Understanding Other People Quotes & Sayings

An inner ease spreads inside me. Such is the power of acceptance and understanding from other people, the power of validation — Kiera Van Gelder

As we move forward into this 21st century, we encourage all of you to take a positive step toward universal understanding. Touch people with the message of love. Pray for the peace and happiness of people in all other lands and cultures. Make a commitment to world peace by honoring the earth, honoring its people, and celebrating the unity of the human spirit. — Masami Saionji

Here were two people who had penetrated farther than she into the labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some of its thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the other half-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was already dawning on her: that the influence of a marriage begun in mutual understanding is too deep not to reassert itself even in the moment of flight and denial. — Edith Wharton

Freedom is about a way of thinking. Freedom is about understanding that you can do anything that you want and freedom is about being able to take information and education and make it relevant to your own growth every single day. Freedom is not staying in the box. Freedom is not doing what other people want you to do. — Stedman Graham

There is an Arabic proverb which says that "Peace comes from understanding, not agreement." Agreements are more easily broken than made; but understanding never. It is urgent, therefore, and in the interest of peace, that there be better understanding among nations. As people we are one, seeking the same goal. As nations, we lose each other down the different paths we choose to fulfill our national objectives. that is why we must understand each other better. — King Hussein I

I strongly feel that it is only when there is a deep understanding of one's own religious beliefs and commitments that progress can be made in achieving true understanding and respect for the religious values and beliefs of others. Engaging in interfaith dialogue does not in any way mean undermining one's own faith or religious tradition. Indeed, interfaith dialogue is constructive only when people become firmly grounded in their own religious traditions and through that process gain a willingness to listen and respect the beliefs of other religions. (by Cilliers, Ch. 3, p. 48-49) — David R. Smock

I want to help people understand how to study the Scriptures with other people, to give them an overview of Scripture and assume that by understanding the Scriptures better, the Holy Spirit will bring to mind the right stories, the right teachings. — Francis Chan

It's not that humans and non-humans are identical ... but the lack of understanding that led to the slave trade is the same lack of understanding many people have about animals today. When slaves were brought over from Africa, many people believed they were not humans, that they didn't have feelings. Many people believe that primates and other animals don't have feelings, too, but they do. — Jane Goodall

My joy is that there is no such world at all, but that the substance of life is in everyone! There is no reason to be troubled because we are absurd, is there? For we really are: we are absurd, frivolous, we have bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look around ourselves, we don't know how to understand, we are all like this, all of us, you, and I, and everyone! And you aren't offended by my telling you straight to your faces that you are absurd? There is the basic stuff of life in your, isn't there? You know, I believe it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous. Yes, much better. People forgive each other more readily and become more humble, we can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection! To reach perfection there must first be much we do not understand. And if we understand too quickly we will probably not understand very well. I tell this to you who have been able to understand so much and - do not understand.'
p. 577 — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Two people may suffer the same disappointment, one might be saddened, the other understanding.
Two people may receive the same insult, one might be hurt, and the other compassionate.
Two people may have the same disagreement, one might be angered, the other feel love.
How you react to circumstances, people and things, IS A CHOICE, YOUR CHOICE ... based on YOUR use of compassion, understanding and love. — Mike Dooley

The most that these members of Congress can say, in favor of their appointment, is simply this: Each one can say for himself: I have evidence satisfactory to myself, that there exists, scattered throughout the country, a band of men, having a tacit understanding with each other, and calling themselves "the people of the United States," whose general purposes are to control and plunder each other, and all other persons in the country, and, so far as they can, even in neighboring countries; and to kill every man who shall attempt to defend his person and property against their schemes of plunder and dominion. — Lysander Spooner

When you're young you have such expectations of each other. So many needs. And when you're older ... " He shrugs. "You want someone who understands. We've lived different lives. We've loved different people. But I think that there will always be that ... " He struggles for the right word. "That understanding we share. Of having grown up in the same world, of having live through the same memories. — Carrie Ryan

If you could read some of the stories that we had before us of parents of children dying of, let's say, bone cancer. Or people who dealt with family members drowning in their own bodies, in the end, suffering without any hope of modern medical science easing their pain or offering any comfort. With the absolute knowledge that they were going to die anyway. I can't quite comprehend how we could want those people to continue to suffer that extreme agony on the understanding that it is the will of a creator or some other philosophical concept. — Kelvin Ogilvie

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities. — Dee Hock

A lot of people manage to find common ground and not let disagreements or tensions build up and destroy them, and other people break up or get divorced. I don't think anything is ever going to change that situation. You simply try to find an accommodation and an understanding with another person and work from there. — Jack Nicholson

And what did I see? I saw people who are elegant, open-hearted, intelligent; I saw an elder statesman who was kind and attentive to a boy like me; I saw people who are capable of understanding and forgiving, good-natured Russian people, almost as good-natured and warm-hearted as those whom I met back there, almost as good as them. So you may imagine how happily I was surprised! Oh, permit me to say this! I had heard a great deal and was very much of the conviction that in society all is style, all is decrepit formality, while the essence has dried up; but I mean, now I can see for myself that it cannot be so in our country; it may be like that in other countries, but not in ours. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's difficult for people to come to the understanding that only a small minority of the people ever really get the word about life, about living abundantly and successfully. Success in the important departments of life seldom comes naturally, no more naturally than success at anything-a musical instrument, sports, fly-fishing, tennis, golf, business, marriage, parenthood, landscape gardening. But somehow people wait passively for success to come to them, living as other people are living in the unspoken, tacit assumption that other people know how to live successfully. — Earl Nightingale

But perhaps most important of all, having too many people on a team makes team dynamics during meetings and other decision-making events almost impossible. That's because a good team has to engage in two types of communication in order to optimize decision making, but only one of these is practical in a large group. According to Harvard's Chris Argyris, those two types of communication are advocacy and inquiry. Basically, advocacy is the statement of ideas and opinions; inquiry is the asking of questions for clarity and understanding. When a group gets too large, people realize they are not going to get the floor back any time soon, so they resort almost exclusively to advocacy. It becomes like Congress (which is not designed to be a team) or the United Nations (ditto). — Patrick Lencioni

Telling other people our life story changes us in a startling and profound way. The act of telling demands selection, prioritization, evaluation, and synthesis, which intellectual activities increase understanding, make us more sensitive to key distinctions in principles, and expand our empathy for other people. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people's progress. — Jeff Bezos

trailed off as her attention moved from Will taking his juice from the bartender to the glass behind the bartender. There were red dots on the glass. Alessandro brushed her shoulder again and Bree followed a row of red dots from the glass mirror to the wall. Some of the red dots danced over the guests and as an icy cloak of understanding fell over Bree, it seemed to grip Alessandro as well. Then she turned to face him and there were red dots on his chest, as well as her shoulder, which he had been brushing, thinking it was a speck of dust. "GET DOWN!" he screamed to everyone grabbing Bree by the waist and throwing her down while and trying to be heard over the music. Chaos erupted as gunfire drowned out the sound of music and people fell screaming on top of each other as pieces of the wall and glass from the doors and the mirrors rained down on them. The gunfire raged on and on for what seemed like an eternity. Then there was silence. — E. Jamie

So I would hope they would develop some kind of habit that involves understanding that their life is so full they can afford to give in all kinds of ways to other people. I consider that to be baseline spirituality. — Susan Sarandon

DODD REITERATED HIS COMMITMENT to objectivity and understanding in an August 12 letter to Roosevelt, in which he wrote that while he did not approve of Germany's treatment of Jews or Hitler's drive to restore the country's military power, "fundamentally, I believe a people has a right to govern itself and that other peoples must exercise patience even when cruelties and injustices are done. Give men a chance to try their schemes. — Erik Larson

What a stupid, fucking, idiotic country this was. All the young women drank water in such vast quantities that it was coming out of their ears, they thought it was "beneficial" and "healthy," but all it did was send the numbers of incontinent young people soaring. Children ate whole wheat pasta and whole wheat bread and all sorts of weird coarse-grained rice that their stomachs could not digest properly, but it didn't matter because it was "beneficial," it was "healthy," it was "wholesome." Oh, they were confusing food with the mind, they thought they could eat their way to being better human beings without understanding that food is one thing and the notions food evokes another. And if you said that, you were either a reactionary or just a Norwegian, in other words ten years behind the times. — Karl Ove Knausgard

However capable and skillful an individual may be, left alone, he or she will not survive. When we are sick or very young or very old, we must depend on the support of others. There is no significant division between us and other people, because our basic natures are the same. If we wish to ensure everyone's peace and happiness, we need to cultivate a healthy respect for the diversity of our peoples and cultures, founded on an understanding of this fundamental sameness of all human beings. — Dalai Lama

I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief. — Noam Chomsky

Generally, in English, one way in which we describe an insane person is like this: "He is out of his mind." See, if you were out of your mind, would you be insane? Insanity is of the mind always, isn't it? Only if you are in the mind you can be insane. If you are out of your mind, you will be perfectly sane; you will become like a Mansur, or a Jesus or someone who is beyond other people's understanding. Others may think they are insane, but they are the only few sane people that have happened on the planet. — Jaggi Vasudev

HANNAH: You had a vision.
PRIOR: A vision. Thank you, Maria Ouspenskaya. I'm not so far gone I can be assuaged by pity and lies.
HANNAH: I don't have pity. It's just not something I have.
(Little pause)
One hundred and seventy years ago, which is recent, an angel of God appeared to Joseph Smith in upstate
New York, not far from here. People have visions.
PRIOR: But that's preposterous, that's ...
HANNAH: It's not polite to call other people's beliefs preposterous.
He had great need of understanding. Our Prophet. His desire made prayer. His prayer made an angel. The angel was real. I believe that.
PRIOR: I don't. And I'm sorry but it's repellent to me. So much of what you believe.
HANNAH: What do I believe?
PRIOR: I'm a homosexual. With AIDS. I can just imagine what you ...
HANNAH: No you can't. Imagine. The things in my head.
You don't make assumptions about me, mister; I won't make them about you. — Tony Kushner

What does it mean to be cultured? Who is the cultured person? The cultured individual is not defined nor determined by status in society nor by wealth; but the cultured individual is determined and defined by his or her sense for the art of life. And what is the art of life? The art of life is the reflection of the mind and the soul upon the world, upon other people, upon the respect and understanding of other people and upon the things that are in this world and beyond. There is a joy that is always sought in beautiful things. Being cultured is being conscious, reflective, understanding, feeling, aware. Knowing how to feel, to listen, to understand. A desire to find or to create joy in many things - that is the art of life. And these things define a cultured person. — C. JoyBell C.

People keep telling me that I'm a legend in Merthyr and a legend in many other places. Here's my understanding on that, what's a legend? I don't really know what a legend is, I don't even know the word. I'm not a King Arthur reincarnate either. I might be one of the Round Table, but I'm not King Arthur. — Stephen Richards

Leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then you become proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. — Brian Tracy

People who study the scriptures get a dimension to their life that nobody else gets and that can't be gained in any way except by studying the scriptures. There's an increase in faith and a desire to do what's right and a feeling of inspiration and understanding that comes to people who study the gospel - and who ponder the principles, that can't come in any other way. — Bruce R. McConkie

And all of these writers offer me a greater understanding of what it is to be alive, and that is such an incredible thing art can do for other people. It made me want to try and get close to this strange, mysterious thing that people can do with words. — PJ Harvey

Of course, I am interested, but I would not dare to talk about them. In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself. In these days of specialization there are too few people who have such a deep understanding of two departments of our knowledge that they do not make fools of themselves in one or the other. — Richard Feynman

Those important brain circuits, the ones that enabled most of us to avoid saying the wrong thing, were simply not there in Martha's case; or fired in the wrong order; or were short-circuiting. In other words, Martha Drummond was an electrical problem. And understanding people as electrical problems undoubtedly helped one to tolerate them. — Alexander McCall Smith

This is my manifesto. My attempt to nudge people toward something, or back toward something. Toward what? An understanding that most of us already have on a deeper level. That a world exists outside of us. A world that reminds us that we are animals, too, animals who have evolved along with other animals on this earth. Thinking, planning, scheming, talking, writing animals, but animals nonetheless. — David Gessner

The gospel's power is seen in its ability to completely change minds, hearts, life orientation, our understanding of everything that happens, the way people relate to one another, and so on. Most of all, it is powerful because it does what no other power on earth can do: it can save us, reconcile us to God, and guarantee us a place in the kingdom of God forever. — Timothy J. Keller

Let us know our differences! Let us understand our differences! Let us know and understand that we are all different people with different differences! We all have different differences that are not all that different! Understanding is the matter! When we get to know and understand our differences well, we shall least spit on each other just because of our differences! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

She answered that she loved to read novels. The Rebbe responded that as novels are fiction, what you read in them is not necessarily what happens in real life. It's not as if two people meet and there is a sudden, blinding storm of passion. That's not what love or life is, or should be, about. Rather, he said, two people meet and there might be a glimmer of understanding, like a tiny flame. And then, as these people decide to build a home together, and raise a family, and go through the everyday activities and daily tribulations of life, this little flame grows even brighter and develops into a much bigger flame until these two people, who started out as virtual strangers, become intertwined to such a point that neither of them can think of life without the other. This is what true love is about, the Rebbe told Sharfstein. "It's the small acts that you do on a daily basis that turn two people from a 'you and I' into an 'us. — Joseph Telushkin

Human beings are not our enemy. Our enemy is not the other person. Our enemy is the violence, ignorance, and injustice in us and in the other person. When we are armed with compassion and understanding, we fight not against other people, but against the tendency to invade, to dominate, and to exploit. — Nhat Hanh

The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings. — Anton Chekhov

The personal contact is a personal thing. The fact that some people don't know their neighbors, I don't think that technology is at fault. You don't lose anything with technology. You gain other avenues of understanding. — John Warnock

Listen, she said, "cherubim have come to my planet before."
"I know that. Where do you think I got my information?"
"What do you know about us?"
"I have heard that your host planet is shadowed, that it is troubled."
"It is beautiful," Meg said defensively.
She felt a rippling of his wings. "In the middle of your cities?"
"Well-no-but I don't live in a city."
"And is your planet peaceful?"
"Well-no-it isn't very peaceful."
"I had the idea," Proginoskes moved reluctantly within her mind, "that there are wars on your planet. People fighting and killing each other."
"Yes, that's so, but-"
"And children go hungry."
"Yes."
"And people don't understand each other."
"Not always."
"And there's-there's hate?"
"Yes."
She felt Proginoskes pulling away. "All I want to do," he was murmuring to himself, "is go some place quiet and recite the names of the stars... — Madeleine L'Engle

True life is the understanding and support of other people, of selflessness, of charity, of kindness. — Peter F. Hamilton

In truth, people know very little about each other. I only know as much about you as I know about myself. — Vironika Tugaleva

I used to work for the World Health Organisation in poor countries all over the world - Bangladesh, Korea, the Philippines and India. You learn a whole range of things about how other people are living and try to connect with them to gain an understanding of where they're coming from. — Robert Winston

In the case of Michael Moore, having a deep, I'd even say passionate, understanding of other types of people in America who might be progressive thinkers without even realizing it. — Jello Biafra

Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.
The only sense to make of tragedies like this is that terrible things can happen to perfectly innocent people. This understanding inspires compassion.
Religious faith, on the other hand, erodes compassion. Thoughts like, 'this might be all part of God's plan,' or 'there are no accidents in life,' or 'everyone on some level gets what he or she deserves' - these ideas are not only stupid, they are extraordinarily callous. They are nothing more than a childish refusal to connect with the suffering of other human beings. It is time to grow up and let our hearts break at moments like this. — Sam Harris

Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone? — Haruki Murakami

WARREN: What should the cops do? RUTH TURNER: The police, if they behave in other places like they do here, are unfortunate tools of a power structure which has failed to understand the dynamics of protests, and not understanding anything about the people with whom they deal, have not been able to deal with the situation in any constructive way. That's why police brutality takes place, and of course, police brutality breeds more violence. I feel that, clearly, the police ought to step in to prevent loss of life and limb, but they should not be there to prevent loss of life and limb on one side only, as had been the case. At Murray Hill, where a mob rioted - a white mob, I'm happy to say - the police made no attempt whatsoever to curb them. This exemplifies the double standard of the police. — Robert Penn Warren

Lack of understanding of the true nature of happiness, it seems to me, is the principal reason why people inflict sufferings on others. They think either that the other's pain may somehow be a cause of happiness for themselves or that their own happiness is more important, regardless of what pain it may cause. But this is shortsighted. No one truly benefits from causing harm to another sentient being ... In the long run causing others misery and infringing their rights to peace and happiness result in anxiety, fear, and suspicion within oneself. — Dalai Lama

Considering the notion that the spiritual battlefield is infinitely greater than the physical, perhaps God is more willing to bless with a sort of divine ecstasy those who see the devil as the enemy rather than those who see other people as the enemies. — Criss Jami

You are all adding to each other's unhappiness; you are all helping each other to be more unhappy. Every single man has many people behind him making him unhappy. If an understanding of compassion is there, then you will change all the ways that you cause unhappiness in others. And if you can bring happiness to someone's life, you will find a way to do it. — Rajneesh

There are certain promises you make that are more sacred than anything that happens in a court of law,I don't care how many Bibles you put your hand on.Some of the promises,it's true,you make to young,before you really have an understanding of what they mean.But once you've made those first promises,other promises are called for.And the thing is you can't deny the new ones without betraying the old ones.The promises get bigger,there are more people to be hurt and disappointed if you don't live up to them.Then, at some point, your called upon to make a promise to a dying man. — Paul Castellano

Why are we, with all our "progress," so limited in understanding & sympathy & the ability to give each other real freedom? Why with our emphasis on the individual are we still so blinded by the urge to conform? ... I think above all else it is freedom I search for in my work, in these far-flung places, to find a group of people who give each other the room to be in whatever way they need to be. And maybe I will never find it all in one culture but maybe I find parts of it in several cultures, maybe I can piece it together like a mosaic and unveil it to the world. — Lily King

I used to know a carnival man turned preacher who said the key to his success was understanding the people of what he called Snake's Navel, Arkansas. He said in Snake's Navel, the biggest thing going on Saturday night was the Dairy Queen. He said you could get the people there to do damn near anything
pollute their own water, work at five-dollar-an-hour jobs, drive fifty miles to a health clinic
as long as you packaged it right. That meant you gave them a light show and faith healings and blow-down-the-walls gospel music with a whole row of American flags across the stage. He said what they liked best, though
what really got them to pissing all over themselves
was to be told it was other people going to hell and not them. He said people in Snake's Navel wasn't real fond of homosexuals and Arabs and Hollywood Jews, although he didn't use them kinds of terms in his sermons. — James Lee Burke

Don't think I don't worry about what I'm missing out on. Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted, Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them? Of course. Marvel at them? Constantly. Secretly study them? Every day. I just don't get any closer to understanding them. And liking something you don't understand, estranged from it without reason, longing to commune with it - who'd ask for it? — Joshua Ferris

During the war years I worked on the development of radar and other radio systems for the R.A.F. and, though gaining much in engineering experience and in understanding people, rapidly forgot most of the physics I had learned. — Martin Ryle

How can there be peace without people understanding each other; and how can this be if they don't know each other? — Lester B. Pearson

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience. — Lupita Nyong'o

You see beauty in things other people just take for granted. You need understanding, and, and ... deep conversation, and someone who can keep up with that mind of yours! — Amy Harmon

You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children. — Jean Webster

There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance
physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off its 'national pastime' pedestal in less than fifteen years. — Hunter S. Thompson

Writing is far too hard work to say what someone else wants me to. Serving it as a craft, using it as a way of growing in my own understanding, seems to me to be a beautiful way to live. And if that product is shareable with other people, so much the better. — Jane Rule

[ ... ] friendship creates a whole new economy. When people realize there's no agenda other than friendship and better understanding, it changes things. — Bob Goff

I will never tell another person, "I don't understand you ... " and why? Because if I say that, it means that I am disabled in a way. The inability to connect to another's perspective is, I believe, a disability. — C. JoyBell C.

We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other. — Lewis Thomas

When you have two people who love each other, are happy and gay and really good work is being done by one or both of them, people are drawn to them as surely as migrating birds are drawn at night to a powerful beacon. If the two people were as solidly constructed as the beacon there would be little damage except to the birds. Those who attract people by their happiness and their performance are usually inexperienced. They do not know how not to be overrun and how to go away. They do not always learn about the good, the attractive, the charming, the soon-beloved, the generous, the understanding rich who have no bad qualities and who give each day the quality of a festival and who, when they have passed and taken the nourishment they needed, leave everything deader than the roots of any grass Attila's horses' hooves have ever scoured. — Ernest Hemingway,

Honest concern for others is the key factor in improving our day-to-day lives. When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy, or insecurity. A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for happy and peaceful relations with each other. Healthy, happy families and a healthy, peaceful nation are dependent on warm-heartedness. Some scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it. We have to see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system - just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. - HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA — Debra Landwehr Engle

Learn all you can about people in other parts of the world. Understanding how people in other countries live and work and play teaches us to respect them and promote peace everywhere. — Carol Bellamy

I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way - by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! — Richard Feynman

When we ask we are owning our needs. Asking for love, comfort or understanding is a transaction between two people. You are saying: I have a need. It's not your problem. It's not your responsibility. You don't have to respond, but I'd like something from you.
This frees the other person to connect with you freely and without obligation. When we own that our needs are our responsibility we allow others to love us because we have something to offer. Asking is a far cry from demanding. When we demand love, we destroy it. — Henry Cloud

I am a teacher. It's how I define myself. A good teacher isn't someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed. That's the way I see myself, so whatever it is that I will do eventually after politics, it'll have to do a lot with teaching. — Justin Trudeau

The emphasis on technology over an understanding of the realities of war and conflict reflect[s] the ahistoricism not only of too much of the U.S. military officer corps, but of the American educational system as well. Our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of a pervasive failure to understand the historical framework within which insurgencies take place, to appreciate the cultural and political factors of other nations and people, and to encourage the learning of foreign languages. In other words, in Afghanistan and Iraq we managed to repeat many of the mistakes we made in Vietnam, because America's political and military leaders managed to forget nearly every lesson of that conflict. — Peter R. Mansoor

You don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system - a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars - for that is what their essential function is - to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies". — Noam Chomsky

With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Maybe we should just love one another, even if we don't completely understand the things that people bear in their dark, strange hearts, even if the stars that other men and women are following seem invisible to us. If we make ourselves open to the humanity of others first, maybe understanding will follow. An incomprehensible theory of the universal isn't necessary if your only ambition is to embrace another soul. What you need, maybe all you need, in fact, is the willingness to love. — Jennifer Finney Boylan

They loved each other greatly. Most people experience love, without noticing that there is anything remarkable about it.
To them - and this made them unusual - the moments when passion visited their doomed human existence like a breath of timelessness were moments of revelation, of even greater understanding of life and of themselves. — Boris Pasternak

People lie so that others will form beliefs that are not true. The more consequential the beliefs - that is, the more a person's well-being demands a correct understanding of the world or of other people's opinions - the more consequential the lie. — Sam Harris

There's a secret to get through loss, pain and grief. If we're alone we can't see who we are. When we join the club, other people become the mirror. Through them, we see ourselves and gain an understanding of what we're going through. Then slowly, real slowly, we learn to accept who we see in the mirror. Then you become the mirror for them; by being honest about who you are, you'll help them learn to love and accept themselves. — Melody Beattie

A chef and a restaurateur are different jobs: One is about pleasing people with what's on the plate; the other is about understanding the market. I'm a chef, but I think I'm a savvy businessperson, too. — Jean-Georges Vongerichten

I can see that in retrospect but I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me. — Jamie Lidell

Each language is a unique repository of facts and knowledge about the world that we can ill afford to lose, or, at the least, facts and knowledge about some history and people that have their place in the understanding of mankind. Every language is a treasury of human experience. Eyak doesn't give a damn about tenses. But it sure does give a damn about other things, much more than I do. Therefore it broadens your thinking, enriches your ability to understand the world- to deal with reality and experience. — Michael E. Krauss

This book is about those other pieces, and getting them in place. It's about understanding the external myths that have broken down; the same ones that created the massive American middle class, which is now dying, and left us with the Choose Yourself era in the fallout. People are walking around blind. If you are the one who can see, you will be able to navigate through this new world. You will be the beacon that will enhance the lives of everyone around you and, in doing so, trigger the actual law of nature that says when you enhance everyone around you, you can't help but enhance yourself. — James Altucher

It's all about our egos. She felt she was on the edge of understanding something important. They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or most ridiculous, trite little fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you'd shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher. — Liane Moriarty

Books, the books that I loved above all else to spend my time with, were the great tools for understanding one's life and the lives of other people. — Ellen Douglas

We should all focus on trying to be compassionate to others at all times, and be as understanding as possible towards people we know are hurting. We should try to be there to lift each other up. — Avril Lavigne

There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there was the one that was connected to all the other forests, with no consideration of distance, or time. The forest primeval, remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth- through the collective subconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe. — Charles De Lint

Two people can only live as one when each is prepared to give and receive trust and understanding. Above that lies respect. Without respect for how the other feels, no marriage is worthwhile. — Helen Hollick

The way of Friends is to think quietly and to listen. We ask the question, we consider how the answer is made by different people, we ask again, answer again, change our minds; we reach an understanding. The Meeting evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, not by the weight of the majority, but by the capacity of individual human beings to comprehend one another. — Molly Gloss

We're understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody. There's some condescension in it, but he stands above everybody and says, 'Now, listen. You people have to stop blaming each other unreasonably. You have to get along here and I am going to show you the way.' It is a pretty brave role in many ways. — Evan Thomas

? Life is all about relationships and what actually happens when people relate, when people understand each other. To see each other for who they are, not what we want or expect of them. Margaret Bouchard — Ted Magnuson

Some people are ignorant of the world but educated in Scripture, and are therefore prone to missing the relevance of Scripture - these sometimes, later, amidst life's challenges and doubts, turn from the faith; other people are ignorant of Scripture but educated in the world, and are therefore prone to missing the truth of Scripture - they are often those who ridicule the faith. The apologist stands somewhere in the center. He articulates where some are prone to understanding the truth in beauty, others the beauty in truth - that of a spiritual Creator in relation to his scientific creation. — Criss Jami

The difficult thing isn't living with other people, it's understanding them. — Jose Saramago

The public owns the airwaves; Congress gave them to broadcasters for free, with the understanding that they would serve the public interest while trying to maximize profit. An aspect of serving the public is to use the immense power of electronic media to reflect evolving standards of respect for other people. — Reed Hundt

In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding - in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one's own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space, and because they are others. — Mikhail Bakhtin

Accepting experiences is through the understanding that everybody was born equal, no labels, no social status, no preconceptions just born a little person preparing to grow-up on what ever path is grown from development, environment and/or otherwise everybody has the right to have a roof over their head, three meals a day, a wage/payment which can support themselves and their families, a benefit system that cares for the disabled and people with mental illnesses, a government that looks out for all it's people, wars quenched not and man made barriers be fallen so every person knows the commonality of being human is that everybody is all different and let people be novices to other peoples experiences so another person gains anew. People all deserve the right to be equal. — Paul Isaacs

Plato taught us that, "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something." The sages throughout the ages have echoed this very sentiment about the inferior man. The book of Proverbs states, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." And Chuang Tzu taught, "Fools regard themselves as already awake." They think they are smarter than other people. — Bohdi Sanders

Anger is rooted in our lack of understanding of ourselves and of the causes, deep-seated as well as immediate, that brought about this unpleasant state of affairs. Anger is also rooted in desire, pride, agitation, and suspicion. The primary roots of our anger are in ourselves. Our environment and other people are only secondary. — Thich Nhat Hanh

One of the most widely held beliefs in our culture today is that romantic love is all important in order to have a full life but that it almost never lasts. A second, related belief is that marriage should be based on romantic love. Taken together, these convictions lead to the conclusion that marriage and romance are essentially incompatible, that it is cruel to commit people to lifelong connection after the inevitable fading of romantic joy. The Biblical understanding of love does not preclude deep emotion. As we will see, a marriage devoid of passion and emotional desire for one another doesn't fulfill the Biblical vision. But neither does the Bible pit romantic love against the essence of love, which is sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. If we think of love primarily as emotional desire and not as active, committed service, we end up pitting duty and desire against each other in a way that is unrealistic and destructive. — Timothy Keller