Quotes About Understanding

Religion is not primarily a set of beliefs, a collection of prayers, or a series of rituals. Religion is first and foremost a way of seeing. It can't change the facts about the world we live in, but it can change the way we see those facts, and that in itself can often make a real difference.

One of the basic needs of every human being is the need to be loved, to have our wishes and feelings taken seriously, to be validated as people who matter.

Pain is the price we pay for being alive. Dead cells—our hair, our fingernails—can't feel pain; they cannot feel anything. When we understand that, our question will change from, "Why do we have to feel pain?" to "What do we do with our pain so that it becomes meaningful and not just pointless empty suffering?

That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.

A passion for compassion comes from an awakened heart

If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside.

I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.

Atticus, he was real nice." "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside.

I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place.

Mothers are the most instinctive philosophers.

Could I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?

We never know how we love til we try to unlove!

O, that's what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and never to have any pain,—never suffer anything,—not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, all their lives,—it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to feel about them!

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do

Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.

Please wait,' she said in Spanish, then repeated the words, 'Esperen, por favor,' remembering that the single verb meant both to wait and hope. This extraordinary language, she thought.

To know yourself is to know where you're from

She didn't realise it, for a long time, and it wasn't until they were having dinner one evening that he said something that she found funny and she looked at him and thought, Yes. I know you. I know you

She knew him so well, the amused, detached tone of his voice, the scroll of his ear, his eyes, his bony frame. Someone whom she always wanted in the room, someone who saw the world the same way, and it had always been like that.

Their marriage was based on silence these days. More and more. What they didn't say was everything, and what they did, inconsequential.

We had loads in common but we just didn't see the world in the same way.

To listen with an open heart and ask questions to better help us understand the other person is a spiritual exercise, in the truest sense of the word.

If only our passion to understand others were as great as our passion to be understood. Were this so, all our apologies would be truly meaningful and healing.