Quotes About Understanding

And so, in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge.

Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer?

It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them—and then they leap.

The word isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?

I thought I knew not only her habits but also her limits. This display of ferocity, of savage courage, made me realize that I was wrong. All my life I had known only a part of her.

A világ nem egyszer?en olyan, amilyen. Olyan, amilyennek felfogjuk, nem? S azzal, hogy valamit felfogunk, valamit hozzá is teszünk, nem igaz? Nem válik-e ettÅ'l történetté az élet is?

I can't understand how a man who seems never to read imaginative writing of any kind (novels, poetry, short stories, high-brow, middle-brow, low-brow, anything) can understand life, people, the world. I don't care if ordinary people read or not. It's not for me to say how people should live. But people who have power over me? I want them to read because their limited, impoverished dreams may become my nightmares.

The guttural eruptions and long flowing vowels rolled just beneath my comprehension like a beautiful brook. I gazed into this brook for long spells of time. It was not wide, just one man's voice, but it was as deep as the universe.

The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? (p. 302)

An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose.

You see, Kenny, there are some things you don't even know you know, until you're asked.

Someone has to ask you a question," George continues meaningly, "before you can answer it. But it's so seldom you find anyone who'll ask the right questions. Most people aren't that much interested....

God's revelation was not a mystic secret for the initiated, but a light to guide every member of God's community.

So then, we must not read Lamentations without the rest of the Bible. But equally, we should not read the rest of the Bible without Lamentations (as Christians have habitually tended to do).

Kids had made fun of him in elementary school because his father wanted him to be literate, not just functionally literate, or 'iconerate,' the new term for those who went through life using only symbols and key words for written communication.

Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize.

The world does not exist merely to satisfy our own desires; it is a world in which we can find pleasure and meaning, once we understand that others too have a right to these goods.

And he who is forever talking about enemies / Is himself the enemy!

The wise person is the one who knows all things in compliance with what is fitting.

Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon... what it means to you.

the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

to the tarahumara, asking direct questions is a show of force, a demand for a possession inside their head.

Patience and kindness don't show up on demand; they're disciplines that require constant practice, and there is no better boot camp for learning those skills than hitching your survival to your ability to discern—and respect—the needs of another creature

True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn't about strength, or boldness, or even courage. It's about compassion.