Quotes About Understanding

We do not need to choose between them. Our understanding of Jesus' significance is richer if we see and affirm both the historical Jesus and the canonical Jesus. Both the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus are the image of the invisible God. Both disclose what God is like.

The notion that there was one "right" way of seeing things disappeared. This was enormously liberating, even if a bit alarming. But my curiosity was greater than my fear.

The way of seeing and reading the Bible that I describe in the rest of this book leads to a way of being Christian that has very little to do with believing. Instead, what will emerge is a relational and sacramental understanding of the Christian life.

spoke of the coming of the kingdom of God, he meant that "the end" was at hand. In the near future, God would dramatically intervene in the world, bring ordinary history to a close, and establish the everlasting kingdom. Scholarly opinion about this has changed in the last twenty years or so. Along with probably a majority of contemporary scholars, both Tom and I (for somewhat different reasons) reject this understanding.51

how we see reality and our ability to trust are connected to each other.

a friend is a second self

We must not only obtain Wisdom: we must enjoy her.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

n the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self......

Utinam tam facile vera invenire possim quam falsa convincere.

And so—it can't be repeated often enough—you should love after you have judged, not judge after you have loved.

Respiraro, si te videro.

Let the soldier yield to the civilian

Age nunc, refer animum, sis, ad veritatem, [...].

the rational treatment of any subject ought to take its start from definition, that readers may understand what the author is writing about.

it is by no means surprising that though we are first commended to Wisdom by the primary natural instincts, afterwards Wisdom itself becomes dearer to us than are the instincts from which we came to her.

Metaphor is a way of thought long before it is a way with words.

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

And she finds it difficult to believe—that a person would love her even when she isn't trying. Trying to figure out what other people need, trying to be worthy.

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

Knowing was a temptation. What you don't know won't tempt you.