entirely inapt as we are speaking not about a race but about a religion)—you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a reverse–Crusade is in progress. Accustomed as you are to the double–cross, blinded as you are by myopia, you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a war of religion is in progress. Desired and declared by a fringe of that religion, perhaps, but a war of religion nonetheless. A war which they call Jihad. Holy War. A war that might not seek to conquer our territory, but that certainly seeks to conquer our souls. That seeks the disappearance of our freedom and our civilization. That seeks to annihilate our way of living and dying, our way of praying or not praying, our way of eating and drinking and dressing and entertaining and informing ourselves. You don’t understand or don’t want to understand that if we don’t oppose them, if we don’t defend ourselves, if we don’t fight, the Jihad will win. And it will destroy the world that for better or worse we’ve managed to build, to change, to improve, to render a little more intelligent, that is to say, less bigoted—or even not bigoted at all. And with that it will destroy our culture, our art, our science, our morals, our values, our pleasures… Christ! Don’t you realize that the Osama Bin Ladens feel authorized to kill you and your children because you drink wine or beer, because you don’t wear your beard long or a chador, because you go to the theater or the movies, because you listen to music and sing pop songs, because you dance in discos or at home, because you watch TV, wear miniskirts or short–shorts, because you go naked or half naked to the beach or the pool, because you *** when you want and where you want and who you want? Don’t you even care about that, you fools? I am an atheist, thank God. And I have no intention of letting myself be killed for it.”

Oriana Fallaci book The Rage and the Pride

"Rage and the Pride">Oriana Fallaci - The Rage and the Pride http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rage-Pride-Oriana-Fallaci/dp/084782599X - Universe Publishing; Intl edition, 2002, ISBN 9780847825998

God, War, Children, People

“Whoever thought of the No Child Left Behind legislation and its title certainly understands irony because millions of our children our indeed being left behind. This standardized testing is making the job of teachers unnecessarily difficult, limiting the discretion of teachers to teach. School systems are imposing conformity instead of promoting creativity.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Wit and humor combine in presenting serious message http://www.ourmidland.com/story_prep/article_8640fc8b-aed4-53a0-afa2-2076785c4fde.html (6 June 2011) Matrix:Midland Festival

Children, School, Teachers

“When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has out-grown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth and development of humanity.”

Leo Tolstoy A Letter to a Hindu

Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), VI

Life, Age, Way, Time

“I've painted for a very long time, but I don't get tired or bored by it; I love to do it. If I don't paint one day, I don't feel well physically or mentally. My eyes bother me when I don't paint. But when I paint a full day, I feel satisfied and everything seems to be OK. I would never stop, never retire. I don't see how people can retire; I don't understand that. My brother Moses died while he was painting. He was actually working on a painting, and the last words he said were to the model: "Phoebe, don't frown."”

Raphael Soyer (1899–1987) American artist

Then he died. He worked to the very last minute.
As quoted in Paper Lanterns (Quotations from The Sun) p. 59.

Love, People, Feeling, Time

“The only assurance that I can now give of the future is reference to the past. The course which I have taken in the past in connection with this rebellion must be regarded as a guaranty of the future. My past public life, which has been long and laborious, has been founded, as I in good conscience believe, upon a great principle of right, which lies at the basis of all things. The best energies of my life have been spent in endeavoring to establish and perpetuate the principles of free government, and I believe that the Government in passing through its present perils will settle down upon principles consonant with popular rights more permanent and enduring than heretofore. I must be permitted to say, if I understand the feelings of my own heart, that I have long labored to ameliorate and elevate the condition of the great mass of the American people. Toil and an honest advocacy of the great principles of free government have been my lot. Duties have been mine; consequences are God's. This has been the foundation of my political creed, and I feel that in the end the Government will triumph and that these great principles will be permanently established.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, First Presidential address (1865)

Life, God, People, Feeling

“Whereas it might be erroneous to claim that the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance revolutionized the practice of democracy in the United States, it would not be an error to point out that the ideas they championed did impact America's understanding, and subsequently its application, of democracy.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Author's Note, p. xvii).
Book Sources, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (2003)

Art, Music, Error, Democracy

“I’m in the spotlight, but not the truth. That’s hard to accept, but that is unfortunately kind of how the world is and how the media is. Whether it’s with Hollywood, whether it’s with sports figures, whether it’s the president, that’s kind of how it works. I’m realistic and I understand that. That’s why it’s important for me to know who I am, to know I’m living my life the way I want to live, and that I am happy. At the end of the day, I can’t really let myself get too angry about outside opinions that are or aren’t true.”

Hope Solo (1981) American association football player

As quoted in "Hope Solo: 'I'm the happiest I’ve ever been in my personal life. I’m happily married'" http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/hope-solo-im-the-happiest-ive-ever-been-in-my-personal-life-im-happily-married/, Seattle Times (January 24, 2013) 2010s

Life, Happiness, Truth, World

“Anita – I am so glad I'm out here – I can't tell you how much I like it. I like the plains – and I like the work [her painting] – everything is so ridiculously new – and there is something about it that just makes you glad you're living here – You understand – there is nothing here – so maybe there is something wrong with me that I am liking it so much.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas, (September, 1916), p. 187
1910s, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Painting

“As a teenager I had already arranged pieces for the school band in exchange for music lessons. I also played cello, clarinet, and some other instruments regularly. Thanks to that experience, as an arranger I was able to understand the specific sound and tuning of an instrument and to work intuitively.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "Clare Fischer: The Best Kept Secret in Jazz" http://www.artistinterviews.eu/?page_id=5&parent_id=22/ by Maarten De Haan, in Artist Interview (1998)

School, Music

“Understanding the limitations of human beings is the beginning of wisdom.”

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

Police Shootings
1980s–1990s, Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays (1987)

Wisdom

“Many families could not and should not have been expected to abandon hope that their sons, husbands, and brothers who had disappeared in the jungles of Vietnam might yet be returned to them. And many good people, who shared their hope and had come to their assistance, were motivated by the most admirable of intentions, to keep faith with Americans who had done all that duty asked of them. But these good intentions and understandable emotions also drew the attention of people with less honorable purposes. There came to exist in America, and elsewhere in the years that followed the Vietnam War, a small cottage industry made up of swindlers, dime-store Rambos, and just plain old conspiracy nuts who preyed on the emotions of the families and on the attention of ofﬁcials who were dedicated to the search for our missing. They had helped convince many of the families and a few members of Congress that the US. government had knowingly abandoned American servicemen in Vietnam and that ﬁve successive presidential administrations had covered up the crime. It was among the most damaging and most hurtful of all the lies about the Vietnam War that I ever encountered.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Source: 2000s, 2002, Worth the Fighting For (2002), pp. 235 - 236

War, People, Family, Faith

“In the long run, any attempt to reduce the complexity of the relations among the sacred, the properly secular, and the profane is doomed to failure, although each such effort can cause great human hardship in the short run. But in both the short and the long run, the Church, or the synagogue, or the mosque or the temple, is where you go when you want to be connected to the One who relates to everyone and every people. If the Church is where one goes to be truly free, how does the Church contribute to our understanding of who we are and what we should do in the activities that shape the world we live in, that fill the theater of secularity?”

Francis George (1937–2015) Catholic cardinal

God in Action: How Faith in God Can Address the Challenges of the World (2011) Ch. 1 "God in American Public Life," pp. 46-47.

People, World, Failure, Effort

“It’s very difficult to make them understand the importance of a Guruji. In India, it’s kind of more than gods and goddesses. We revere our Gurujis more than our parents, more than our family members, more than gods and goddesses. But they’ll never understand. Never understand who a Guru is. There are so many differences. But when I am teaching at Rotterdam in Netherlands (He heads the World Music Department at the Rotterdam Music Conservatory), I tell each and every student-“keep your shoe out, you have to sit down. If you want to learn Indian music, you have to treat me- not like your teacher, not like your Guru, you treat me as a friend and we share our willing.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

On Guru-Shishya Parampara (tradition of Teacher and Student) and Modern world.
Melodies of Brindavan: Pandit Hariprasad Chourasia

God, World, Family, Music

“The critic asks me: 'So you are a Symbolist? I mean well and I would like to learn; why don't you explain Symbolism to me'.. I answer...'Well, my paintings probably speak Hebrew, which you do not understand, so there is no point in continuing the conversation.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 130: quote in 1898

Learning, Painting

“Reading a poem aloud by someone who understands it, can be a crucial experience, but better yet is reading it aloud oneself.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

Reading

“…the grass isn't always greener on the other side. What the younger generation didn't understand was that the grass was greener where it's watered, which meant that both Frank and Amanda had to get out their hoses if they wanted to make things better.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Evelyn Collier, Chapter 6, p. 103
2009, The Best of Me (2011)

Grass, Water

“What the hell killed me?! I had half health! Why did I just immediately die?! I don't understand what's happening!”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Day One: Garry's Incident (October 1, 2013)

Health, Hell

“Ow! Have mercy on my little Tulane
She's too alive to try to live alone
And I know her needs
And although she loves me
She's gonna try to make it
While the poor boy's gone
Somebody should tell her to live
And I'll understand it
And even love her more
When I come back home”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Have Mercy Judge" (1970)
Song lyrics

Love, Home, Boy

“During the metamorphosis from ancient to European man, self-awareness, rationalism, monotheism, and morality all developed in parallel as expressions of the influence of a new form of social tradition on the organization of the individual. […] Europe forced the new mode of life till it produced a definite dissociation, for self-awareness did not then bring with it an adequate understanding of the self; religion could not offer a complete integration; the rational intellect knew nothing of its own origins, limitations or mode of operation; and morality necessarily failed to realize its aim.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 114

Life, Religion

“You know I don't really understand much of my poetry myself. Of course, I was convinced I understood it when I wrote it!”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Quoted by Malvina Hoffman in her Memoir - Yesterday is Tomorrow 1961

“I have friends among beggars
And can speak their language.
I have friends among rulers
And can understand their strategies.
So fear not, o stranger,
That you may be misunderstood,
Speak your heart of your trouble
And trust me to help solve it.”

Dilip Sankarreddy Business professional

Wanderings with Poetry (2007)

Fear, Help, Heart

“You believe that we have violated the principle of freedom in your case. Yes, this is so if one understands freedom in the bourgeois sense of the term. But we have a different conception of freedom. Our understanding of freedom is not identical to the one in the capitalist world—as the right to do anything without taking into account the interests of society. Only the imperialists and millionaires need this kind of freedom.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

1960s

World, Sense, Freedom

“You gentlemen may laugh, but that is true, all right; it sounds ridiculous, I know, but it is fact. Now if the problem were put up to any of you man to develop science of shoveling as it was put up to us, that is, to a group of men who had deliberately set out to develop the science of all kinds of all laboring work, where do you think you would begin? When you started to study the science of shoveling I make the assertion that you would be within two days – just as we were in two days –well on the way toward development of the science of shoveling. At least you would outlined in your minds those elements which required careful, scientific study in order to understand science of shoveling. I do not want to go into all of the details of shoveling, but I will give you some of the elements, one or two of the most important elements of the science of shoveling; that is, the elements that reach further and have more serious consequences than any other. Probably the most important element in the science of shoveling is this: There must be some shovel load at which a first-class shoveler will do his biggest day’s work. What is that load? To illustrate: when we went to the Bethlehem Steel Works and observed the shoveler in the yard of that company, we found that each of the good shovelers in that yard owned his own shovel; they preferred to buy their own shovels rather than to have the company furnish them. There was a larger tonnage of ore shoveled in that woks than of any other material and rice coal came next in tonnage. We would see a first-class shoveler go from shoveling rice coal with a load of 3.5 ponds to the shovel to handling ore from the Massaba Range, with 38 pounds to the shove Now, is 3.5 pounds the proper shovel load or is the 38 pounds the proper load? They cannot both be right. Under scientific management the answer to this question is not a matter of anyone’s opinion; it is a question for accurate, careful, scientific investigation.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Testimony of Frederick W. Taylor... 1912, p. 111.

Men, Way, Question, Problem

“We see here the essence of the southern understanding of equality, why it was so highly prized, and why so resolutely defended. Every white man can be proud of himself, can consider himself an aristocrat, not because of his virtues or accomplishments, but simply because he is not black! By rejecting the principle that all men are created equal, by keeping "the degenerate sons of Ham" under foot, and under the lash, one need never do anything to become important, like members of the royal family. It is not without reason that Lincoln compared slavery to the divine right of kings! Calhoun demanded equality no less than Lincoln. But his equality required a "cornerstone" of slavery.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, Defending the Cause of Human Freedom (1994)

Men, Family

“As an artist, I am very familiar with how to show the details, how to transform them into a language people can understand. They [the government] know that the Internet is a strong force, unbearable for them.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: ‘Shame on Me.’, 2011

People, Strong

“I acknowledge that I do not understand the processes of creation, but I accept the fact of it.”

Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Ensign, February 2001.

“There is a difference between not understanding and being willfully obtuse.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 18, “The Talleyrand Maneuver” (p. 275)

“Creating simplicity often makes the heart leap; order has been restored, the crooked made straight. But order is understanding that things cannot be made simple, that complexity reigns and must be accepted.”

Marina Warner (1946) writer and mythographer

Joan of Arc (Harmondsworth, Penguin, [1981] 1983) p. 263.

Heart

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

and may Allah bless you and grant you success in these examinations – but even in the Akhirah we ask Allah to bless you, to open your doors. To prepare for the Akhirah, it's not an easy task, but with the hope in the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala things will be made easy, and at the same time, with the constant preparation, without giving up hope – never ever giving up, never saying no, never just throwing the towel – by the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we will achieve, and we will achieve great heights. "Exams in Life - Never Give Up - Mufti Menk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4w4pak66V0, YouTube (2013) Lectures

Life, Death, Happiness, People

“Out of fifty mathematical papers presented in brief at such a meeting, it is a rare mathematician indeed who really understands what more than half a dozen are about.”

Eric Temple Bell (1883–1960) mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the United States for most of his li…

Source: Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science (1938), p. 7

Mathematics

“And I know that all I understand about living is having your work to do, and being able to do it. That’s the pleasure, and the glory, and all. And if you can’t do the work, or it’s taken from you, then what’s any good? You have to have something….”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, Tehanu (1990), Chapter 8, "Hawks"

Pleasure

“faith and reason “mutually support each other”; each influences the other, as they offer to each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for deeper understanding”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998 Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Faith, Search, Support

“All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.”

Truman Capote (1924–1984) American author

From a 1952 interview
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

Love, People, Faith, Art

“I want to be a part of the grand plan. Being on board with God’s objectives means I understand that this is not about me.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 91

God, Parting

“Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "highlanders" or "Makedones" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin both to those who at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical "Dorians", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that northwest Greece provided a pool of Indo-European speakers of Proto-Greek from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country… First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments) that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable.”

Eugene N. Borza (1935) American historian

"Makedonika", Regina Books, Claremont CA

Age, History, Mountain, Time

“The tribesmen understand this very well, although they would not describe it in the same terms I have. It is simply a working part of their lives. Do you think they would continue to consult me if they found that the advice that I gave them did not work? They are uncivilized, but they are not insane.”

James Blish (1921–1975) American author

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 3 (p. 21)

Thinking, Parting

“The lake-beings about him drew daggers and moved upon Kull. Then the king laughed and set his back against a column, gripping his sword hilt until the muscles stood out on his right arm in great ridges.
"This is a game I understand, ghosts," he laughed.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Delcardes' Cat" (1967)

Game

“All my life I have worked to change concepts, and that begins with how people see and understand the problems.”

Ela Bhatt (1933) founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA)

Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)

Life, People, Problem, Change

“On May 17, 1969, a show which was to become the seminal exhibition of video art in the U. S. opened at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York City. That exhibition, "TV as a Creative Medium," effectively pointed to the diverse potential of a new art form and social tool. Subsequently, the show became renowned for the inspiration it provided for many artists and future advocates of video. The artists represented in the show, a few of whom are still involved in the medium today, came from varied backgrounds-painting, filmmaking, nuclear physics, avant-garde music and performance, kinetic and light sculpture-and their approaches presented a primer of the directions which video would soon take. Theoretically, they variously saw video as viewer participation, a spiritual and meditative experience, a mirror, an electronic palette, a kinetic sculpture, or acultural machine to be deconstructed. Ripe with ideas and armed with a heady optimism about the future of communications, these artists used video as an information tool and as a means of gaining understanding and control of television, not solely as an art form. In "TV as a Creative Medium" alternative television was presented as a stepping stone to the promised communications utopia.”

Marita Sturken (1957) American academic

Marita Sturken. " TV as a Creative Medium: Howard Wise and Video Art http://www.vasulka.org/archive/4-30c/AfterImageMay84(1004).pdf," in: Afterimage, May 1984

Art, Music, Communication, Idea

“The evolution of life is analogous to the evolution of language. For example, there are several languages based on the Roman alphabet of only 26 letters. Yet by arranging these in different orders, we’ve added several hundred thousand words to English since the 5th century, and many of them were completely new. The principle is the same in genetics. There are millions of named and classified species of life, all of them based on a variable arrangement of only four chemical components. For another example, we know that Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese all evolved from Latin, a vernacular which is now extinct. Each of these newer tongues emerged via a slow accumulation of their own unique slang lingo –thus diverging into new dialects, and eventually distinct forms of gibberish such that the new Romans could no longer communicate with either Parisians or Spaniards. Similarly, if we took an original Latin speaking population and divided them sequestered in complete isolation over several centuries, they might still be able to understand each other, or their jargon may have become unintelligible to foreigners. But they won’t start speaking Italian or Romanian because identical vocabularies aren’t going to occur twice.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"8th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-7d06HJSs, Youtube (March 22, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Life, Communication

“Life… becomes an anomalous puzzle that cannot be "explained" until scientists in laboratories find a way to animate the dead matter that is the normal condition of things. This amounts to saying that life has no "place" in the world until men—the gender that originally dominated the world and still does—can create it… in a laboratory and express it in a formula. Only then will we "understand" what life is.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.7 The Rape of Nature

Life, Men, World, Way

“The modern world gives proof at every point that it is far easier to destroy institutions than to create them. Nevertheless, few people seem to understand this truth.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Rousseau & the origins of liberalism," https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/rousseau-the-origins-of-liberalism-2988 The New Criterion (October 1998).

People, Truth, World

“We'll all turn black
So who's to know?
As a matter of fact,
Color, creed and breed must go.
There will be no light,
So there can be no sight.
And you'll judge your fellow man;
Understand bout what is right.
A million music, a million sound
There's neutral thoughts
For the underground.”

Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

Underground, from Roots (1971).
Song lyrics

Music, Color, Light

“A cemetery is an affront to the rational mind. One reason is its eerily wasted space, this tribute to the dead that inevitably degenerates into ancestor worship as, on birthdays and anniversaries, humans of every faith and no faith at all brave whatever weather may that day threaten, in order to stand before these rows of silent stone markers, praying, yes, and remembering, of course, but very often actually speaking to the deceased, an oddly pagan ritual in which we engage, this shared pretense that the rotted corpses in warped wooden boxes are able to hear and understand us if we stand before their graves.The other reason a cemetery appeals to the irrational side is its obtrusive, irresistible habit of sneaking past the civilized veneer with which we cover the primitive planks of our childhood fears. When we are children, we know that what our parents insist is merely a tree branch blowing in the wind is really the gnarled fingertip of some horrific creature of the night, waiting outside the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, to let us know that, as soon as our parents close the door and sentence us to the gloom which they insist builds character, he will lift the sash and dart inside and…And there childhood imagination usually runs out, unable to give shape to the precise fears that have kept us awake and that will, in a few months, be forgotten entirely. Until we next visit a cemetery, that is, when, suddenly, the possibility of some terrifying creature of the night seems remarkably real.”

Stephen L. Carter book The Emperor of Ocean Park

Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 50, Again Old Town, I

Children, Fear, Faith, Imagination

“I have a better understanding of my body now. … Everyone wants to feel fresh in the game – there’s no better feeling – so I just make sure I’m doing the right things and trying to tick every box: cryotherapy, massage, eating the right things. … I think I’ve managed [to adopt veganism] successfully. … I don’t find anything hard to give up, as such, because I know the feeling scoring goals gives me. … I just want to try to play as long as I can. So I do the stuff that will give me the best opportunity to perform and score goals.”

Jermain Defoe (1982) English association football player

"England goalscorer Jermain Defoe says vegan diet and discipline paying off", interview with The Guardian (27 March 2017) https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/mar/27/jermain-defoe-england-striker-lithuania.

Feeling, Game, Thinking, Box