Quotes About Understanding

Most research, I think, can only suggest, or point toward, an insight of some kind.

If I'm trying to explain something and you don't follow me, it's not simply your job to catch up. It's my job to slow down. This is at the heart of communicating: If I tell you something without making sure you got it, did I really communicate anything? Was I talking to you, or was I just making noises? In the mirror exercise, is the leader enabling the follower to follow, or is he just waving his arms?

It's being so aware of the other person that, even if you have your back to them, you're observing them. It's letting everything about them affect you; not just their words, but also their tone of voice, their body language, even subtle things like where they're standing in the room or how they occupy a chair. Relating is letting all that seep into you and have an effect on how you respond to the other person.

I took a bold step and stopped reading the scientists' research papers before I met with them. I would come in armed only with curiosity and my own natural ignorance. I was learning the value of bringing my ignorance to the surface. The scientists could see exactly how much I already understood, and they could start there.

Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.

Real conversation can't happen if listening is just my waiting for you to finish talking.

Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I'm willing to let them change me, something happens between us that's more interesting than monologues. Like so much of what I learned in the theater, this turned out how life works, too.

You picture an audience and think, What are they already aware of? Where should I start? How deep should I go? What are they actually eager to know? If I start too far in, will I be using concepts they don't really understand?

Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.

Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you.

Communication doesn't take place because you tell somebody something. It takes place when you observe them closely and track their ability to follow you. Like

Sometimes, being willing to see the other person means you have to be willing to let them see you.

Jean Paul Sartre says in "No Exit" that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.

Pooh went into a corner and tried saying 'Aha!' in that sort of voice. Sometimes it seemed to him that it did mean what Rabbit said, and sometimes it seemed to him that it didn't. "I suppose it's just practice," he thought. "I wonder if Kanga will have to practise too so as to understand it.

Well, if you listen, Piglet, you'll hear it." "How do you know I'm not listening?" Pooh couldn't answer that one, so he began to sing.

I haven't seen anybody to-day," said Pooh, "not so as to say 'Hallo, Small!' to. Did you want him for anything?" "I don't want him," said Rabbit. "But it's always useful to know where a friend-and-relation is, whether you want him or whether you don't.

Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.

What I've learned about teaching is to refer back to the root of that word, which is educo, which means "to pull from." Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us; to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves.

To truly understand and appreciate music, you need to understand economics.

But God, whatever else He is, and of course He is everything else, is not a fool.

He is interested in the feelings of the squash ball, and of the champagne bottle that launches the ship. In a football match his sympathy is not with either of the teams but with the ball, or, in a match ending nil-nil, with the hunger of the goalmouth.

One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.

Homo logicus are driven by an irresistible desire to understand how things work. By contrast, Homo sapiens have a strong desire for success. Programmers also want to succeed, but they will frequently accept failure as the price to pay for understanding.

People don't need to know all the details of how a complex mechanism actually works in order to use it, so they create a cognitive shorthand for explaining it. This explanation is powerful enough to cover their interactions with it but doesn't necessarily reflect its actual inner mechanics.