Quotes about understanding
page 56

“I understand four manner of dreads. One is the dread of an affright that cometh to a man suddenly by frailty. This dread doeth good, for it helpeth to purge man, as doeth bodily sickness or such other pain as is not sin. For all such pains help man if they be patiently taken. The second is dread of pain, whereby man is stirred and wakened from sleep of sin. He is not able for the time to perceive the soft comfort of the Holy Ghost, till he have understanding of this dread of pain, of bodily death, of spiritual enemies; and this dread stirreth us to seek comfort and mercy of God, and thus this dread helpeth us, and enableth us to have contrition by the blissful touching of the Holy Ghost. The third is doubtful dread. Doubtful dread in as much as it draweth to despair, God will have it turned in us into love by the knowing of love: that is to say, that the bitterness of doubt be turned into the sweetness of natural love by grace. For it may never please our Lord that His servants doubt in His Goodness. The fourth is reverent dread: for there is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread. And that is full soft, for the more it is had, the less it is felt for sweetness of love.”

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

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 74

Love, Death, God, Pain

“Perfect contemplatives hear without astonishment all that the learned propound since they excel in a science transcending all understanding.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

Learning, Science, Perfection

“Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

God, People, Faith, Religion

“Know the qualities in each one's heart and then serve him. But first, try to know your own heart. Only then can you understand the hearts of others. If you have that understanding, then whatever words you speak and whatever duty you perform will be true duty, God's everlasting duty. If you are in that state, the love you give to each one will be God's complete love. In every situation, perform your duty with this understanding.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages (1981)

Love, God, Heart

“To believe Christianity stands in opposition to slavery is at best to think anachronistically and at worst to not understand Christianity.”

Derrick Jensen book The Culture of Make Believe

Source: The Culture of Make Believe (2003), p. 57

Thinking

“No, George said, you don’t understand. The pinball machine--any pinball machine you play in any penny arcade--is so remarkable, so fine, so shrewdly threaded. It is already beautiful in necessity and sufficiency of wire, connection, possibility.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"This Is a Story about My Friend George, the Toy Inventor"

Beauty

“I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence understands them.”

Paolo Veronese (1523–1588) Italian painter of the Renaissance

Unsourced variant translation: I paint my pictures with such judgment as I have and as seems fitting.
Testimony to the Inquisition, (1573)

Intelligence, Nature, Painting

“There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come, and if they had their eyes open to see their true condition, they would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins, and the smoking incense would atone for their sins, whereas, if such is not the case, they will stick to them and remain upon them in the spirit world … I do know that there are sins committed, of such a nature that if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would tremble because of their situation. And furthermore, I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its course. I will say further; I have had men come to me and offer their lives to atone for their sins. It is true that the blood of the Son of God was shed for sins through the fall and those committed by men, yet men can commit sins which it can never remit. As it was in ancient days, so it is in our day.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 4:53 (September. 21, 1856)
Brigham Young describes the doctrine of Blood Atonement
1850s

Men, God, People, World

“The film moves at what I consider to be the speed of art — which is slow. Cremaster 2 does what I think sculpture does: It moves slowly and requires that one move around it to understand it, and to visit it repeatedly.”

Matthew Barney (1967) American artist

Attributed in "Matthew Barney – The Cremaster Cycle: Sculpture and Drawing", Guggenheim Arts Curriculum http://artscurriculum.guggenheim.org/lessons/cremaster_L1.php Attributed

Art, Thinking, Speed

“All economic decisions, whether private or business, as well as those involving economic policy, have the characteristic that quantitative and non-quantitative information must be combined into one act of decision. It would be desirable to understand how these two classes of information can best be combined.”

Oskar Morgenstern (1902–1977) austrian economist

Attributed to Morgenstern in: John H. McArthur, ‎Bruce R. Scott (1969), Industrial planning in France. p. 21.

Business, Decision

“You must understand that the meaning of the word 'unemployed' in Germany is different than in America. In America, 'unemployed' means that a man may be unable to obtain work in his profession. In Germany it means he can't get work in any profession. In Thuringia there were 1.7 million people, of whom 500,000 men were unemployed in 1932 before Hitler came to power. In the whole of Germany, there were 8 million unemployed and 7 million half-time workers.”

Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946) German general

To Leon Goldensohn, February 9, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

Men, People, Time

“There are such beings in the world — perhaps one in a thousand — as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Fanny Knight (1814-11-18) on finding love [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

World, Way, Thinking, Heart

“Thus, to understand what consciousness is, we need to understand what causes it, what its function(s) may be, how it relates to nonconscious processing in the brain and so on.”

Max Velmans (1942) British psychologist

Max Velmans (Ed.) (1996). The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological and Clinical Reviews. Routledge. p. 3

“We’re going to have some very unpleasant circumstances. There are some people that are going to die in protesting construction of this pipeline. We have to understand that. … Nevertheless, we have to be willing to enforce the law once it’s there … It’s going to take some fortitude to stand up.”

David A. Dodge (1943) Canadian economist

About the Trans Mountain Pipeline, as quoted in People 'are going to die' protesting Trans Mountain pipeline: Former Bank of Canada governor https://edmontonjournal.com/business/energy/people-are-going-to-die-protesting-trans-mountain-pipeline-former-bank-of-canada-governor (June 13, 2018) by Gordon Kent, Edmonton Journal.

People, Law

“For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Life, Men, Money, People

“May, in spite of all distractions generated by technology, all of you succeed in turning information into knowledge, knowledge into understanding, and understanding into wisdom.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1998) https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/dijkstra.html 1990s

Wisdom, Knowledge

“I carved that fight on a reindeer bone
With rude and hairy hand;
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood and the right of might
Ere human laws were drawn,
And the age of sin did not begin
Till our brutal tusks were gone.”

Langdon Smith Evolution

Evolution (1895; 1909)

Men, Age, Law, Fight

“The basic idea of karma is not punishment. Karma presents the opportunity for development; to make use of opportunities that were not taken advantage of, to fill in gaps of ignorance, to enlarge understanding through experience, to do what should be done.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 388, Page 158
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 8

Idea

“[T]he instrumental conceptions derived from the use of a common globe are sufficient, in almost every case, for the understanding of the instruments in an Observatory…”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

“Learn to understand others. Most people do not want to understand others, instead wanting others to understand them. This is egotism. We should try to think less of ourselves and more of others. Try to understand others better.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Quotes from Words of Wisdoms Vol.2

People, Thinking, Learning

“We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need. Indeed, we seem to collect information because we have the ability to do so, but we are so busy collecting it that we haven’t devised a means of using it. The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows.”

Warren Bennis (1925–2014) American leadership expert

Warren G. Bennis (1990) Why leaders can't lead: the unconscious conspiracy continues. p. 143
1990s

Business, Knowledge

“When a person doesn’t understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn’t search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn’t understand.”

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

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 15, 1889)
Letters

War, Feeling, Search, Personality

“The strangest mores of the most of-the-way societies will, in spite of everything, be relatively comprehensible to the person who has a flesh-and-blood knowledge of man’s needs, anxieties, and hopes. If, on the other hand, this experience is lacking, he will not even be able to understand the customs of those about him.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

139
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Hope, Way, Knowledge, Personality

““Organization theory,” a term that appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, has multiple meanings. When it first emerged, the term expressed faith in scientific research as a way to gain understanding of human beings and their interactions. Although scientific research had been occurring for several centuries, the idea that scientific research might enhance understanding of human behavior was considerably newer and rather few people appreciated it. Simon (1950, 1952-3, 1952) was a leading proponent for the creation of “organization theory”, which he imagined as including scientific management, industrial engineering, industrial psychology, the psychology of small groups, human-resources management, and strategy. The term “organization theory” also indicated an aspiration to state generalized, abstract propositions about a category of social systems called “organizations,” which was a very new concept. Before and during the 1800s, people had regarded armies, schools, churches, government agencies, and social clubs as belonging to distinct categories, and they had no name for the union of these categories. During the 1920s, some people began to perceive that diverse kinds of medium-sized social systems might share enough similarities to form a single, unified category. They adopted the term “organization” for this unified category.”

William H. Starbuck (1934) American academic

William H. Starbuck and Philippe Baumard (2009). "The seeds, blossoming, and scant yield of organization theory," in: Jacques Rojot et. al (eds.) Comportement organisationnel - Volume 3 De Boeck Supérieur. p. 15

People, School, Faith, Way

“I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the annoyed. I myself find many-- even most-- things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home. I do not like aftershave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up signs. In private I avoid such people; in public they have the run of the place. I stay at home as much as possible, and so should they. When it is necessary, however, to go out of the house, they must be prepared, as I am, to deal with the unpleasant personal habits of others. That is what "public" means.”

Fran Lebowitz book Social Studies

"When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes...Shut Them".
Social Studies (1981)

Children, People, Home, Nature

“When I left judo and went into MMA, everyone was saying, "How's she gonna react to getting punched in the face?" And I was thinking, You don't understand. In judo, those girls would punch you straight in the face all the time. They'd pretend to go for a grip and just punch you. Grab you by the collar and hit you over and over again. If you watch the fight I lost at the Olympics, you'll see that girl punched me in the face twenty times.”

Ronda Rousey (1987) American judoka, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and actress

"Ronda Rousey: What I've Learned", in Esquire.com (26 December 2012) http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a17607/ronda-rousey-mma-quotes-0113/

Girl, Thinking, Time, Fight

“The neglect of context, it is argued, leads to the development of theories that do not have the potential of understanding development and change over time or for understanding the subtle nuances of interaction that are critical in apprehending what is really occurring.”

Jeffrey Pfeffer (1946) American academic

Source: Organizations and organization theory, 1982, p. 75

Change, Time

“There are ways to really live in the present moment. What's the alternative? It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. This may sound trite… but it's the truth… As a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. I think this is a liberating truth about the human mind. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that if you want to be happy in this world. The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated, it is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment. And this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth. Repudiating it. Fleeing it. Overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Death and the Present Moment", speech at the Global Atheist Convention (April 2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums&t=21m21s 2010s

Life, Happiness, Truth, World

“Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Speech at the National Press Club (2004)

Faith, Knowledge, Decision, Help

“The dilemmas here are best illustrated by looking closely at pre-emptive war. It is a lesser evil because, according to our traditional understanding of war, the only justified resort to war is a response to actual aggression. But those standards are outdated. They were conceived for wars against states and their armies, not for wars against terrorists and suicide bombers. Against this kind of enemy, everyone can see that instead of waiting for terrorists to hit us, it makes sense to get our retaliation in first.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

New York Times magazine op-ed piece, May 2, 2004

War, Sense, Suicide, Evil

“As to sociology and anthropology, it is manifest that the importance of information and communication as mechanisms of organization proceeds beyond the individual into the community. On the other hand, it is completely impossible to understand social communities such as those of ants without a thorough investigation of their means of communication, and we were fortunate enough to have the aid of Dr. Schneirla in this matter. For the similar problems of human organization, we sought help from the anthropologists Drs. Bateson and Margaret Mead; while Dr. Morgenstern of the Institute for Advanced Study was our adviser in the significant field of social organization belong to economic theory. His very important joint book on games with Dr. von Neumann, by the way, represents a most interesting study of social organization from the point of view of methods closely related to, although distinct from, the subject matter of cybernetics. Dr. Lewin and others represented the newer work on the theory of opinion sampling and the practice of opinion making, and Dr. F. C. S. Northrup was interested in assaying the philosophical significance of our work.”

Norbert Wiener book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Introduction. p. 18-19
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948)

Books, Way, Game, Communication

“Don't worry about that baby. I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don't worry, don't worry. The mom's running around like—don't worry about it, you know. It's young and beautiful and healthy and that's what we want. […] Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here. That's all right. Don't worry. I, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I'm speaking. That's OK. People don't understand. That's OK.”

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

At a rally in Ashburn, Virginia. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-kicks-out-baby-rally-226566 (August 2, 2016) 2010s, 2016, August

Love, People, Beauty, Moms

“It's hard to understand;
There was love in this man.
I'm sure all would agree
That his misery
Was his woman and things.
Now Freddie's dead;
That's what I said.Everybody's misused him;
Ripped him off and abused him.
Another junkie playin';
Pushin' dope for the man.
A terrible blow, but that's how it go.
Freddie's on the corner now.
If you wanna be a junkie, wow;
Remember, Freddie's dead.”

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

Freddie's Dead.
Song lyrics, Super Fly (1972)

Love, Dead

“Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field.”

Yann Martel (1963) Canadian author best known for the book Life of Pi

Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 114

Dance

“For this manifestation to be as forceful as it possibly can, we have to work to find solidarity in each other’s stories, as differing as their inciting perspectives may be. The patriarchy sands out the edges of our rightful infuriation, making it harder to see in any light but our own. This blindness is part of what denies us community-forming solidarity and part of what has allowed widespread sexual assault and harassment to continue for so long. The sinister idea that there is a limit to the total number of accusations of "sexism" that society will bear has made us trend toward the egotistical in our understanding of oppression, but it is happening to all of us, and it is happening all of the time.”

Lauren Duca (1991) American journalist

Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017)

Communication, Idea, Light, Time

“We must understand that what Pascal said is true of every human being in the whole of space-time, ourselves included—“The last act is tragic, however pleasant all the comedy of the other acts. A little earth on our heads, and all is done with forever.”—understand it in our bones, so that we can live with it calmly if not serenely.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

The Sorrow of Odin the Goth (p. 343)
Time Patrol

Time

“The next phase of the work was when Joseph LeDoux and I came up with the idea of the interpreter. Twenty-five years into studying these patients we finally got around to asking the patients, "Why did you do that?" after they had a response with the left hand that was being governed by the separated, silent, speechless right hemisphere. We began to understand that the left hemisphere "made up" a story as to why the patient did what he/she did, and in that moment we began to see the cardinal feature of the left hemisphere: the ability to interpret actions generated outside its realm of conscious awareness.”

Michael S. Gazzaniga (1939) American neuroscientist

Idea, Study

“The Man of "Radical" Understanding is not "entranced". He is not "elsewhere". He is not having an experience. He is not passionless and inoffensive. He is awake. He is present. He knows no obstruction in the form of mind, identity, differentiation and desire. He uses mind, identity, differentiation and desire. He is passionate. His quality is an offense to those who are entranced, elsewhere, contained in the mechanics of experience, asleep, living as various forms of identity, separation and dependence. He is acceptable only to those who understand."”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

Page 421, 2004 Standard Edition.
The Knee of Listening

Passion, Dependency

“How is technology changing the hierarchical nature of our world? History reveals an overall trend toward ever more coordination over ever-larger distances, which is easy to understand: new transportation technology makes coordination more valuable (by enabling mutual benefit from moving materials and life forms over larger distances) and new communication technology makes coordination easier. When cells learned to signal to neighbors, small multicellular organisms became possible, adding a new hierarchical level. When evolution invented circulatory systems and nervous systems for transportation and communication, large animals became possible. Further improving communication by inventing language allowed humans to coordinate well enough to form further hierarchical levels such as villages, and additional breakthroughs in communication, transportation and other technology enabled the empires of antiquity. Globalization is merely the latest example of this multi-billion-year trend of hierarchical growth.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2017)

Life, World, History, Communication

“William too closed his eyes and prayed, but his world had lost its anchor. The Calvinist code which had dominated and supported him throughout his life seemed unequal to his present confusion. It was now apparent that predestination was a meaningless concept—certainly to one who had been told that his actions would directly affect the outcome of history for all time. But did that necessarily negate his faith entirely? Copernicus established that the earth orbited around the sun. Did God die in that moment?
Or did man merely understand a little better?”

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 5 (p. 69)

Life, God, World, Faith

“What about [my] books? How do I feel about them?
I enjoyed writing all of them. But I think that if I could only choose a few, which, for example, might escape World War Three, I would choose, first, Eye in the Sky. Then The Man in the High Castle. Martian Time-Slip (published by Ballantine). Dr. Bloodmoney (a recent Ace novel). Then The Zap Gun and The Penultimate Truth, both of which I wrote at the same time. And finally another Ace book, The Simulacra.
But this list leaves out the most vital of them all: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I am afraid of that book; it deals with absolute evil, and I wrote it during a great crisis in my religious beliefs. I decided to write a novel dealing with absolute evil as personified in the form of a "human." When the galleys came from Doubleday I couldn't correct them because I could not bear to read the text, and this is still true.
Two other books should perhaps be on this list, both very new Doubleday novels: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and another as yet untitled Ubik]. Do Androids has sold very well and has been eyed intently by a film company who has in fact purchased an option on it. My wife thinks it's a good book. I like it for one thing: It deals with a society in which animals are adored and rare, and a man who owns a real sheep is Somebody… and feels for that sheep a vast bond of love and empathy. Willis, my tomcat, strides silently over the pages of that book, being important as he is, with his long golden twitching tail. Make them understand, he says to me, that animals are really that important right now. He says this, and then eats up all the food we had been warming for our baby. Some cats are far too pushy. The next thing he'll want to do is write SF novels. I hope he does. None of them will sell.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"Self Portrait" (1968), reprinted in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995), ed. Lawrence Sutin

Love, War, Truth, Books

“The Arts, especially film, transcend all cultural barriers, hopefully offering an avenue where all people can find a common place to meet, understand each other, and nurture a safe world for all our children to grow strong within.”

Carson Grant (1950) American actor

Kaminsky, Denise, Aug 2006, "Carson Grant: Actor/Artist- A Lifetime of Art", Denise's Interviews and Media News, p. 1
About his thought on the Arts

Children, People, World, Art

“If creationism is at all weakened, the doctrine of salvation is weakened. Thus it is that in evangelical circles today, because there is a pervasive compromise there is a progressive weakening and instruction of the doctrine of salvation. Creation and salvation are different sides of the same coin. God has created man, God alone can redeem him. If we tamper with the doctrine of creation we have proportionally weakened the doctrine of salvation. Thus in our understanding of both the doctrine of man and the doctrine of salvation we must begin with a class, if God in the beginning, created man by his fathomed word on the sixth day of creation brought him into being. Our history is sure, it is well known, it is fully declared in scripture.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Creationism and Psychology (n. d.)

God, History

“After such a close brush with mortality I feel that I have an obligation to destiny and want to do something with my life that will benefit mankind. I am not a writer but think the best thing I can do is try to report on and understand what is happening in the world.”

Virgil John Tangborn (1920–1944)

October 1, 1938

Life, World, Feeling, Thinking

“I entered Harvard to become a historian and left to become a psychoanalyst, only to abandon both… to follow my intuition that the road to a real understanding of mind must pass through the cellular pathways of the brain.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

“Lucretius and his tradition taught Shelley that freedom came from understanding causation.”

Harold Bloom (1930–2019) American literary critic and scholar

The Anatomy of Influence (2011), p. 142.

Freedom

“I thought it would be lovely to use [pet bulldog] Noelle as an example to teach the importance of being who you are. For me it's important to inspire children in a positive way, and at times they understand more messages through entertainment than when one is talking to them directly.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment to The Associated Press regarding publication of her second children's book "Noelle's Treasure Tale" (October 9, 2006)
2007, 2008

Love, Children, Way, Time

“The frustration mainly comes from trying to understand what they really want. Also, you cannot understand how can such a large nation maintain its so-called stability by doing something very unlawful. I mean, how can they possibly manage to stabilize the whole social condition by not [acting with] justice and fairness.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, You’re There but You’re Not Existing, 2012

Justice

“In the new order a Locke was free—with almost no danger of being interfered with—to think his sublime thoughts, to seek the first causes of all things, to understand the nature of things. He could talk with his friends and teach the young. And there was money enough. The academies and universities satisfied Socrates’ demand to be fed in the prytaneum.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

“Commerce and Culture,” p. 289.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

Money, Nature, Thinking, Universe

“In a modern society, where large organizations have acquired unprecedented importance, social scientists have increasingly sought to understand the nature of organizational goals - what they are, what shapes or determines them, what their impact is upon the environment, and how they change.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Perrow (1968), "Organizational goals," in: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: The Macmillan Co. p. 305
1960s

Nature, Change

“Another thing. This idea of "I'm offended". Well I've got news for you. I'm offended by a lot of things too. Where do I send my list? Life is offensive. You know what I mean? Just get in touch with your outer adult. And grow up. And move on. Reasonable people don't write letters because… A: They have lives and B, they understand it's just TV. C: If they see something they don't like, something they do like might be on later. I've seen many comics I've hated. I've seen many shows that have offended me. I've never written a letter. I just go about my life.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Interview with Howard Stern

Life, Hate, People, Idea

“Ah, self-interest at last. Despite all of our differences, of race and time and distance, we achieve commonality. I understand self-interest.”

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 18, “One-Sided Conversation” (p. 176)

Time

“I do not pretend to understand why such a sacrifice should be necessary, but I believe it, feel it; and believing and feeling it, I cannot but adore and worship the Son, who quitted heaven to come on earth, and suffered, that we might possess eternal life. It is all mystery to me, as is the creation itself, our existence, God himself, and all else that my mind is too limited to comprehend. But, Roswell, if I believe a part of the teachings of the Christian church, I must believe all. The apostles, who were called by Christ in person, who lived in his very presence, who knew nothing except as the Holy Spirit prompted, worshiped him as the Son of God, as one 'who thought it not robbery to be equal with God;' and shall I, ignorant and uninspired, pretend to set up my feeble means of reasoning, in opposition to their written instructions!"… I do not deny that we are to exercise our reason, but it is within the bounds set for its exercise. We may examine the evidence of Christianity, and determine for ourselves how far it is supported by reasonable and sufficient proofs; beyond this we cannot be expected to go, else might we be required to comprehend the mystery of our own existence, which just as much exceeds our understanding as any other. We are told that man was created in the image of his Creator, which means that there is an immortal and spiritual part of him that is entirely different from the material creature One perishes, temporarily at least--a limb can be severed from the body and perish, even while the body survives; but it is not so with that which has been created in the image of the deity. That is imperishable, immortal, spiritual, though doomed to dwell awhile in a tenement of clay. Now, why is it more difficult to believe that pure divinity may have entered into the person of one man, than to believe, nay to feel, that the image of God has entered into the persons of so many myriads of men?”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

Source: The Sea Lions or The Lost Sealers (1849), Ch. XII

Life, Men, God, Feeling

“One of her instructors in fashion had given her to understand that curls were not the thing. "They'll always pass muster," Miss Dunstable had replied, "when they are done up with bank notes."”

Anthony Trollope book Doctor Thorne

Source: Doctor Thorne (1858), Ch. 16

Fashion

“The pictures of me on the Internet were silly, inappropriate shots. I appreciate all the support of my fans, and hope they understand that along the way I am going to make mistakes and I am not perfect. I never intended for any of this to happen, and I am truly sorry if I have disappointed anyone. Most of all, I have let myself down. I will learn from my mistakes and trust my support team.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

MTV.com http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1586479/20080429/duff_hilary.jhtml (April 29, 2008)

Hope, Disappointment, Way, Support

“Even then he had those piercing cat's eyes of his and when he had said something, finished up by saying: "If I'm wrong, put me right." And so I began to understand that you didn't speak for the sake of speaking, to say that you had done this or that, what you had eaten or drunk, but to work out an idea, to find out what makes the world go round.”

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

Source: The moon and the bonfire (1950), Chapter XVII, p. 98

World, Cats, Idea

“In classical Newtonian physics there was a clear understanding of 'what reality is'. Indeed in this classical view, reality at a certain time is the collection of all what is actual at this time, and this is contained in 'the present'. Often it is stated that three dimensional space and one dimensional time have been substituted by four dimensional space-time in relativity theory, and as a consequence the classical concept of reality, as that what is 'present', cannot be retained. Is reality then the four dimensional manifold of relativity theory? And if so, what is then the meaning of 'change in time?”

Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist

Aerts, D. (1996). " Relativity theory: what is reality? http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/aerts/publications/1996RelReal.pdf". Foundations of Physics, 26, pp. 1627-1644

Reality, Change, Time

“The present condition of the farmers and labourers of this country is the severest condemnation of the Corn-laws that can possibly be produced…let the farmer perfectly understand that his prosperity depends upon that of his customers—that the insane policy of this House has been to ruin his customers, and that acts of Parliament to keep up prices are mere frauds to put rents into the landlords' pockets, and enable him to juggle his tenants.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1843/may/15/abolition-of-the-corn-laws-adjourned in the House of Commons (15 May 1843). 1840s

Law, Fraud, Housing, Dependency

“It needs but half an eye to see in these latter days that science, the Grand Revelator of modern Western culture, has reached, without having intended to, a frontier. Either it must bury its dead, close its ranks, and go forward into a landscape of increasing strangeness, replete with things shocking to a culture-trammeled understanding, or it must become, in Claude Houghton's expressive phrase, the plagiarist of its own past. The frontier was foreseen in principle very long ago, and given a name that has descended to our day clouded with myth. That name is Babel. For science's long and heroic effort to be strictly factual has at last brought it into entanglement with the unsuspected facts of the linguistic order. These facts the older classical science had never admitted, confronted, or understood as facts. Instead they had entered its house by the back door and had been taken for the substance of Reason itself.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) American linguist

Source: Language, thought and reality (1956), p. 264.

Effort, Science, Past, Housing

“Please understand, I am not saying that technology is unimportant. I understand that technology is important. But if we are just focusing on technology and investing in an IT manufacturing plant to come up with higher performance processing [chips], we will not succeed.”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Nintendo's New Direction, 2007-03-03, Kent, Steven L., GameSpy, p. 3 http://www.gamespy.com/articles/505/505234p3.html,

“To be effective men must act together, and to act together they must have a common understanding and a common object.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter III, The Movement Of Theory, p. 30.

Men

“Consciousness is the biggest mystery. It may be the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest for a scientific understanding of the universe.”

David Chalmers book The Conscious Mind

The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (1996)

Universe

“It is not because I am better or worse than others, but because I understand all beings are equal.”

Richard Gombrich (1937) British Indologist

"When I say I'm a Buddhist"[citation needed]

“For there's a lot of masochism in the acting profession. We're willing to take a lot of punishment, but the minute we hit a little bit of success we are liable to run from it. We're frightened of it and develop all kinds of phobias as a consequence. Outsiders who don't understand think we have a chip on our shoulder, but it's not that at all. We're so used to failure, to being hurt and rebuffed, that we can easily come unhinged by success.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Page 197
Love, Lucy (1996)

Failure, Thinking, Success, Hurt

“To increase his suffering he now accused her, asserting that she didn't love him, and that is always a dangerous thing to say: If one wants somebody to love one, one should not ask her to consider whether she "really": does. When all is said, we "really" do very few things. If one probes very deeply one realizes that the weight never reaches the bottom, and then one grows afraid of the depths inside one. But it is not until one understands that another name for deep is emptiness that one becomes really afraid.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 222

Love, Suffering

“We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten.”

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) Duwamish chief

Misattributed

Children, Way, Night

“In reality, there is no such thing as “absolute truth”. Everything within the capacity of human understanding contains a degree of error, and everything men know to be true is only true to a degree. Everyone is inevitably wrong about something somewhere. We don’t know everything about everything. We don’t know everything about anything! And what we do know, we don’t know accurately on all points nor completely in every detail. Honest men admit this. Anyone claiming to know the absolute truth is not being honest, especially not when they claim to know anything about things which can only be believed on faith. Even if men were given genuine revelations by truly omniscient beings, they must still be filtered and interpreted by weaker minds influenced by our limitations, biases, and misimpressions, as well as linguistic and cultural barriers.”

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

"3rd Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnj7PlqmJ5o, Youtube (December 10, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, Truth, Faith, Error

“I have to understand the world, you see.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Part 4: "From Cornell to Caltech, With A Touch of Brazil", "Certainly, Mr. Big!", p. 231
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

World

“There is but one way to Americanize for each and every American to understand the ideals of America and to be able to interpret them in every act of his daily life. But this alone is not enough. Groups of men, from the humblest unit to the greatest political entity in the country, must be able to do this in combination; and there must be agreement. There are certain things that men go all over the world to find. Where those things exist men stay; when they fail men leave. These things are basic. They are opportunities to better conditions, to be equal to other men, to have the right to be heard, freedom of thought, worship, and speech, and to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is for this that men desert their home countries, and it is for this that they may desert America if their native lands in Europe offer the same great adventure and reward.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Life, Men, Happiness, World

“Let me remind you that science is not necessarily wisdom. To know, is not the sole nor even the highest office of the intellect; and it loses all its glory unless it act in furtherance of the great end of man's life. That end is, as both reason and revelation unite in telling us, to acquire the feelings and habits that will lead us to love and seek what is good in all its forms, and guide us by following its traces to the first Great Cause of all, where only we find it pure and unclouded.
If science be cultivated in congruity with this, it is the most precious possession we can have— the most divine endowment. But if it be perverted to minister to any wicked or ignoble purpose — if it even be permitted to take too absolute a hold of the mind, or overshadow that which should be paramount over all, the perception of right, the sense of Duty — if it does not increase in us the consciousness of an Almighty and All-beneficent presence, — it lowers instead of raising us in the great scale of existence.
This, however, it can never do but by our fault. All its tendencies are heavenward; every new fact which it reveals is a ray from the origin of light, which leads us to its source. If any think otherwise, their knowledge is imperfect, or their understanding warped, or darkened by their passions. The book of nature is, like that of revelation, written by God, and therefore cannot contradict it; both we are unable to read through all their extent, and therefore should neither wonder nor be alarmed if at times we miss the pages which reconcile any seeming inconsistence. In both, too, we may fail to interpret rightly that which is recorded; but be assured, if we search them in quest of truth alone, each will bear witness to the other, — and physical knowledge, instead of being hostile to religion, will be found its most powerful ally, its most useful servant. Many, I know, think otherwise; and because attempts have occasionally been made to draw from astronomy, from geology, from the modes of the growth and formation of animals and plants, arguments against the divine origin of the sacred Scripture, or even to substitute for the creative will of an intelligent first cause the blind and casual evolution of some agency of a material system, they would reject their study as fraught with danger. In this I must express my deep conviction that they do injury to that very cause which they think they are serving.
Time will not let me touch further on the cavils and errors in question; and besides they have been often fully answered. I will only say, that I am here surrounded by many, matchless in the sciences which are supposed so dangerous, and not less conspicuous for truth and piety. If they find no discord between faith and knowledge, why should you or any suppose it to exist? On the contrary, they cannot be well separated. We must know that God is, before we can confess Him; we must know that He is wise and powerful before we can trust in Him, — that He is good before we can love Him. All these attributes, the study of His works had made known before He gave that more perfect knowledge of himself with which we are blessed. Among the Semitic tribes his names betoken exalted nature and resistless power; among the Hellenic races they denote his wisdom; but that which we inherit from our northern ancestors denotes his goodness. All these the more perfect researches of modern science bring out in ever-increasing splendour, and I cannot conceive anything that more effectually brings home to the mind the absolute omnipresence of the Deity than high physical knowledge. I fear I have too long trespassed on your patience, yet let me point out to you a few examples.
What can fill us with an overwhelming sense of His infinite wisdom like the telescope? As you sound with it the fathomless abyss of stars, till all measure of distances seems to fail and imagination alone gauges the distance; yet even there as here is the same divine harmony of forces, the same perfect conservation of systems, which the being able to trace in the pages of Newton or Laplace makes us feel as if we were more than men. If it is such a triumph of intellect to trace this law of the universe, how transcendent must that Greatest over all be, in which it and many like it, have their existence! That instrument tells us that the globe which we inhabit is but a speck, the existence of which cannot be perceived beyond our system. Can we then hope that in this immensity of worlds we shall not be overlooked? The microscope will answer. If the telescope lead to one verge of infinity, it brings us to the other; and shows us that down in the very twilight of visibility the living points which it discloses are fashioned with the most finished perfection, — that the most marvellous contrivances minister to their preservation and their enjoyment, — that as nothing is too vast for the Creator's control, so nothing is too minute or trifling for His care. At every turn the philosopher meets facts which show that man's Creator is also his Father, — things which seem to contain a special provision for his use and his happiness : but I will take only two, from their special relation to this very district. Is it possible to consider the properties which distinguish iron from other metals without a conviction that those qualities were given to it that it might be useful to man, whatever other purposes might be answered by them. That it should. be ductile and plastic while influenced by heat, capable of being welded, and yet by a slight chemical change capable of adamantine hardness, — and that the metal which alone possesses properties so precious should be the most abundant of all, — must seem, as it is, a miracle of bounty. And not less marvellous is the prescient kindness which stored up in your coalfields the exuberant vegetation of the ancient world, under circumstances which preserved this precious magazine of wealth and power, not merely till He had placed on earth beings who would use it, but even to a late period of their existence, lest the element that was to develope to the utmost their civilization and energy migbt be wasted or abused.
But I must conclude with this summary of all which I would wish to impress on your minds—* that the more we know His works the nearer we are to Him. Such knowledge pleases Him; it is bright and holy, it is our purest happiness here, and will assuredly follow us into another life if rightly sought in this. May He guide us in its pursuit; and in particular, may this meeting which I have attempted to open in His name, be successful and prosperous, so that in future years they who follow me in this high office may refer to it as one to be remembered with unmixed satisfaction.”

Thomas Romney Robinson

Robinson in his 1849 adress, as quoted in the Report of the Nineteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science https://archive.org/stream/report36sciegoog#page/n50/mode/2up, London, 1850.

Love, Life, Wisdom, Men

“Here understand I in truth that all manner of things are made ready for us by the great goodness of God, so far forth that what time we be ourselves in peace and charity, we be verily saved.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 40

God, Truth, Peace, Time

“Every person should take a lesson from history. We should understand that wherever there have been internal fights and conflicts in the country, the country has been weakened. Due to this, the danger from outside increases. The country has to pay a big price due to this type of weakness.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

In his address to the party workers on 12 November 1984 to spoil the machinations of terrorist, when he was elected to the post of the President of the Congress party, quoted by Meena Agrawal in “Rajiv Gandhi” P.74
Quote

History, Fight, Personality, Country

“What is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding? It is the deepest part of autobiography.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

"Poetry Is a Kind of Unconscious Autobiography" in The New York Times (12 May 1985)

Parting

“In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. I, ch. 1
The Return of the Native (1878)

Lying, Time

“In magic, anyone with a shop-bought trick deck is a magician, and if people aren’t fooled they usually pretend to be, and they are understandably likely to mistake being fooled as a sign of being in the presence of an excellent magician.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

People, Fools

“Roger: Well no I think it goes a long way with people who are actually fans of the band. I understand that people who do buy the records are stoked when it’s something that has some value and some thought and actually looks cool. Hopefully slowly that will start to get people motivated to buy vinyl again. Not only does it sound better but you get more of an experience with the artwork and stuff and the lyric sheet in your hand rather than on your computer screen. There’s something more intimate about that. I think slowly but surely vinyl will continue to kind of hold steady even with people not buying CDs anymore.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

People, Way, Motivation, Thinking

“I experience the same sense of absurdity when I listen to a cosmologist like Stephen Hawking telling us that the universe began with a big bang fifteen billion years ago, and that physics will shortly create a 'theory of everything' that will answer every possible question about our universe; this entails the corollary that God is an unnecessary hypothesis. Then I think of the day when I suddenly realized that I did not know where space ended, and it becomes obvious that Hawking is also burying his head in the sand. God may be an unnecessary hypothesis for all I know, and I do not have the least objection to Hawking dispensing with him, but until we can understand why there is existence rather than nonexistence, then we simply have no right to make such statements. It is unscientific. The same applies to the biologist Richard Dawkins, with his belief that strict Darwinism can explain everything, and that life is an accidental product of matter. I feel that he is trying to answer the ultimate question by pretending it does not exist.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), pp. 301-302

Life, God, Feeling, Question

“Multiple discoveries are in fact very common in science and for much the same reason. Developments in related fields with different motivation help one to understand a difficult problem better. Since these developments are public knowledge, many scholars can take advantage of them. It is pleasant to the ego to be first or among the first with a new discovery. However, in this case at least, the evidence is clear that the development of general equilibrium theory would have gone on quite as it did without me.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Arrow (1984) "November 1984 lecture at Trinity University". Lecture presented November 5, 1984.
1970s-1980s

Motivation, Knowledge, Problem, Science

“To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also — He above all — is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

27 May 1849
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries

Love, Life, Men, God

“A honeymoon is wonderful, of course. It's the time two people go off alone and do their utmost to remain alone. Not only because they are so new and exciting to each other. But because it's their chance to draw closer and prepare for the intimacy of the every day married life which lies ahead of them. However, feverishly romantic though it may be, it's also apt to be something of a strain. Because the two people haven't yet learned to relax with each other. Because they haven't had time to become truly good friends. Because they don't know all the little things about each other which only the intimacy and affectionate understanding of years brings.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

[http://www.irenedunnesite.com/press/modern-screen-august-1935/ The Modern screen *August 1935).

Life, People, Learning, Chance

“Apple is repeating the mistakes it made in China. It is relying on its brand recognition to build a market and failing to understand the needs of its customers. By marketing inferior products, it may also be insulting Indian consumers.”

Vivek Wadhwa American academic

Why Apple is destined to fail in India http://wadhwa.com/2017/03/16/apple-destined-fail-india in Vivek Wadhwa (16 March 2017)

“Awaken from your ignorance and try at least to understand that, in the uncompromisingly Indivisible Oneness, not only is the Avatar God, but also the ant and the sparrow, just as one and all of you are nothing but God. The only apparent difference is in the states of consciousness. The Avatar knows that that which is a sparrow is not a sparrow, whereas the sparrow does not realize this and, being ignorant of its ignorance, identifies itself as a sparrow.
Live not in ignorance. Do not waste your precious life-span in differentiating and judging your fellowmen, but learn to long for the love of God. Even in the midst of your worldly activities, live only to find and realize your true identity with your Beloved God.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

Meher Baba’s Call (1954)

Love, Life, God, Learning

“And I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar
Spend it fast as I can for a wailin' song and a good guitar
The only things that I understand, oh yeah.”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

Greenback Dollar (1963)

“Progress of his Version. Luther was gradually prepared for this work. He found for the first time a complete copy of the Latin Bible in the University Library at Erfurt, to his great delight, and made it his chief study. He derived from it his theology and spiritual nourishment; he lectured and preached on it as professor at Wittenberg day after day. He acquired the knowledge of the original languages for the purpose of its better understanding. He liked to call himself a "Doctor of the Sacred Scriptures."
He made his first attempt as translator with the seven Penitential Psalms, which he published in March, 1517, six months before the outbreak of the Reformation. Then followed several other sections of the Old and New Testaments,—the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Prayer of King Manasseh, the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary, etc., with popular comments. He was urged by his friends, especially by Melanchthon, as well as by his own sense of duty, to translate the whole Bible.
He began with the New Testament in November or December, 1521, and completed it in the following March, before he left the Wartburg. He thoroughly revised it on his return to Wittenberg, with the effectual help of Melanchthon, who was a much better Greek scholar. Sturz at Erfurt was consulted about coins and measures; Spalatin furnished from the Electoral treasury names for the precious stones of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21). The translation was then hurried through three presses, and appeared already Sept. 21, 1522, but without his name.
In December a second edition was required, which contained many corrections and improvements.
He at once proceeded to the more difficult task of translating the Old Testament, and published it in parts as they were ready. The Pentateuch appeared in 1523; the Psalter, 1524.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's competence as a Bible translator

Knowledge, Sense, Study, Universe

“This has gone on far too long, this spreading of lies about me! None of it is true. NONE OF IT! I love my country. I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us. I do not understand what the far right stands to gain by continuing with these myths.”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Blog posting (16 July 2011) http://janefonda.com/qvc-cancelled-my-appearance/

Love, Women, Men, Fight

“Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can't deal with them… But it's a complicated matter: Science studies what's at the edge of understanding, and what's at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated. In fact even understanding insects is an extremely complicated problem in the sciences. So the actual sciences tell us virtually nothing about human affairs.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Science in the Dock, Discussion with Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss & Sean M. Carroll (2011), 2, Chomsky.info, March 1, 2006, August 16, 2011 http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm, Quotes 2010s, 2011

Way, Question, Problem, Study

“Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 1
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

Nature

“If you want to understand the beliefs that are shaping global politics, read the Book of Revelation.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Review: Sacred Causes http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/oct/28/politics by Michael Burleigh (2006-10-28)

Books, Reading

“Studies of the Earth's atmosphere tells us nothing about future climate. An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, paleontology, paleoecology, glaciology, climatology, meterology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history.”

Ian Plimer book Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth (2009)

History, Study, Future

“This is where dreams—dreams, do you understand—come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.”

Clive Staples Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), Ch. 12: The Dark Island
The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956)

Life, Dreams

“Fears to look bad in front of other people, to say something wrong, to be laughed at - all those fears deprive us of half of our abilities. This is one of the main school problems. That teacher understands it, who can teach students to study without fear of the teacher, without fear of classmates, and, the most important, without fear of a subject.”

Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) Russia writer and philosopher

Source: The Last Book (1999), Ch.20 (In Russian, Последняя книга,1999, ISBN 5-8246-0030-9

People, Fear, School, Problem

“Buttercup begins to wail as well. He circles me, just out of reach, as wave after wave of sobs racks my body, until eventually I fall unconscious. But he must understand. He must know that the unthinkable has happened and to survive will require previously unthinkable acts. Because hours later, when I come to in my bed, he's there in the moonlight. Crouched beside me, yellow eyes alert, guarding me from the night.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Katniss (p. 386)
The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

Night

“As an actor, you're sort of the court-appointed lawyer for the character. And that's what used to draw me to scripts – something in a woman that I wanted to defend, something that I recognized or wanted to understand, something that turned my head.”

Vera Farmiga (1973) American actress

As quoted in " Vera Farmiga interview: Chats 'Up in the Air' and her craft http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/index.ssf/2009/12/vera_farmiga_interview_chats_up_in_the_air_and_her_craft.html" by Stephen Whitty at NewJersey.com (December 7, 2009)

Drawing

“The root of all religions, from the Baha'i point of view, is based on the theory that man will gradually come to understand the unity of the world and the oneness of mankind. It teaches that all the prophets are one – that science and religion are the two great powers which must be balanced if man is to become mature. I feel my work has been influenced by these beliefs. I've tried to decentralize and interpenetrate so that all parts of a painting are of related value.”

Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter

as quoted in Abstract Expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen, Köln, 2006, p. 60
posthumous Quotes

World, Religion, Feeling, Science

“He was different at first
But then he won't understand
Because he's never gonna know me
If he doesn't want to just shake my hand”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Lingering Still".
Volume Two (2010)

“Paul Ryan combines a profound sense of responsibility for what we owe the next generation with an unbounded optimism in America's future and an understanding of all the wonderful things the American people can do. Paul also combines firm principles with a practical concern for getting things done. He has never been content to simply curse the darkness; he would rather light candles. And throughout his legislative career he's shown the ability to work with members of both parties to find common ground on some of the hardest issues confronting the American people.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-08-11
http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/08/11/video-and-transcript-romney-making-his-vp-announcement/
Video and Transcript: Romney Making His VP Announcement
Mitt Romney Central
2012

People, Optimism, Sense, Light

“And then the wish to make compositions with figures. For this I had to make (quickly I thought; in passing), one or two studies from nature, just enough to understand the construction of a head, of a whole figure, and in 1935 I took a model. This study should take, I thought, two weeks and then I could realize my compositions…I worked with the model all day from 1935 to 1940…Nothing was as I imagined. A head, became for me an object completely unknown and without dimensions.”

Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) Swiss sculptor and painter (1901-1966)

Alberto Giacometti in: Peter Selz, Alberto Giacometti. Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago [and others], distributed by Doubleday, 1965. p. 26

Imagination, Nature, Study

“To quote the only line of Gertrude Stein’s which I have ever been able to understand, “It is wonderful how I am not interested.””

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 2: 1919, p. 64

Quotes

“The problem of method … includes four main issuesː the possibility of an alternative to logic and causation, capable of overcoming the inadequacies of both rationalism and historicism; the link between this third method and causality; the connection between the meaning of an act for its agent and its meaning for an observer; and the relationship of systematic theory to historical understanding.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Law in Modern Societyː Toward a Criticism of Social Theory (1976), p. 245

Problem

““From the shape of a cloud I know that a man in a distant city will quarrel with his wife three seasons hence and a murderer will be hanged before I finish speaking. From the falling of a stone I know the number of maidens being seduced and the movements of icebergs on the other side of the world. From the texture of the wind I know where next the lightning will fall. So long have I watched and so much am I part of all things, that nothing is hidden from me.”
“You know where I go?”
“Yes.”
“And what I would do there?”
“I know that, too.”
“Then tell me if you know, will I succeed in that which I desire?”
“You will succeed in that which you are about, but by then it may not be what you desire.”
“I do not understand you, Morningstar.”
“I know that, too. But that is the way it is with all oracles, Jack. When that which is foreseen comes to pass, the inquirer is no longer the same person he was when he posed the question. It is impossible to make a man understand what he will become with the passage of time; and it is only a future self to whom a prophecy is truly relevant.””

Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows

Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 6 (p. 62)

World, Way, Question, Distant

Quotes about understanding page 56

Quotes about understanding
page 56