Quotes About Understanding

Drawing is to art as grammar is to language: you can speak without any knowledge of grammar, but do not expect to be understood, and certainly do not expect to become a poet.

People tried to understand, and many did, but not everybody could make the imaginative leap that landed one in the position of another person, in their shoes, in their very garments, looking out on the world with their eyes, feeling what went on inside their hearts; being made to cry by the things that made them want to cry. That was easy in theory, but hard in practice. They pretended to understand, but when it came down to it, many simply did not.

That, she imagined, was because he had been given the eyes to see things, as we are given the eyes of those who have gone before us, and can see the world in the way in which they saw it.

We were all different, she thought, and it was important to remind oneself of that. It was important, too, to imagine what it must be like to be another person. That was a simple thing to do, and its effect could be salutary.

it was only too easy to make somebody like Erik feel ill at ease. It was hard enough to be Erik, Ulf reflected, without having to fend off criticism from people like me. Ulf was a kind man, and even if Erik's talk about fish was trying, he would take care not to show it. He would listen patiently, and might even learn something—although that, he thought, was rather unlikely.

The voices of the children were pure; their hearts were pure. Some of them had already discovered how hard life could be; others had yet to do so and probably did not fully understand what the world could be.

If the world misunderstands us, as it sometimes does, or is indifferent to our sorrows, as it often is, then the loyalty of a dog may remind us that at least in one heart are we loved and admired without question and without thought of reward or advantage.

No, on the whole it was better to say kind things of late people, even if they did not fully deserve them. Kindness, after all, did not distinguish between those who merited it and those who did not. It was like rain, she thought. It fell everywhere and made everything green and new and alive once more. That is what it did.

Mma Ramotswe stepped forward and put an arm around Patience's shoulder. "Mma, " she said, "I see you." It was the oldest and simplest of African greetings: I see you. It implied so much more than it said, though, because it meant that Mma Ramotswe saw not only the person standing before her, but all that lay behind her – who she was, where she came from, how she felt.

If only people remembered that, then they would be kinder to others—and kindness, Mma Ramotswe believed, was the most important thing there was. She knew that in the depths of her being; she knew it.

But that's what the world is all about, Jamie. Stories. Stories explain everything, bring everything together.

Now that you are going to be my wife, I must teach you what wives are for" (pg.53)

I've never played,' said von Igelfeld. 'Nor I,' said Unterholzer. 'Chess, yes. Tennis no.' 'But that's no reason not to play,' von Igelfeld added quickly. 'Tennis, like any activity, can be mastered if one knows the principles behind it. In that respect it must be like language. The understanding of simple rules produces an understanding of a language. What could be simpler?

It occurred to Mma Ramotswe that such behaviour was no more than ignorance; an inability to understand the hopes and aspirations of others. That understanding, thought Mma Ramotswe, was the beginning of all morality. If you knew how a person was feeling, if you could imagine yourself in her position, then surely it would be impossible to inflict further pain. Inflicting pain in such circumstances would be like hurting oneself.

And it was not surprising, perhaps, that he should feel it—this little boy who felt things so deeply; for we all feel that about our friends; we all feel that about those around whom we might put an arm. We all feel that about the darkness into which we go with others and about the very understandable fears that can be so easily dispelled, put to flight, by a simple gesture

Contemplating this vast human suffering, you might be tempted to shrug your shoulders, but you could not.

Alexander McCall Smith

Goodnight, my boy," said the Cardinal. "And God bless." It was a kind thing to say to a dog, and a good thing. Because the least of us, the very least, has the same claim as any other to that love, divine or human, which makes our world, in all its turmoil and pain, easier to comprehend, easier to bear.

Ulf sighed. Why could people not live together in harmony? Why did people think that berating and assaulting others should do anything but make everything worse for everybody?

People believe only in fame and do not understand that there might be among them some Napoleon, who has never commanded a single company of chasseurs, or another Descartes, who has not published a single line in the Moscow Telegraph. However, our respect for fame may well come from vanity: our own voice, too, goes into the making of fame.

Listen, my little peasant

Will I have to use a dictionary to read your book? asked Mrs. Dodypol. It depends, says I, how much you used the dictionary before you read it.

The complexity of language, he thought to himself, lies not in its subject matter but in our knotted understanding.

although he knew very little about American history, or pop culture, he'd fundamentally understood the place, cut to its original wound. "A bit racialist, aren't they?" he'd observed.