Quotes About Understanding

If only men were like New York taxi-cabs and had a light that they can switch on when they're interested and off when they're not available. Then you'd know exactly where you were and you wouldn't have to worry about getting it wrong and being horribly embarrassed. --- Lucy

listening can be more powerful than talking.

And suddenly it hits me. Our roles have completely reversed.It's no longer me giving my younger self advice; it's her giving me advice. And I'm fast realising that actually I don't know better at all. About some things, yes - I glance at that terrible silver eyeshadow - but not about everything, far from it.

They don't do it to be cruel. Quite the opposite. I've found friends and acquaintances keep their distance because they don't want to upset you or say the wrong thing. What they don't realize is you're already upset beyond anything they could ever say or do. It's their silence that upsets you. You feel isolated. Abandoned.

the people who matter will see you, no matter what.

And in that moment, I know I will love him forever for doing that. Not love in the romantic sense, but love in the true, deep sense of the word. Without even being asked, he's driven through the night to be here for me. So I can lean on him when I need to lean on someone the most in my life. In the most desperate of times. When I thought I was alone. He was here. Waiting for me. And if that's not real love, I don't know what is.

I'm not saying this to be trite or to make you feel better, but believe me when I say this: the people who matter will see you, no matter what.

I've found friends and acquaintances keep their distance because they don't want to upset you or say the wrong thing. What they don't realize is you're already upset beyond anything they could ever say or do. It's their silence that upsets you. You feel isolated. Abandoned.

Happy is the best way to be because then you can let other people be happy, too. Their own way.

Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything. GOETHE

There is only one true heroism, and that is to know the world as it is and to love it. The great people of history, certainly the spiritually great, give evidence of this ability. HUGH DOWNS W

The supreme good—to examine everything—a life which was not devoted to such research would not be worth living. Happiness would thus consist in their never-ending quest. PLATO

Still, I believed I understood. Or maybe I just put it in a context I could safely manage.

He had never been able to find any technique to handle that quality in her. Sometimes she acquiesced immediately to his requests, but on other occasions she refused them flatly and he could not reverse her. It never occurred to Lane that his wife sometimes concluded he was right and sometimes wrong. To Lane, it was approach not content that moved the world. He

Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.

Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.

If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it.

In any case, I hadn't gone into the subject of dorm living too deeply with him, not because I hesitated to probe his tender spots but because I would have been probing my own. This is called tact, and is reputed to be a virtue.

Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for comprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized knowledge.

All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.

This was why. So that she would become conscious.

An old dream is dead but a new one is being born, as a tree that pushes through the solid ground to recede. A new strength, born of pain and suffering, is pulsating in the veins and a new empathy and understanding is being born of past suffering.

We are all stupid. The smartest person is just a little less stupid than the rest of us.

Whatever is decoded dies