Quotes About Understanding

Empathy is probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one.

We are helpless as babies about this. Whatever we can see and do not understand and must acknowledge, we make over in our own image. The moon, the sea, the prairie — all present insurmountable barriers of distance. We cross them on the craft of egocentricity. We make the moon the marker of time and the dwelling place of desire; the sea the mirror, the bosom; the prairie the breadbasket.

In other words, general set theory is pretty trivial stuff really, but, if you want to be a mathematician, you need some and here it is; read it, absorb it, and forget it.

the understanding is stimulated by the quest of ultimate truth; the will is stirred by basically known truth to choose what is truly good.

Everything's a data point.

Looking back, it is in the understanding of human sexuality, its subversion really, that Barack Obama left his stamp upon the United States. One can hope the stamp is not indelible.

We need to talk with each other, honestly, simply, caringly. We need to learn how to talk about racism without rhetoric (which fans the flames); without attack or intimidation (which separates people from one another).

Einstein believed the truth of a theory is, for certain, borne out by whether it successfully predicts experience. But the relationship between the theory and the experience can only be grasped intuitively.

All the lonely people. Where do they all belong

Unsuccessful investors' greatest weakness is not understanding their financial situations and how stocks fit in. Often, I counsel people to stay out of the stock market if they aren't prepared for the responsibilities of stock investing, such as regularly reviewing the financial statements and progress of the companies they invest in.

Flower in the Crannied Wall Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.

And when they start talking, and they always do, you find that each of them has a story they want to tell. Everyone, no matter how old or young, has some lesson they want to teach. And I sit there and listen and learn all about life from people who have no idea how to live it.

It's like someone who prays every night saying God's a good listener. Just because you're talking to us doesn't mean we're listening. With me and God, you never really know.

Mockery when done without prejudice or discretion, can be a form of respect. It's the closest we'll ever come to true equality.

I'd never actually talked to a deaf person before but I'd been swimming and gotten water stuck in my ears lots of times, felt that underwater silence as I shook my head and watched people's mouths moving without hearing the words, so I knew what it was like for her. I could empathize.

By the time you've figured out how the world works, you've already lost about everything you've hope to keep.

By the time you figure out how the world really works, you've already lost about everything you'd hope to keep

A good stock of examples, as large as possible, is indispensable for a thorough understanding of any concept, and when I want to learn something new, I make it my first job to build one.

Choose tactics that are simple and safe to execute and will ensure the greatest chance of survival for your men. We do a dangerous job, and the team needs to understand this.

Man is this plural and collective unity in which the unity of destination and the differences of destinies are to be understood through each other.

The dictionary contains no metaphors.

Nous devons devenir capables d'échanger nos mémoires nationales ou ethniques et d'exercer les uns à l'égard des autres à la fois la volonté de ne pas oublier et celle de pardonner, c'est-à-dire de libérer la mémoire des autres de sa charge de culpabilité

The most crucial prerequisite for any couple's longevity is to have both partners unequivocally accept, as a baseline, that the person they love is insane and has no morals.

If anybody tried to threaten me I would simply look him in the eye and ask him in a firm but friendly voice, "Why?" The bully would have no choice but to engage me verbally, and this made violence next to impossible. I learned that it is very difficult to fight someone with whom you are already talking.