Quotes About Understanding

The work of reformers—long, hard, almost unimaginably difficult work—can lead to progress and a broader understanding of who is included in the phrase "We, the People" that opened the Preamble of the Constitution. And that work unfolds still.

Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it," the

There was, of course, a more immediate point to frequent gatherings of lawmakers, diplomats, and cabinet officers at the president's table. It tends to be more difficult to oppose—or at least to vilify—someone with whom you have broken bread and drunk wine. Caricatures crack as courses are served; imagined demonic plots fade with dessert. Jefferson

Leadership, Jefferson was learning, meant knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the larger world.

in the fears and follies of man, but on his reason.…

Where Goldwaterites saw the world in black and white, Rockefeller noted shades of gray.

Under Small's influence Jefferson came to share Immanuel Kant's 1784 definition of the spirit of the era: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity," Kant wrote.21 "Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another.

There was, of course, a more immediate point to frequent gatherings of lawmakers, diplomats, and cabinet officers at the president's table. It tends to be more difficult to oppose—or at least to vilify—someone with whom you have broken bread and drunk wine. Caricatures crack as courses are served; imagined demonic plots fade with dessert.

In Greek, the word for "hate," miseo, is best understood as "loving less" rather than as viewing something with hostility.

It tends to be more difficult to oppose—or at least to vilify—someone with whom you have broken bread and drunk wine. Caricatures

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity," Kant wrote.21 "Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another.

It is a charming thing to be loved by everybody, he told his grandchildren, and the way to obtain it is, never to quarrel or be angry with anybody. He hated arguing face-to-face, preferring to smooth out the rough edges of conversation, leading some people to believe Jefferson agreed with them when, in fact, he was seeking to avoid conflict

Fact is what we can see or discern; truth is the larger significance we extrapolate from those facts.

If you treat people as monuments you limit the capacity to teach. (on Armchair Expert podcast)

If you ever sit here, you will learn that you cannot, just by shouting from the housetops, get what you want all the time.

his other hand. Sensitive to his guest's affliction, Churchill realized that "every step" was

We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives." He

Plenty of philosophical men live in abstract regions, debating types and shadows. The rarer sort is the reader and thinker who can see the world whole.

An apology is supposed to be a communion—a coming together. For someone to make an apology, someone has to be listening. They listen and you speak and there's an exchange. That's why we have a thing about accepting apologies.

So, yeah, the psychopath might cry when his dog dies and you think that's misplaced because he doesn't cry when his daughter dies." I

I didn't want to write a book that advocated for a less curious world. Prurient curiosity may not be great. But curiosity is. People's flaws need to be written about. The flaws of some people lead to horrors inflicted on others. And then there are the more human flaws that, when you shine a light onto them, de-demonize people who might otherwise be seen as ogres.

Please ejaculate, I silently urged the man, so I can go to sleep. (In this way I imagine I was like millions of women before me

That's the psychopath: somebody who doesn't understand what's going on emotionally, but understands that something important has happened." But

Why?" I asked, "What are you looking for?" There was a short silence. And Toto softly said, "I want to see if people like me.