People Misunderstanding Quotes & Sayings

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave. — Louis Kronenberger

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other. — L.M. Montgomery

There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding, above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have. — Ian McEwan

Say your boss has been taking longer than usual to respond to your e-mails. Many people would take that as a sign that their star is falling because if your star is falling, the chances are high that your boss will respond to your e-mails more slowly than before. But your boss might be slower in responding because she is unusually busy or her mother is ill. And so the chances that your star is falling if she is taking longer to respond are much lower than the chances that your boss will respond more slowly if your star is falling. The appeal of many conspiracy theories depends on the misunderstanding of this logic. That is, it depends on confusing the probability that a series of events would happen if it were the product of a huge conspiracy with the probability that a huge conspiracy exists if a series of events occurs. The effect on the probability that an event will occur if or given that other events occur is what Bayes's theory is all about. To — Leonard Mlodinow

We're a group of people whose misunderstanding of each other is only topped by people's misunderstanding of us. — Thea Hillman

Death is the most misunderstood phenomenon. People have thought of death as the end of life. That is the first, basic misunderstanding. — Rajneesh

Understanding has no cost, yet, it is too expensive for some people to purchase — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I just want to be able to live my share of existence without being obliged to detract from the existence of others. I don't belive in prophecies that favor suffering over common sense. I came naked into the world, I'll leave it naked, what I possess doesn't belong to me, and neither do other people's lives. All human unhappiness comes from this misunderstanding. You have to be prepared to give back what God has loaned you. No earthly thing belongs to you, not really. Neither the homeland you talk about nor the grave where you'll be dust among the dust. — Yasmina Khadra

Nicholas says that magic isn't inherently good or bad, it's what people do with it that makes it that way. It took me a long time to understand that. Once I did, I realized it isn't magic that separates us from them, or you from me. It's misunderstanding. — Virginia Boecker

Funny how ye tell people a story to make a point and ye fail, ye fail, a total disaster. Not only do ye no make yer point it winds up the exact fucking opposite man, the exact fucking opposite. That isnay a misunderstanding it's a total
whatever. — James Kelman

They spoke politely and with deference to the adults, whereas it went against my nature not to speak plainly. To many people speaking plainly is the same as speaking rudely. Whereas to me, if one was direct, it saved time and misunderstanding. — Theresa Breslin

We have nearly complete misunderstanding between people of different faiths in Lake Wobegon, and that's probably one reason why we get along so very well. It's when you are trying to convince another person to think the same way that you do that there is friction and trouble between people. But when you feel that the other person is dumber than dirt, too dumb for words - why waste your breath - you get along pretty well. There's no bond between people that's quite so strong as when people each feel slightly superior towards the other one. — Garrison Keillor

show simply facilitates a crossing of paths between people who love each other very much, but who've become estranged by misunderstanding." "But how can you gauge that? I mean, whether or not a, um, Convergence is a good idea?" "Well," said Sashi. "Essentially, I talk to you, and then my colleagues will conduct a number of conversations with Lorelei, both on-screen and off. And with anyone else who's relevant and wants to participate in the healing. Then we make a decision. We would — Caeli Wolfson Widger

So the Lincoln movie gets trashed because Connecticut voted for the amendment - not to mention how the people in Connecticut feel - but there's a lot of that. And I think it precedes from a fundamental misunderstanding of cinema. They are entertainment. And I'd like to say that entertainment isn't a synonym for disposable or mindless or stupid. Hamlet? Pretty entertaining from where I come from. — Nicholas Meyer

That is definitely a misunderstanding between me and a part of my audience. To be honest, I am often unsettled by the responses some people have had to my movies, and that includes many people who like them. — Todd Solondz

What's a pandemonium?" whispered one of the men in the rear.
"It's like a calliope," answered a companion. "I heard one played at the Harmony Fair last summer, when I went there to see my sister's boy play his organ."
"His what?"
"His organ."
"Lord. People pay money to see things like that? — Tim Powers

It does grieve me to think there are people misunderstanding my heart on an issue. — Kirk Cameron

Many well-meaning Dutch people have told me in all earnestness that nothing in Islamic culture incites abuse of women, that this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Men all over the world beat their women, I am constantly informed. In reality, these Westerners are the ones who misunderstand Islam. The Quaran mandates these punishments. It gives a legitimate basis for abuse, so that the perpetrators feel no shame and are not hounded by their conscience of their community. I wanted my art exhibit to make it difficult for people to look away from this problem. I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

If you want to wed two people better, kill misunderstanding ! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We don't need no more danger, we don't need no more difficulties, we don't need no more misunderstanding, and we don't need no more violence. We need the people to see each other and know of each other, feel each other, touch each other, share with each other, and change hearts with each other. — Burning Spear

Why shouldn't gay people be able to live as open and freely as everybody else? What it comes down to, ultimately, is love. How can anything bad come out of love? The bad stuff comes out of mistrust, misunderstanding and, God knows, from hate and from ignorance. — Elizabeth Taylor

I want to reach people and express myself. You have to put up with the risk of being misunderstood if you are going to try to communicate. You have to put up with people projecting their own ideas, attitudes, misunderstanding you. But it's worth being a public fool if that's all you can be in order to communicate yourself. — Edie Sedgwick

There are always more questions. Science as a process is never complete. It is not a foot race, with a finish line ... People will always be waiting at a particular finish line: journalists with their cameras, impatient crowds eager to call the race, astounded to see the scientists approach, pass the mark, and keep running. It's a common misunderstanding, he said. They conclude there was no race. As long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing. — Barbara Kingsolver

I do not fear that "future generations will not read novels," etc. It is probably a complete misunderstanding to conceive of serious art in categories of production, market, readers, supply and demand( ... )art is not the fabrication of stories for readers but a spiritual cohabitation, something so tense and so separate from science, even contradictory to it, that there can be no competition between them. If someone fine, dignified, prolific, brilliant (this is how one ought to speak of artists this is the language art demands) is born in the future, if someone unique and unrepeatable is born, a Bach, a Rembrandt, then he will win people over, charm and seduce them ... — Witold Gombrowicz

Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you. — Dream Hampton

Unlock joy in any situation!
True understanding and mutual respect do not bridge blames, destructive, negative criticisms, false excuses and gossips. To express disappointments and ill-feelings are normal however to gossip around certain people and events in order to put another person down and destroy one's credibility is a form of bullying whether one expresses it publicly or privately.
Beware of segregation, regionalism, individualism, discrimination, stereotyping, destructive criticism, false accusations, biased wrong assumptions, prejudice, senseless comparison and unwanted competition because life is much more meaningful to live for where there is unity and harmony. — Angelica Hopes

Most of the problems in life are because:
We misunderstand people's intentions,
We don't listen and jump to conclusions,
Then we are too proud to apologise and too stubborn to forgive. — Mouloud Benzadi

I, with a precision that excludes all possibility of misunderstanding, insist on the necessity for a state in this period, but a state without a police opposed to the people. — Jim Williams

Where misunderstanding dwells, misuse will not be far behind. No theory in the history of science has been more misused and abused by cranks and charlatans - and misunderstood by people struggling in good faith with difficult ideas - than quantum mechanics. — Sean Carroll

Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people's religion. And religion may, in a sense, be understood as popular misunderstanding of mythology. (8) — Joseph Campbell

Perhaps people who don't value other people's time are actually reflecting a misunderstanding they have themselves; that of not giving appropriate value to their own time. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Have you ever considered, beloved other, how invisible we are to each other? We look at each other without seeing. We listen to each other and hear only a voice inside out self.
The words of others are mistakes of our hearing, shipwrecks of our understanding. How confidently we believe OUR meanings of other people's words. — Fernando Pessoa

I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men ... People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off. — George Sand

Most trouble is unnecessary. Between the indignity of being born and the agony of dying enough bad things must of necessity happen to people. But we can't be satisfied with that. We have to go to work and see how much additional trouble we can create. Misunderstanding, turmoil, effort put on all the wrong things, and then more misunderstanding. — Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett

I'm so sick of people misunderstanding Asians in America and what we're about. — Eddie Huang

A poem exists only in the relation between poet and reader. And I'm in need of my readers, except that they never cease to write me as they would wish, turning their reading into another writing that almost rubs out my features. I don't know why my poetry has to be killed on the altar of misunderstanding or the fallacy of ready-made intent. I am not solely a citizen of Palestine, though I am proud of this affiliation and ready to sacrifice my life in defending the radiance of the Palestinian fact, but I also want to take up the history of my people and their struggle from an aesthetic angle that differs from the prevalent and repeatable meanings readily available from an unmediated political reading. — Mahmoud Darwish

I have been misunderstood perhaps more than anyone else ever, but it has not affected me, for the simple reason that there is no desire to be understood. It is their problem if they don't understand, it is not my problem. If they misunderstand, it is their problem and their misery. I am not going to waste my sleep because millions of people are misunderstanding me. — Rajneesh

The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a 'hypothesis,' but the word 'hypothesis,' though euphonious, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word 'guess.' If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for half a century, buoyed up by the inflated word 'hypothesis.' When it is understood that "hypothesis" means 'guess,' people will inspect it more carefully before accepting it. — William Jennings Bryan

Maybe, it is just enough to believe with a positive heart that people didn't let you down. It could be just this: They couldn't give you the compassion you really wanted based on where their heart is right now. Maybe, not now, but years later they will catch the memory of you in a quiet moment. There on that Sunday morning, a light will shine through the fog of lies, misunderstanding and frustration they built inside their angry mind about your true character. And, when it does, the shadows will be casted out to reveal a scared and hurt little boy or girl that just wanted to be loved, but went about it all wrong. Maybe, on that day, the whisper of their gratitude for your love will find its way back to your heart. And when that day comes, you will find yourself smiling all day long and not know why. — Shannon L. Alder

People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. That is a complete misunderstanding. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a result, people have hitherto been beating the air in their struggle against objections, because they have fought intellectually with doubt instead of fighting morally with rebellion. — Soren Kierkegaard

Very often, people embarking on such guesswork make the vulgar assumption that the lower the motives, the more likely they are to be authentic. — Christopher Hitchens

Don't waste your time trying to explain yourself to people that are committed to misunderstanding you. Instead, commit your time to explaining who they are to them. When you get a person to see the positive similarities you share, it begins to restore the loss of respect between you. — Shannon L. Alder

Not every writer needs a plan, but in my experience many believe they don't need a plan when, frankly, they do. I was that kind of writer: I thought, ha ha ha, stupid people saying I should outline or do preparatory work, those silly assholes with their misunderstanding of my genius. If you find you're lost in the woods of your own fiction and feel like giving up
it might be because you have no plan. You can retrofit one. Doing that will help put you back on track and give your current writing a jolt of needed organization. — Chuck Wendig

It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. — Ian McEwan

If you ask the question of Americans, should we pay our bills? One hundred percent would say yes. There's a significant misunderstanding on the debt ceiling. People think it's authorizing new spending. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize new spending; it allows us to pay obligations already incurred. — Peter Welch

I know that when people pull apart, they usually employ misunderstanding as a weapon, deliberately getting hold of the stick's wrong end, impaling themselves on its point in order to prove the perfidy of the other. — Salman Rushdie

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. — Martin Luther King Jr.

A great woe underpinning the sorrows of the world today is this: so many people think they are far better than others and they are too righteous than others, and they know far better than others, and such thoughts give them reasons for an otherwise action! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The People's Liberation Army is always a fighting force. Even after countrywide victory, our army will remain a fighting force during the historical period in which classes have not been abolished in our country and the imperialist system still exists in the world. On this point, there should be no misunderstanding or wavering. — Mao Zedong

I have a profound empathy for people who are in the public eye, whether they manifest it themselves or whether it happened by accident - it doesn't matter to me. I think there's a great misunderstanding of what it is to be famous. — Alanis Morissette

The cars rushing below knew nothing. People in cars weren't New Yorkers anyway, they'd suffered some basic misunderstanding. The two boys on the walkway, apparently standing still they were moving faster than the cars.
Nineteen seventy-five. — Jonathan Lethem

To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood. — Ben Marcus

Our intentions tend to be much more real to us than our actions, and this can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding with other people, to whom our actions tend to be much more real than our intentions. — E.F. Schumacher

Sometimes in life, we may have to experience solitude, the baseless accusations of people, the betrayal and misunderstanding of trusted and loyal ones, the great judgments and suggestions of 'they that know better', and a moment of a state of double mindedness. But those are also for good, for they are the very things that shape and prepare our mind, body and spirit to face the world and to accomplish our mission with great zeal, tenacity and distinctiveness. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around in candy stores and bars and drinking soda popon stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: "This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn't be on the street!" That judgment represents a profound misunderstanding of cities. It makes no more sense than to drop in at a testimonial banquet in a hotel and conclude that if these people had wives who could cook, they would give their parties at home. — Jane Jacobs

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. — Edwin H. Friedman

Someday, the people we know, are acquainted to become the people we knew. They leave. They leave to pursue the opportunities laid down in their paths and they leave on account of misunderstandings.
Their absence causes a vacuum, a space, an incompleteness which we believe no one can fill. But someday, someone eventually does and that someone rekindles our hopes for companionship, until the circle continues and is ultimately intervened by the permanence of death.
The future is alarming, as atrocious as the past. And the friendship, the love, the memories either remain in our hearts cherished or are forgotten like an undeserving dream.
Everything eventually fades away, either for the better or worse.
Someday, the people we know, are acquainted to become the people we knew.
But then again, that someday is not today and so we must be a little more appreciative, for the moment, for the times, for the present because someday everything is going to change. — Chirag Tulsiani

People meant to be together will always take detours through pain, misunderstanding and pride, but some how they always drift back to the one thing that makes them feel alive. — Shannon L. Alder

I imagine the feelings of two people meeting after many years. In the past they spent some time together, and therefore they think they are linked by the same experience, the same recollections. The same recollections? That's where the misunderstanding starts: they don't, have the same recollections; each of them retains two or three small scenes from the past, but each has his own; their recollections are not similar; they don't intersect. — Milan Kundera

What I am talking about is the arrogance of the few pompous pissants who really think they're something special because they have a little money, a little privileged knowledge, or because they know the right people. They can be the most arrogant bastards of all. I doubt there's much chance of them misunderstanding me this time. I think they'll know who they are, if and when they read this. So how now brown cow. I'll just sit back and wait for them to start howling again. David Barker August 1984 — David Barker

When you collaborate with someone else on something creative, you get to places that you would never get to on your own. The way an idea builds as it careens back and forth between good writers is so unpredictable. Sometimes it depends on people misunderstanding each other, and that's why I don't think there's any such thing as a mistake in the creative process. You never know where it might lead. — John Cleese

People speak a lot but stops speaking even a word after the misunderstanding pops up — Vignesh S.V

Not all light is good. There is negative light, that can cast bad shadows. — Anthony Liccione

People, in general, tend to project onto others their own state of mind. Well-meaning people inevitably assume other people are well meaning. People who cheat assume everyone cheats. People who deceive assume everybody deceives.
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 — Anna C. Salter

You are not a one dimensional human being. You are not your social media etiquette, a picture, a few things said under stress or through misunderstanding. You are much more. You are a fearless and wonderful soul who loves greatly. The people that matter are the ones that see all the dimensions of your soul, not just the superficial. They will climb inside that box with you not because they are not sure if they will ever find your uniqueness in another person. They do so because they feel safe enough to share their uniqueness with you. They see your faults and know that they have them also. They feel the walls lowered and the freedom of being themselves. Honesty is never guarded or regretted. That is what makes that box home. — Shannon L. Alder

The prison industrial complex is perhaps, at least domestically, the most striking example of us putting profit before people. It all stems from one basic misunderstanding: that the public good can be shepherded by private interests. — Eugene Jarecki

The church of Jesus Christ is not necessarily present when there is a correct administration of the sacrament and faithful preaching of the Word of God. The church of God is present where people gather together in the power of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. It is possible to have the administration of the sacraments and the preaching of the Word of God and to have it be simply a human exercise. And the misunderstanding of the church in this respect is one of the things that create a primary problem for the integration of theology and spirituality. Because, as was emphasized yesterday, a bad theology will kill any prospects of a spirituality that comes from life in Christ. — Dallas Willard

A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don't always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn't sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn't have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself. — James Baldwin

A favor is a friendly, gracious, kind, generous or obliging act that is freely granted. It is offered and not solicited.
A promise is a declaration assuring that one will or will not do something. It is a vow to commit oneself by a promise to do or give. It is a pledge: to make a declaration assuring that something will or will not be done.
When you assume and mistook favor for a promise, then misunderstanding comes in.
Learn to distinguish clearly between a favor and a promise to avoid false expectations, blind hopes and deep disappointments.
Never demand on favours given.
Never impose on mistaken promises.
Never put under pressure the people who have given you favor.
Have a humble and grateful heart for both favors and promises fulfilled. — Angelica Hopes

A misunderstanding of the Laws of the Universe is at the heart of this conversation as the people of your society wage wars against the things they do not want: war against terror, war against AIDS, war against teenage pregnancy, war against violence, war against cancer - and every one of those things is getting bigger because attention to unwanted creates more unwanted. — Esther Hicks

Sharing is equated with being a decent person. That may fit for adults but it is far from fitting for young children. Misunderstanding what sharing is and how your child learns about it over time gets in the way of healthy social development. This is especially true if share means giving up what they have and need. People who feel deprived or in need of something do not feel generous, especially when they are two, three, four, or five. — Tovah P. Klein

The worst distance between two people is misunderstanding — Neetesh Dixit

As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media. — Bell Hooks

Lying is the work of people who are told their truths have no value.
The labour of survival is laden with myth and misunderstanding.
Silence is the work of people who can't comprehend that change is possible. — Amber Dawn

Misunderstanding may arise by confusing the Buddhist and scientific definitions of death. Within the scientific system you spoke quite validly of the death of the brain and the death of heart. Different parts of the body can die separately. However, in the Buddhist system, the word death is not used in that way. You'd never speak of the death of a particular part of the body, but rather of the death of an entire person. When people say that a certain person died, we don't ask, "Well, which part died?" — Dalai Lama

The growing pains of ... being an actor, that was a little frustrating at times because you feel like you have great capacity to do many things. And yet there seems to be a misunderstanding about who you are and what you're trying to do. And that requires patience, and people eventually will understand. — Matt Dillon

Addiction is a term that's used a lot these days. People claim to be addicted to everything from romance novels to cars. They feel guilty when they enjoy something just a little too much. When it comes to food addiction, the misunderstanding is epidemic...

Until now, scientists and clinicians alike have been reluctant to acknowledge that food addiction even exists. Yes, abnormal eating behaviours have been identified throughout history, but there has long been a resistance to labelling it an addiction. — Vera Tarman

We can now expose perhaps the most common misunderstanding of Darwinism: the idea that Darwin showed that evolution by natural selection is a procedure for producing Us. Ever since Darwin proposed his theory, people have often misguidedly tried to interpret it as showing that we are the destination, the goal, the point of all that winnowing and competition, and our arrival on the scene was guaranteed by the mere holding of the tournament. This confusion has been fostered by evolution's friends and foes alike, and it is parallel to the confusion of the coin-toss tournament winner who basks in the misconsidered glory of the idea that since the tournament had to have a winner, and since he is the winner, the tournament had to produce him as the winner. Evolution can be an algorithm, and evolution can have produced us by an algorithmic process, without its being true that evolution is an algorithm for producing us. — Daniel C. Dennett

But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality. — E. M. Forster

When good people consider you the bad guy, you develop a heart to help the bad ones. You actually understand them. — Criss Jami

I think the New Aesthetic is a series of observations. I think most of the trouble people have had with it comes from a misunderstanding of it as a movement. — Warren Ellis

We ought to know that all people are not the same and so we must not expect the same attitude from all people. Different people behave differently and that is what makes different people different — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree. — Charles Baudelaire

There are no "good" or "bad" people. Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice. — Tennessee Williams

There is a big misunderstanding about the idea of naturalness. Most people who come to us believing in some freedom or naturalness, but their understanding is what we call [heretical naturalness] ... a kind of "let-alone policy" or sloppiness ... For a plant or stone to be natural is no problem. But for us there is some problem, indeed a big problem. To be natural is something we must work on. — Laozi

We know that mental illness is not something that happens to other people. It touches us all. Why then is mental illness met with so much misunderstanding and fear? — Tipper Gore

People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense. — Shunryu Suzuki

Sorrento, August. For two weeks now I haven't heard a German word or understood an Italian one. This way one can manage to live with people; everything goes like clockwork and no irksome misunderstanding can arise. — Karl Kraus

The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel's destiny, the fulfillment of God's promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns. Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter. — N. T. Wright

What I would like to be remembered for is that Walter Washington changed the spirit of the people of this city, that he came in as mayor when there was hate and greed and misunderstanding among our people and the races were polarized. — Walter Washington

Let us, just for a moment, look at the implications of that 'distress'. Severe depression affects more than 120 million people worldwide and more than 5 million in the UK. By 2020, according to the World Health Organisation, it will be one of the world's most debilitating conditions, second only to heart disease. Is that distress? Or is it a major illness? The danger in polite euphemisms is that they drive the condition underground. I constantly see people struggling with severe depression, clamping down on the pain so as not to bother anyone. I know how they minimise both themselves and the severity of their struggle. Mute, pale shadows, they are gagged by polite euphemisms and by misunderstanding. — Sally Brampton

It is a common error to assume that the lack of a formal education means that shoemakers, weavers, peasants or indigenous peoples cannot be intellectuals. We may even find it difficult to believe that they could acquire a significant book collection, let alone be interested in or engage in philosophy or pass on proper knowledge, not just 'culture' or 'traditions,' to others. Such a misunderstanding excludes many people from history because it assumes they can have no impact on history, or even be affected by it.
Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup Against Salvador Allende, September 11, 1973 — Oscar Guardiola-Rivera

But people do. They love each other and they misunderstand on purpose and they fight and then suddenly they aren't the same one. — Ernest Hemingway,

We have all at one time been stranded on islands shouting lies across the seas of misunderstanding, hoping the fog will carry our mischief to the distant ports in people's minds. — Shannon L. Alder

Many depressed people have been hurt and rejected by others. They feel as though basic relational needs have not been met, and they will be stuck in depression until they are. Rejection from parents, spouses, or friends has left a profound emptiness that feels like an emotional handicap. What does this have to do with the heart? Consider first the example of Jesus. He is God, but he was truly human. If anything is clear from his life, he didn't get love from people, he never prayed that he would know the love of other people, and he didn't seem emotionally undone by rejection and misunderstanding. Rather, his deepest needs, as noted in his prayers, were for the glory of his Father to be revealed and for his spiritual children to be protected from the evil one and united in love (John 17). The — Edward T. Welch