Quotes About Misinterpretation

that much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of these kinds of lopsided conflicts, because the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty. And second, that we consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong. We misread them. We misinterpret them. Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear

The first is that much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of these kinds of lopsided conflicts, because the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty. And second, that we consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong. We misread them. We misinterpret them. Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.

The participants in all conditions grossly overestimated their surprise expressivity," Schützwohl wrote. Why? They "inferred their likely facial expressions to the surprising event from…folk-psychological beliefs about emotion-face associations." Folk psychology is the kind of crude psychology we glean from cultural sources such as sitcoms.

what we think of as an advantage and as a disadvantage is not always correct, that we mix the categories up.

the least about him personally. The people who were wrong about Hitler were the ones who had talked with him for hours. This could all be a coincidence, of course. Perhaps Chamberlain and his cohort, for whatever private reason, were determined to see the Hitler they wanted to see, regardless of the evidence of their eyes and ears. Except that the same puzzling pattern crops up everywhere.

Not everyone understand everything.

It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each others meaning.

We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.

Of cicadas, she would say that they looked like dead leaves fluttering, felt like paper crackling, sounded like fire roaring, smelled like dust rising, and tasted like the devil frying in oil.... You see, in five ways she could sense the world... But it was always the sixth way, her ... sense of importance, that later caused troubles between us. Because her senses led to opinions, and her opinions led to conclusions, and sometimes they were different from mine.

She already loved me too much to see me as I was.

Those who complimented me were those who understood me the least.

No one has ever asked them to translate a sentence from Carson McCullers (In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together) into German (In der Stadt gab es zwei Stumme, und sie waren immer zusammen) and pass it around the room, retranslating as they go, until it comes out as playground gibberish: In the bar there were two potatoes together, and they were trouble.

Millie snapped. "Are you saying I'm an old wife?" "I'd better shut my trap before I fall into yours.

This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Whatever else you were about to say, don't. Don't look at me all calf-eyed. Don't nurse any romantic options about me just because I told you that you're pretty or related a sob story about some old horse. - Lee Coburn

Having evidence of being wronged does not stop you from being judged as in the wrong.

He stands up, slowly, and puts his hands on the zipper of his jeans, where I notice there's a bulge that looks like someone stuck a cucumber in his pants. That can be his...thing, can it? He undoes the button then his fly and then slides his jeans down. He's wearing those tight boxer-briefs things, like that guy in the Calvin Klein commercial, and I realize, it's definitely not a cucumber.

So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole.

This is a 911? You know you only text that when someone is dead or dying. You scared the crap out of me.

I think we — well, I — messed up the story.

My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve.

All extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane.

Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchman. They translate into their own language whatever is said to them and forthwith the thing is utterly changed.