Quotes About Understanding

For Our Purposes, I define reading as looking at printed words and getting enough meaning from them to satisfy your purpose.

Before we can progress in providing answers . . . we have to repent of our questions.

The way Dad's face changes. The darkness. The words. The news that tells me what has just happened in a place at the bottom of the world. What does "crevasse" mean? I am shouting now. Screaming. WHAT DOES "CREVASSE" MEAN? I wanted it to go away. Every part of me, every nerve in my brain, was trying to dull the image, to shove it away, make it disappear.

In fact, most great investors I know (Warren Buffett, for starters) are technophobes. They don't own what they don't understand, and neither do I.

Advocacy without inquiry begets more advocacy.

Do we meet each person curious about the miracle of a human being that we are about to connect with? Or do we meet a poor person that we are about to help?

I would suggest that the fundamental "information problem" faced by managers is not too little information but too much information. What we most need are ways to know what is important and what is not important, what variables to focus on and which to pay less attention to—and we need ways to do this that can help groups or teams develop shared understanding.

The purpose of dialogue," Bohm suggests, "is to reveal the incoherence in our thought." There are three types of incoherence.

For example,when a conflict surfaces in a dialogue people are likely to realize that there is a tension, but the tension arises, literally, from our thoughts. People will say, "It is our thoughts and the way we hold on to them that are in conflict, not us.

love is the only emotion that expands intelligence

When our actions have consequences beyond our learning horizon, it becomes impossible to learn from direct experience.

One of the deepest desires underlying shared vision is the desire to be connected, to a larger purpose and to one another. The spirit of connection is fragile. It is undermined whenever we lose our respect for one another and for each other's views. We then split into insiders and outsiders—those who are "true believers" in the vision and those who are not.

most of the problems faced by humankind concerns [concerned] our inability to grasp and manage the increasingly complex systems of our world.

If one member of a team sees a problem more systemically than others, that person's insight will get reliably discounted—if for no other reason than the intrinsic biases toward linear views in our normal everyday language.

The more you learn, the more acutely aware you become of your ignorance

Huntin too hard for the truth ain't a good idea, y'know," he added. "By the time you stumble over it, it ain't the truth no more. Unless there's death in it. I reckon death is about as close to truth as a man can come.

All animals and wayfarers are Tukten's friends, and listen to him carefully, yet he rarely speaks except when spoken to, and never seems to speak too much; without obtruding, he becomes the centre of each situation, so naturally does he belong where the moment finds him.

Man wants the truth about Ed Watson," Daniels jeered. "Where you aim to find it? Smallwoods'll tell you their truth, Hardens'll tell you theirs. Fat-ass guard out there, he'll tell you his and I'll give you another. Which one you aim to settle for and make your peace with?

Mistaking Lucius's silence for acquiescence, he pointed a hard finger at his eyes. "Maybe nobody don't need this truth you're lookin for, ever think about that?

In this very breath that we now take Lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us.

The absurdity of a life that may well end before one understands it does not relieve one of the duty (to that self which is inseparable from others) to live it through as bravely and as generously as possible.

I think what we are feeling in this place is much too large for one simple soul to understand, too powerful.

She was one of those rare girls that you just felt you wanted to be always happy, even if you weren't going to be the source of that happiness.

I can't say I understand any of it, myself,' said Banks. 'Me, neither,' said Gerry.