Quotes About Understanding

The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.

For the first time in my life the beautiful story made clear sense. I began to cry, overwhelmed by the emotion. For many years the Bible had been a mystery to me, but now it was an open book. This was the clincher: how could I suddenly understand the Bible when I never could before? How often had I picked it up and put it down because I couldn't make heads or tails of what it was all about? But with the Holy Spirit as my interpreter, the meanings were obvious.

The more the words of others impressed him with their factual content, the more he felt he must wait for his own facts before being tempted into words.

I don't pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you'd imagine. I'm interested in other people's experiences and inconsistencies, and, though I can't explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.

Fives feel so close to their mothers that they sometimes overestimate her ability to read their minds. They are often quick and a little impatient and don't always give all the necessary clues as to what they are talking about. Then they tend to be quite angry if she doesn't pick up on their story at once. It takes a quick wit to be a mother.

Avoid getting all upset by your child's demands and rigidities. Try to see these behaviors not as badness or rebellion but rather as immaturity. Try to appreciate the wonder and complexity of growing behavior, even when it makes trouble for you.

Eight-year-olds are quite normally all mixed up with their mothers. The mother-child relationship at this age is one of the strongest, deepest, most demanding, and yet most tangled to date.

Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves.

And what's the use of talking, if you already know that others don't feel what you feel?

In writing the history of a life I believe absolutely that the reader cannot understand the character and deeds of the subject unless he is given a basic understanding of that person's sexual loves and hates and conflicts. It is the only way the reader can make sense out of innumerable apparently senseless actions.

He understood my passion for books, which has made me perhaps the best-read idiot in the world.

An anti-racist person is on a life-long journey that includes forming new understanding of and ways to live her or his racial identity and then increasing commitment to and engagement in anti-racism actions

I think the difficulty with people who can't follow printed directions for knitting or anything else is that they try to understand them. They read the whole thing through and it doesn't make sense to them, so they start with a defeatist attitude.

One of the most important parts of education is learning to get along with other people.

You don't have to understand directions. All you have to do is follow them; and you can follow them only one step at a time. What you need is not intelligence, but a blind faith.

I like to know what my friends are thinking and feeling. If too long a time elapses without my checking up on these things, I find that where once was a friend there is now a pleasant stranger.

Every woman occasionally wonders what manner of man she has married. No matter how long she has been living with her husband, once in a while he presents a new face. It's the bunk about women being enigmas and men being just transparent little boys at heart. Or else I'm gullible.

Before my daughter was lost to me, I might have attributed his apparent stillness and control to a lack of feeling, but now I know, to my cost, that appearing unfeeling is the price we sometimes pay for being able to speak at all.

Relationships are about stories, not truth.

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.

I prefer to have some beliefs that don't make logical sense.

The only time I see the truth is when I cross my eyes.

To know how to love and to be loved, that is the treasure which makes you and those who know you so happy.

THERE IS MORE TO THIS THING OF LOVE THAN MEETS THE EYE. I AM GOING TO HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THIS A GREAT DEAL BUT I DON'T THINK IT WILL GET ME ANYWHERE. I THINK MAYBE THEY'RE ALL RIGHT WHEN THEY SAY THERE ARE DOME THINGS I WON'T KNOW ABOUT UNTIL I'M OLDER.