Quotes About Understanding

Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own, said Mary. I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.

The very old and the very young have something in common that makes it right that they should be left alone together. Dawn and sunset see stars shining in a blue sky; but morning and midday and afternoon do not, poor things.

Those who have deeply suffered in some particular way are welded together in an understanding incomprehensible to those who have not so suffered.

I love him too and believe he loves me, but does he like me, which is not the same as love?

Because I happen to think that being sensitive is the most valuable form of intelligence there is.

Please remember that just because love isn't expressed doesn't mean it isn't felt.

Still, it was a sad state of the world that people judged others not by the best that they could be but by the worst thought in their own hearts.

You don't know that. You don't know me. No, he conceded. But I want to know you. I want to learn you until the workings of your mind are as familiar to me as I am to myself

But then again, maybe a woman never really knew the men in her life.

It was a strange thing, this feeling of empathy. He'd never experienced it before. He realized that what hurt this woman hurt him as well, that what made her bleed caused a hemorrhage of pain within his soul.

He studied her upturned face for a minute. "Please forgive me. I don't want you to hope. If there were any way—" "I know." She got to her feet. "I even understand." She walked briskly to the door. "I came down to get something for Rebecca. She must be wondering what happened to me.

Can anyone ever know everything about another person?

Books can be the people we never get to meet, ancestors or far neighbors.

So, did you need to hear that? Did you really need to know more?' Xas asked. 'Yes. It's always better to know more.' 'God help you,' Xas said with feeling.

Faith is simply whatever is real to us.

It's the reward of the business (historian), to look history in the eye & say, 'I know who you are. You can't fool me.

Der Glaube ist das, was fuer uns real ist.

Manchmal gibt es kaum etwas Schwierigeres, als zu jemandem zu sprechen, der ueber die Macht des Schweigens verfuegt.

The study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.

Ich verstehe mit achtzig was ich mit siebzig noch nicht verstehen konnte, naemlich dass man am Ende so gut wie allen vergibt, nur sich selbst nicht.

Hay cosas menores, pero aun así muy importantes. No es amable. No sabe cuándo ha de decir algo que consuele y cuándo hay que callar. La historia le importa un pimiento. No tiene ojos grises dulces ni cejas pobladas, ni se sube las mangas hasta los codos. —La miré fijamente, y ahora me miró con valentía decidida—. En suma, el mayor problema de él es que no es tú.

And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away.

Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light. Since then I have known this moment

I understood in a flash that I must keep my mind safe, whatever came next. I believe now that it was not only enormous luck that brought me this understanding the very first day, but also my habit of living closely with my own mind, alone with it while I practiced.