Quotes About Understanding

Because he loved true things he tried to explain.

One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards.

Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom.

In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.

Only once or twice in her life had she ever understood all of him, but the part of him which she knew, she knew intricately and well. No little appetite or pain, no carelessness or meanness in him escaped her; no thought or dream or longing in him ever reached her. And yet several times in her life she had seen the stars.

I want to see the whole picture - as nearly as I can. I don't want to put on the blinders of 'good' and 'bad', and limit my vision. If I used the term 'good' on a thing I'd lose my license to inspect it, because there might be bad in it. Don't you see? I want to be able to look at the whole thing.

They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyay. Kino sighed with satisfaction -- and that was conversation.

Misfortune is a fact of nature acceptable to women, especially when it falls on other women.

That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.

I ain't gonna try to teach 'em nothin'. I'm gonna try to learn.

The medical profession is unconsciously irritated by lay knowledge.

It seems to me that man has engaged in a blind and fearful struggle out of a past he can't remember, into a future he can't foresee nor understand. And man has met and defeated every obstacle, every enemy except one. He cannot win over himself. How mankind hates himself.

It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when they do not fit and draw new ones.

Nobody knows. What good's an opinion if you don't know? My grandfather knew the number of whiskers in the Almighty's beard. I don't even know what happened yesterday, let alone tomorrow. He knew what it was that makes a rock or table. I don't even understand the formula that says nobody knows. We've got nothing to go on -- got no way to think about things.

Guy knows all about women he don't know nothing about a woman.

Charles had more respect for Adam after he knew about the prison. He felt the warmth for his brother you can feel only for one who is not perfect and therefore no target for your hatred.

I'm gonna try to learn. Gonna learn why folks walk in the grass, gonna hear 'em talk, gonna hear 'em sing. Gonna listen to kids eatin' mush. Gonna hear husban' an' wife a-poundin' the mattress in the night. Gonna eat with 'em an' learn. Gonna lay in the grass, open an' honest with anybody that'll have me. Gonna cuss an' swear an' hear the poetry of folks talkin'. All that's holy, all that's what I didn't understan'. All them things is good things.

The weight of knowledge is too great for one mind to absorb.

You must name a thing before you can note it on your hand drawn map.

Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Mary-do you hear? Who are you in there?

They fell into a silence. They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.

Yeah," said George. "I'll come. But listen, Curley. The poor bastard's nuts. Don't shoot 'im. He di'n't know what he was doin'.

You keep out of my bed," said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat in a chair and crossed his knees had an appearance of permanence.

Things that happen are of no importance. But from everything that happens, there is a lesson to be learned.