Understanding Quotes - Page 13

If you would understand the present, you must come to know the past.

I am always disappointed with someone who loves me - how perfect can he be if he can't see through me?

For days and weeks on end one racks one's brains to no avail, and, if asked, one could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, any more than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane. Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life?

If the if isn't an if, what if is an if that if has to be replaced by an if that if shall never if that the place of if.

Avakruth

To me, science is an expression of the human spirit, which reaches every sphere of human culture. It gives an aim and meaning to existence as well as a knowledge, understanding, love, and admiration for the world. It gives a deeper meaning to morality and another dimension to esthetics.

Isidor Isaac Rabi

If there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that—in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That's not an entirely despicable role for us to play.

Steven Weinberg

When man comes to the realization that he is not the "favorite" of God; that he was not specially created, that the universe was not made for his benefit, and that he is subject to the same laws of nature as all other forms of life, then, and not until then, will he understand that he must rely upon himself, and himself alone, for whatever benefits he is to enjoy; and devote his time and energies to helping himself and his fellow men to meet the exigencies of life and to set about to solve the difficult and intricate problems of living.The recognition of a problem is the first step to its solution— We are not "fallen" angels, nor were we "created" perfect.On the contrary, we are the product of millions of years of an unpurposed evolution. We are the descendants and inheritors of all the defects of our primitive ancestry—the evolution of the myriad forms of life from the infinitesimal to the mammoth—from the worm to the dinosaur.

I read a page of Plato's great work. I can no longer understand anything, because behind the words on the page, which have their own heavenly brightness, to be sure, there shines an even brighter, an enormous, dazzling -why- that blots out everything, cancels out, destroys all meaning. All individual intelligence. When one has understood, one stops, satisfied with what one has understood. I do not understand. Understanding is far too little. To have understood is to be fixed, immobilized. It is as though one wanted to stop on one step in the middle of a staircase, or with one foot in the void and the other on the endless stair. But a mere why, a new why can set one off again, can unpetrify what was petrified and everything starts flowing afresh. How can one understand? One cannot.

Eugène Ionesco

A crucial point here is that understanding is not only a matter of reflection, using finitary propositions, on some preexistent, already determinate experience. Rather, understanding is the way we "have a world," the way we experience our world as a comprehensible reality. Such understanding, therefore, involves our whole being - our bodily capacities and skills, our values, our moods and attitudes, our entire cultural tradition, the way in which we are bound up with a linguistic community, our aesthetic sensibilities, and so forth. I short, our understanding is our mode of "being in the world." It is the way we are meaningfully situated in our world through our bodily interactions, our cultural institutions , our linguistic tradition, and our historical context. Our more abstract reflective acts of understanding (which may involve grasping of finitary propositions) are simply an extension of our understanding in this more basic sense of "having a world.

It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and this they have called understanding the Bible.It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.

If one should criticize one should always have a meaningful explanation to accompany.

The Use of the Understanding, in endeavouring to find out the Meaning of any Proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature and Evidence for or against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming Force or Weakness of the Evidence.

Anthony Collins

Man’s desire is to know the mind of God.

Putting it into words will destroy any meaning.

Haruki Murakami

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so

What you give meaning to is what causes your emotion. Before you react know why you are giving something so much energy or fear. When you begin to understand why you give things meaning you can begin to change how you react and why you do what you do.

Shannon L. Alder

Hippasus’ proof—or at least Nico’s retelling of it—was really so simple that when he finished sketching it out, I wasn’t even aware that we had actually proven anything. Nico paused for a few minutes to let us mull it over.It was Peter who broke the silence, “I’m not sure I understand what we have done.”Nico seemed to be expecting such a response. “Step back and examine the proof; in fact, you should try and do this with every proof you see or have to work out for yourself. ..."He again waited for his words to sink in, and it began to make sense for me. All my mathematics teachers (other than Bauji and Nico) always seemed to evade this part of their responsibility. They had been content to merely write out a proof on the blackboard and carry on, seemingly without concern for what the proof meant and what it told us.“But you should not stop here. Even when you have understood a proof, and I hope you have indeed understood this proof, ask yourself the next question, the obvious one, but as critical: So what? Or, why are we proving this? What is the point? What is the context? How does it relate to us? To answer these questions we have to step back a little. Let me show you—it’s really quite delightful.” Now there was excitement in Nico’s voice.

The intellect is a boat which can take us to the very shores of understanding, but once there we must leave it behind in order to grasp true meaning.

Ashavan

Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full.

We can never see what we never question, for we who escapes, blinds us

To be depressed or neurotic is passive. It has happened to all of us; we are its victims, are we have no control over it.

William Glasser

The truth is he spends thirty minutes of every hour suspecting he has missed some essential clue about himself. And not only himself--he has a recurring fantasy that one night, while he was asleep, the entire world was transformed into an alien planet, but no one bothered to tell him, and he didn't have the instinct to figure it out, and here he is now on a wild new Earth, walking around like an imbecile, as if everything he knows hasn't fallen away behind him like a river plummeting over a precipice.

Kevin Brockmeier

And I went into the new year loving myself a little less, but a little more where it actually mattered.

Dominic Riccitello

This’ path is not to be followed through force. It is to be followed through understanding.

I protect myself by refusing to know myself.

Floriano Martins

From heart to hearta heartbeat staggers, looking for a haven.Bereft. It is easier to enter heaventhan to pass through each others' eyes

Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

Allowing a person or thing to leave your life, without further pain is the basis of humanity. Everything else is the reason (theology).

Shannon L. Alder

A true friend does not make you win by making you the winner to the detriment of the true winner. He makes sure that you become a loser, not because he likes the way you fail, but to enlighten you on how it feels to be treated that way and to demonstrate that love and respect are not exclusive.

Michael Bassey Johnson

That was the thing about her. When you told her about an incident where you so badly screwed up, half expecting her to laugh at you in amusement, half anticipating a smirk of disgust, she would hardly express her pity or maybe she did express what she felt, for she would just nod her head, gesturing you to go on... As if it's normal... As if you're normal.

...treat people with understanding when you can, and fake it when you can'tuntil you do understand.

Knowing is important, but understanding is essential for wisdom.

Debasish Mridha M.D.

There are ultimately two choices in life: to fight it or to embrace it. If you fight it you will lose - if you embrace it you become one with it and you'll be lived.

Rasheed Ogunlaru

Tomorrow's leaders will not lead dictating from the front, nor pushing from the back. They will lead from the centre - from the heart

Rasheed Ogunlaru

You can not hope to arrive at harmony in your life while stirring up disturbances in anothers...

Rasheed Ogunlaru

Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.

There’s often a reason why people and dogs bite. It’s about self-protection. If we respect what we may not know about the suffering of others and look at them compassionately, we open the door that can lead to understanding.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more intelligent and more educated than college professors.

And I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.

If only this great concern we have for our own sensitive feelings expanded to encompass the feelings of our fellow men.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Nothing is wrong with her that is dangerous or harmful. She just feels deeper than others

If you’re treating people poorly then you're not emulating God’s love. God always resides with the broken hearted.

Shannon L. Alder

As the aperture of your heart opens to love you will receive more of the light of compassion, acceptance, gentleness, grace and understanding.

Nothing on earth is as unbearable as dealing with other people if you are a person who lacks compassion and understanding.

You are the very creator and co-creator of your own reality. When you allow yourself to remember what you already know about yourself on the spirit level, you shine the light of unconditional love, compassion and understanding. You become more of who you truly are, when you choose compassion and kindness. It must start from being kind to yourself.

Raphael Zernoff

Treat people like people. Beware of pity and patronization because in them, you can't see when you're unashamedly looking down on someone.

Beauty is wasted on the self-absorbed.

Perhaps a seemingly dull, boring person is not a person who lacks personality, but rather a person with so much personality most other things bore them.

Whether we have happiness or not depends on the seeds in our consciousness. If our seeds of compassion, understanding, and love are strong, those qualities will be able to manifest in us. If the seeds of anger, hostility and sadness in us are strong, then we will experience much suffering. To understand someone, we have to be aware of the quality of the seeds in his consciousness. And we need to remember that his is not solely responsible for those seeds. His ancestors, parents, and society are co-responsible for the quality of the seeds in his consciousness. When we understand this, we are able to feel compassion for that person. With understanding and love, we will know how to water our own beautiful seeds and those of others, and we will recognize seeds of suffering and find ways to transform them.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Let us think about our attitude of compassion and understanding with which we choose to respond to what is happening around us

Everything is going to be alright' doesn't mean stubbing your toe won't hurt anymore, but it reinforces that what takes place today, good or bad, is just a small piece of the larger puzzle

Brian A. Jackson

The more love you put off to the world in all aspects, the more it will return to you.

Brian A. Jackson

People, generally, are equally insecure. They just show it (or hide it) differently.

...that tender compunction of the honest-minded, so different from the hateful intoxication of criminals...

Marquis de Sade

Never let the principle of what you believe in become more important than the person.

Shannon L. Alder

Just because it had happened before didn’t mean it wasn’t serious. It didn’t mean he didn’t need them.

Your tears for others will float you closer toward God.

Shannon L. Alder

Storms don't come to teach us painful lessons, rather they were meant to wash us clean.

Shannon L. Alder

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you were wrong? Maybe, you only saw your point of view and you never once put yourself in the other person's shoes. Maybe, walking away from the senseless drama and spiteful criticism isn't the best thing to do. Maybe, for just once in your life you could wear another person's confusion, pain or misunderstanding. Maybe, your future doesn't require explaining yourself or offering an explanation for your indifference, but your character and reputation does. What if one day you find out that you didn't have all the information you thought you did? What if you find out that your presence was needed for healing? What if you only knew half of it and the other half was just your fear and anger translating everything you experienced? What if you were wrong? What if the same thing happened to you?

Shannon L. Alder

If you've been on this side, then you'll have more compassion and understanding for those still on this side when you get to the other side, because you know how it feels like to be on this side. Sometimes though, relief comes too sudden and good that we tend to lose our sense of empathy for those still on this side, and it's amazing how we've forgotten so soon how it felt like to be on this side. How would it have felt if you were treated the same way you treat those who are on this side by those who were on the other side, when you were still on this side, now that you are on the other side?

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