Quotes About Misinterpretation

Like the saying goes: They passed out the brains, he thought they said trains and he missed his.

Why we should believe in wolf children seems somehow easier to understand than the ways we distinguish between what is human and what is animal behavior. In making such distinctions we run the risk of fooling ourselves completely. We assume that the animal is entirely comprehensible and, as Henry Beston has said, has taken form on a plane beneath the one we occupy. It seems to me that this is a sure way to miss the animal and to see, instead, only another reflection of our own ideas.

The idea of the rapture has not been taken from the Bible; it has been read into the Bible.

Ezekiel 37, a passage frequently misread by people who think the prophet is discussing the future resurrection of individuals at the end of time. He is not. He is explicitly referring to the restoration of the nation of Judah after its destruction.

The spectacular incident of the stones serves as a kind of red herring in this respect. Many researchers have adopted the erroneous belief that where there has been one incident, there must be others. To offer another analogy, this is like dispatching a crew of meteor watchers to Crater National Park because a huge asteroid struck there two million years ago.

Take the first clue that he is backing off as an indication that something could be seriously wrong. Although your first instinct is to move closer, the more appropriate action is to move away. Know that your reassurance and acceptance will not alleviate his problem. Quite the opposite, it may be causing the problem. So don't work at being extra-giving, loving, attentive, etc. It's the wrong reaction.

There is a difference between correlation and causation - many people mistake one for the other.

There is no greater abuse of the Bible than to proclaim in God's name what God is not saying.

They mistook the smoke for the fire.

one should not confuse clarity with condescension.

There is a maddening phenomenon of social dynamics variously called pluralistic ignorance, the spiral of silence, and the Abilene paradox, after an anecdote in which a Texan family takes an unpleasant trip to Abilene one hot afternoon because each member thinks the others want to go.274 People may endorse a practice or opinion they deplore because they mistakenly think that everyone else favors it.

I think my passion is misinterpreted as anger sometimes. And I don't think people are ready for the message that I'm delivering, and delivering with a sense of violent love.

I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we're a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn't being ironic.

Ese árbol que ves allí —me dijo, señalando un eucalipto— es un cedro.

Ang mga henyong ipinapalagay ng mga karaniwang tao na nauna sa kanilang panahon ay nagmistulang gayon sapagkat tinatanaw ng mga humahatol mula sa malayo o napagkakamalang isang buong siglo ang buntot na tinatahak ng mga naiwanan.

As it turns out, what looks like science sometimes is not.

People believe that madness is when you don't think as they do, which is why they take me for a madman." -Old Tasio

earth shall err concerning them, and they shall be altered from all their ways, they shall err and take them to be gods.

Words, as is well known, are great foes of reality

And I apparently take this as my cue to shove my foot even further into my mouth.

It is not new nor disastrous that few people read classics. It is new that so many people misread them.

What brothers say to tease their sisters has nothing to do with what they really think of them.

The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.

It is foolish to hold against me remarks that I never made.