“One doesn’t have to understand in order to look. One has to look, in order to understand.”
Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author
The Observer (p. 112)
The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)
Geduld mit der Streitsucht der Einfältigen! Es ist nicht leicht zu begreifen, dass man nicht begreift.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 20.
“One doesn’t have to understand in order to look. One has to look, in order to understand.”
Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author
The Observer (p. 112)
The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)
“To understand is difficult; to act is easy.”
Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) Chinese physician, politician and revolutionary
As quoted in Great Britain and the East, Vol. 61, Issues 1727-1742 (1944), p. 19 https://books.google.com/books?id=94AyAQAAIAAJ&q=%22To+understand+is+difficult;+to+act+is+easy%22&dq=%22To+understand+is+difficult;+to+act+is+easy%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiey5eF27fXAhWMHpQKHS3JCYAQ6AEILDAB
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 15, 1889)
Letters
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) German, later British Baroque composer
Samuel Butler Notebooks (2004) p. 153.
Criticism
“Why should things be easy to understand?”
Thomas Pynchon (1937) American novelist
Pynchon's response to Jules Siegel about the complexity of V, as quoted in "Who Is Thomas Pynchon... And Why Did He Take Off With My Wife?", Playboy (March 1977)
“It is a poor thing for the writer to take on that which he doesn’t understand.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)
Letters
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator
Source: Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997), Chapter 14, "The Common Enemy".