Quotes About Understanding

53. Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.

27. How cruel—to forbid people to want what they think is good for them. And yet that's just what you won't let them do when you get angry at their misbehavior. They're drawn toward what they think is good for them. —But it's not good for them. Then show them that. Prove it to them. Instead of losing your temper.

Look in, let not either the proper quality, or the true worth of anything pass thee, before thou hast fully apprehended it.

All men are made one for another: either then teach them better, or bear with them.

What is "eternal" fame? Emptiness. Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.

When faced with people's bad behavior, turn around and ask when you have acted like that. When you saw money as a good, or pleasure, or social position. Your anger will subside as soon as you recognize that they acted under compulsion (what else could they do?)

ever ready to do good, and to forgive

LII. To them that are sick of the jaundice, honey seems bitter; and to them that are bitten by a mad dog, the water terrible; and to children, a little ball seems a fine thing. And why then should I be angry? or do I think that error and false opinion is less powerful to make men transgress, than either choler, being immoderate and excessive, to cause the jaundice; or poison, to cause rage?

A man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgement on another's acts.

No malogres la parte de vida que te queda en averiguar vidas ajenas, a no ser que te propongas algún fin útil a la comunidad.

To pierce and penetrate into the estate of every one's understanding that thou hast to do with: as also to make the estate of thine own open, and penetrable to any other.

To them that are sick of the jaundice, honey seems bitter; and to them that are bitten by a mad dog, the water terrible; and to children, a little ball seems a fine thing. And why then should I be angry? or do I think that error and false opinion is less powerful to make men transgress, than either choler, being immoderate and excessive, to cause the jaundice; or poison, to cause rage?

Not to shrug off a friend's resentment—even unjustified resentment—but try to put things right.

Si la ciudad se perjudica no hay que irritarse con quien la perjudica, por el contrario hay que señalarle qué es lo que le pasó desapercibido.

To feel affection for people even when they make mistakes is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they're human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you'll both be dead before long.

Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

Where is the harm or surprise in the ignorant behaving as the ignorant do?

Failure to read what is happening in another's soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend to the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy.

Medita en los principios rectores de otros[260], de qué huyen y qué persiguen.

It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before.

When someone wrongs you, ask yourself: What made him do it? Once you understand his concept of good and evil, you'll feel sorry for him and cease to either be amazed or angry. If his concept is similar to yours, then you will be bound to forgive him since you would have acted as he did in similar circumstances. But if you do not share his ideas of good and evil, then you should find it even easier to overlook the wrongs of someone who is confused and in a moral muddle.

One thing, if any, might have held you back and bound you to life; the chance of fellowship with kindred minds.

As the senses naturally belong to the body, and the desires and affections to the soul, so do the dogmata to the understanding.

If he be a stranger in the world, that knows not the things that are in it; why not be a stranger as well, that wonders at the the things that are done in it?