Quotes About Understanding

Speech was only a bag of tricks that fooled you into believing that you could see through the eyes of another being.

In a way it was a relief to be spared the responsibilities that came with a knowledge of the details of another life.

in Bengal it was so easy to know who was who; more often than not, just to hear someone's name would reveal their religion, their caste, their village. Foreigners were, by comparison, so opaque: it was impossible to speculate about them.

Precisamos de um senso de justiça, mas precisamos também de senso comum, de imaginação, de uma capacidade profunda de imaginar o outro, às vezes de nos colocarmos na pele do outro. Precisamos da capacidade racional de nos comprometer e, às vezes, de fazer sacrifícios e concessões. p. 53

Era talvez meu hábito 'profissional' de colocar-me no lugar, ou na pele, dos outros. Isso não significa que sempre justifico esses outros, mas que tenho a capacidade de enxergar seus pontos de vista p. 95.

La vérité est que chacun d'entre nous sait parfaitement ce que signifie la pitié et quel en est le mode d'emploi : nous l'avons tous implorée un jour ou l'autre. Mais au moment où il nous faut ouvrir la porte de la miséricorde, nous faisons comme si nous en avions perdu la clé, comme si avoir un peu de coeur revenait à humilier son prochain ou à manifester une sensiblerie démodée. (p.283)

Por lo que leía en los libros fue llegando a la sencilla conclusión de que la mayoría de las personas necesitan más cariño del que se puede encontrar.

Digo que la semilla del fanatismo siempre brota al adoptar una actitud de superioridad moral que impide llegar a un acuerdo.

Of course you can't understand. All you can do is destroy a village without knowing anything about its people or its history, without wanting to know. Just like that. Like a mad bull. Of course you don't understand. What do you understand? Fucking and killing, that's what you understand. And soccer. And shares in the bus cooperative. You're a wild animal, not a human being. A wild, stupid, animal.

Verzeih mir, guter Freund, dass ich dir einen so langen Brief schreibe, ich hab gerade nicht die Zeit für einen kurzen.

Contending with fanaticism does not mean destroying all fanatics, but rather cautiously handling the little fanatic who hides, more or less, inside each of our souls. It also means ridiculing, just a little, our own convictions; being curious; and trying to take a peek, from time to time, not only through our neighbor's window but, more important, at the reality viewed from that window, which will necessarily be different from the one seen through our own.

Healing begins with your saying these simple words to your adversary, yes, to your enemy: You're hurting, I know. I'm hurting, too. Let's try to find a way.

Cuando crezcas te darás cuenta de que casi todo lo que se oye por la noche puede interpretarse de diversas formas. Y de hecho, no sólo por la noche y no sólo lo que se oye: también lo que se ve, e incluso lo que se ve a plena luz del día, puede casi siempre entenderse de muchas formas.

Nicht seine Lautstärke mach jemanden zum Fanatiker, sondern vor allem seine Toleranz beziehungsweise sein Mangel an Toleranz gegenüber den Stimmen Andersdenkender.

Tento realçar a nossa capacidade de de nos imaginarmos uns aos outros. Façamo-lo a todos os níveis, começando pelo mais quotidiano. Imaginemos o outro quando lutamos, imaginemos o outro quando nos queixamos, imaginemos o outro precisamente quando sentimos que temos cem por cento de razão. Mesmo quando se tem cem por cento de razão e o outro está cem por cento equivocado, continua a ser útil imaginar o outro.

C?s?toria cu cineva care nu îÈ›i înÈ›elege cultura, r?d?cinile, tradiÈ›iile nu va merge.

Anxiety is depression's good friend, and sometimes they party together

What I think, Chatty says, is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.

There's so much I can't read because I get so exasperated. Someone starts describing the character boarding the plane and pulling the seat back. And I just want to say, Babe, I have been downtown. I have been up in a plane. Give me some credit.

I told him about the way they get to know you. Not the way people do, the way they flatter you by wanting to know every last thing about you, only it isn't a compliment, it is just efficient, a person getting more quickly to the end of you. Correction - dogs do want to know every last thing about you. They take in the smell of you, they know from the next room, asleep, when a mood settles over you. The difference is there's not an end to it.

And it was the first time that I believed the claim that you can help a person more by asking them the right question than by giving them the answer.

We keep wanting people to be different.

The striking part of his communication is what he doesn't say, when saying something would make a difference.

When you discover something long after others have known it, there is a heady contentment that comes.