Quotes About Comprehension

John lowered the book he'd been reading. Im sorry. Were you speaking to me? I know you were listening, I said in disgust, taking the book from him and tossing it over the side of the bed. You couldn't possibly have been reading that. You were holding it upside down.

How do you know that, Philo, dear? But Philologos had had enough of being condescended to. Because, Lamion, I am not as dumb as you think I am, even if you are. By the time Lamion had parsed this to make sure that there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm.

The Attolian waited, far and away the best non-speaker I think I have ever known.

Servants, in my experience, always know everything.

It would be about one of life's most reliable disappointments, which is that your audience, no matter how small, is always bigger than those who actually understand what you're saying.

We know more than we can tell.

No eye may see dispassionately. There is no comprehension at a glance. Only the recognition of damsel, horse or fly and the assumption of damsel, horse or fly; and so with dreams and beyond, for what haunts the heart will, when it is found, leap foremost, blinding the eye and leaving the main of Life in darkness.

If I do not speak in a language that can be understood there is little chance for a dialogue.

I came to theory because I was hurting—the pain within me was so intense that I could not go on living. I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend—to grasp what was happening around and within me. Most importantly, I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing.

the possession of a term does not bring a process or a practice into being; concurrently one may practice theorizing without ever knowing/possessing the term.

There is always something more to be said, and it is always so difficult to turn up the splice neatly at the edges.

By reading so much, my vocabulary automatically improved along with my comprehension.

Anyone who writes a law that cannot be easily understood by an average citizen is not worthy of leadership. The Constitution, which was written by extremely learned men, is quite easy to understand and should serve as a gold standard for the language and size of subsequent legislation that is introduced.

Matlock knew he should understand what that meant. He knew he should be able to work out what 'straight' meant when referring to a woman who was biologically male. He took a guess.

But these are only words and probably convey only a fraction of their meaning to the hearers. They shudder and it is forgotten.

If a man can't remember the laws," Ragnar said, "then he's got too many of them.

Il y a deux sortes de savants : les spécialistes, qui connaissent tout sur rien, et les philosophes, qui ne connaissent rien sur tout.

On ne peut pas expliquer le goût salé à quelq'un qui ne connaît que le sucré.

We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?

Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers.

Knowledge, as opposed to fantasies of wish fulfilment, is difficult to come by.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.