Quotes About Understanding

To understand everything is to love nothing

That's what's this is.

biographical information needs to be understood within its immediate context, not through the bias of another cultural moment.

If we understood it, the silence of Christ is the most eloquent of all appeals. Can you remember when you used to hear Him—when the words of the Book and the preacher used to move you in church, when the singing awoke aspiration, when the Sabbath was holy ground, when the Spirit of God strove with you? And is that all passed of passing away?

What the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow

It is by love alone that we understand anything

Fear cannot be where knowledge is

Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage.

The noblest study of mankind is Man, says Man.

People who do not understand pigeons?and pigeons can be understood only when you understand that there is nothing to understand about them?should not go around describing pigeons or the effect of pigeons.

Let us not go back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

You caught only glimpses of Ross, even if you spent a long evening with him.

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from and to and why.

The language of Homer lay still further off. Imagine a twenty-first-century Texan reading Chaucer.

Once you have learned how to ask questions—relevant and appropriate and substantial questions—you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know. —NEIL POSTMAN AND CHARLES WEINGARTNER2

History through red eyes offers our children a deeper understanding than comes from encountering the past as a story of inevitable triumph by the good guys.

Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8

Not understanding their past renders many Americans incapable of thinking effectively about our present and future.

Our goal must be to help students uncover the past rather than cover it. Instead of "teaching the book," teachers must develop a list of 30–50 topics they want to teach in their U.S. history course. Every topic should excite or at least interest them. What meaning might it have to students' lives?

Indian history is the antidote to the pious ethnocentrism of American exceptionalism, the notion that European Americans are God's chosen people. Indian history reveals that the United States and its predecessor British colonies have wrought great harm in the world. We must not forget this—not to wallow in our wrongdoing, but to understand and to learn, that we might not wreak harm again.

The Truth can set us free.

It would be better not to know so many things than to know so many things that are not so. -Josh Billings

To end our segregated neighborhoods and towns requires a leap of the imagination: Americans have to understand that white racism is still a problem in the United States. This isn't always easy. Most white Americans do not see racism as a problem in their neighborhood. We need to know about sundown towns to know what to do about them.

We must not forget this—not to wallow in our wrongdoing, but to understand and to learn, that we might not wreak harm again. We must temper our national pride with critical self-knowledge