Quotes & Sayings About Wrong Understanding

He had suddenly the clearest understanding he had ever had of the way his father had gone so wrong. A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world; to fight it back from himself and from those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward, against the very people you had been given the strength to protect, because you couldn't deal with the outward fight, was the ultimate weakness. — Laura Florand

The world of fantasy can always blindfold. Had I know is a gateway to the realities of life — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I asked her if she believed you could ever truly understand another culture. I told her the longer I stayed, the more asinine the attempt seemed, and that what I'd become more interested in is how we believed we could be objective in any way at all, we who each came in with our own personal definitions of kindness, strength, masculinity, femininity, God, civilisation, right and wrong. — Lily King

Neither sex is wrong in their communication; both sexes need to learn how to understand each other. — Pamela Cummins

You have a faculty for defining the simplest in terms of the grandiose, so that a poor devil like me can't understand it. — Malcolm Bradbury

Cormac and I have an understanding."
Erik raises an eyebrow. Clearly he's got the wrong idea.
"Don't worry. It's a death-threat thing. — Gennifer Albin

Neurosis is the rule, not the exception', and grasping this can help us to see that we are not alone. It is also the starting point for understanding what went wrong and learning that we have a choice: we can simply re-enact the past, or we can rewrite the script. — Oliver James

We understand today that the physical universe is bigger and older and operates very differently than how the biblical writers, and all other ancient people, thought. Many Christians stumble over this, thinking they are showing respect for the Bible and obeying God by making the biblical story mesh with modern science, or rejecting modern science entirely in favor of God's Word. But there is no need to feel embarrassed or unfaithful by acknowledging that ancient writers wrote from an ancient mind-set. When ancient Israelites wrote as they did about the physical world, they were expressing their faith in God in ways that fit their understanding. It shouldn't get our knickers in a twist to admit that, from a scientific point of view, they were wrong. That doesn't make their faith or the God behind it all any less genuine. — Peter Enns

People get it wrong when they talk about innocence: they think it's something to do with ignorance about the facts of sex and all the nasty things that happen in the world. But facts don't change people: it's understanding how the facts feel that does. — Alexia Casale

In an honest effort to gain understanding, asking questions do not, necessarily, imply a conclusion has been determined. They can be used to avoid making the wrong judgement. If building trust is the ultimate goal - there is no need to be defensive, or feel threatened by any inquiry. — T.F. Hodge

In any area of our lives where we fail to act from integrity or violate our own understanding of what is right or wrong for us, we fall prey to putting the outside world's needs before our own. We then disconnect from the enormity of our power and our ability to create what we want. — Debbie Ford

I am most anxious to give my own children enough love and understanding so that they won't grow up with an aching void in them
like you and I and Harold and Martha. That can never be filled, and one goes around all one's life trying, trying to make up for what one didn't get that was one's birthright, asking the wrong people for it. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Scary as this was ... telling her these things was like a bloodletting. The initial cut hurt like hell, but with it done he could feel the toxins escaping, making room for relief. And all at once he wanted to give in. With a blinding bolt of understanding, he realized he'd had it all wrong, blaming his fetish all this time, thinking of it as some twisted, fucked-up force that lived inside him. A thing to be drowned in liquor, glass by glass, night by night, year after year. It wasn't his desire that had poisoned him. It was his shame. — Cara McKenna

Being human in a world with no tolerance for humanity felt like a setup, a game I couldn't win. But instead of understanding that there might be something wrong with the world, I decided there was something wrong with me. — Glennon Doyle Melton

I can hardly believe what these 12 caricatures [about Prophet Muhammad] have caused in the world. We Danes feel like we have been placed in a scene in the wrong movie. But I don't see the fight as a clash of civilizations. Rather, we must focus on avoiding exactly this type of conflict. We have to return to dialogue, to mutual understanding and to an acknowledgement of freedom of opinion. — Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Good directors can bring certain things out of you, with their intensity or gentleness or sensitivity or understanding. They can make an actor feel he can do no wrong. — Robert De Niro

Wrong doing must be punished. If not, it will proliferate until anarchy wears the robes of tolerance and understanding. — Terry Goodkind

Things you call wrong, describe your levels of acceptance and understanding.. — Himmilicious

Laroche was wrong about that, wrong about men not understanding love.
Anyway, most of the romantic poems and songs and paintings in the world were by men, so what was she talking about? — Josh Lanyon

You may never understand How the stranger is inspired For he is not always evil, And he is not always wrong. — Billy Joel

Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something.
"The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action."
Olivier frowned. "So?"
"Dear boy, I must tell you a secret."
"What?"
"I do believe it is wrong. — Iain Pears

In order to survive, we cling to all we know and understand. And label it reality. But knowledge and understanding are ambiguous. That reality could be an illusion. All humans live with the wrong assumptions. Isn't that another way of looking at it? That sharingan how much can you really se? — Masashi Kishimoto

I was steeped in the understanding that if 'something is Roman [Catholic], it must be wrong. — Scott Hahn

Fang swerved closer to me, big and supremely graceful, like a black panther with wings.
Oh, God. I'm so stupid. Forget I just said that.
"He needs a Band-Aid," I said. A look passed between me and Fang, full of suppressed humor, relief, understanding,love - Forget I said that too. I don't know what's wrong with me. — James Patterson

I have sometimes questioned the advice and direction I received from my parents and grandparents, but I never questioned the fact that they loved me. I learned that they were in a better position to know more about right and wrong than I did from my limited understanding and from my limited experience. — James E. Faust

We like stories, we like to summarize, and we like to simplify, i.e., to reduce the dimensions of matters ... the narrative fallacy is associated with our vulnerability to overinterpretation and our mental representation of the world ... fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or ... forcing a logical link ... explanations bind facts together. They make them more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding. — Nassim Taleb

At a certain level of learning and understanding,
right or wrong ain't the issue, but different interest. — Toba Beta

I was told I had brain damage. I always knew it was an unfair label. Now I have a clearer understanding of what's wrong and I feel relieved and a bit more relaxed about myself. — Susan Boyle

We all say we hate being misunderstood and how we desperately want to find people who understand us. But it is not lack of compatible people that keeps us lonely. There is no shortage of people on your journey. The real, secret obstacle that we have against finding authentic, genuine relationships with people is our subconscious fear of growth. If we stick around in the bin of broken toys playing the queen or the king, at least we get to feel some sense of accomplishment at being the most evolved person we know. To find our tribe means finding people we can learn from, people who are better at some things than we are, people who have something to teach. We say we want it, but how many of us fear being a beginner more than loneliness and much more than being in the wrong crowd? There is a strange comfort, a sense of safety, to suffering and loneliness. To be happy, to find our family, we must be willing to let that go. — Vironika Tugaleva

The Trader held the ring horizontal and let the fingertips of his right hand circle over it. As he did so, he closed his eyes, murmured something to himself, and was silent again. His eyes remained closed; he did not move.
"What's he doing?" whispered Walker.
Soledad shrugged her shoulders. "Something terribly powerful."
"Wrong." replied the Trader. "I'm concentrating on the mosquito bite on my left heel, so it will stop itching."
"Oh," Walker said seriously.
"Mosquito bite?" Soledad repeated.
"I can't catch ghosts if my foot is itching. I beg you for a little more understanding."
"But of course," Walker said spitefully. — Kai Meyer

I believe it is no wrong Observation, that Persons of Genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always fond of Nature, as such are chiefly sensible, that all Art consists in the Imitation and Study of Nature. On the contrary, People of the common Level of Understanding are principally delighted with the Little Niceties and Fantastical Operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is least Natural. — Alexander Pope

The truth that people are missing about certain things, you know when they get fearful and they get hateful, and they repress other peoples, is the greatest truth of all, you know, the truth of love and understanding and clarity about all those issues. And it's like, one day, one day, everybody's gonna know, myself included, over certain things. But, so it's like, it's alright, you know, you hate me now, but that's cool, because I see a better day and I know that there's a higher truth, and you're wrong about hating me because I'm gay. — Emily Saliers

Arjuna asked Sri Krishna, "In this chaotic condition of my mind, what is my duty? I surrender myself to you, great Master. Please tell me."
The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is, "You understand nothing. You draw conclusions without proper understanding of the structure of life and your relationship to people or things in general. It is a very sorry state. How can you draw conclusions without proper premises? If you draw a conclusion based on a wrong premise, the conclusion is also wrong. Therefore, all that you have been told up to this time is without any foundation because you do not know either yourself or the world. — Swami Krishnananda

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough. — Terry Goodkind

The Tao belongs neither to knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is false understanding; not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it's like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong? — Alan Watts

The first step in understanding the sex industry is to understand the customers, the johns ... These men have already violated moral standards - and they know it. Talking about right and wrong aren't compelling arguments for them. They are criminals who have chosen to break the law and hurt people, many of them young people. — Joseph Parker

Healthy skepticism is often the best way to glean the value of what's being presented - challenge it; prove it wrong, if you can. That creates engagement, which is the key to understanding. — David Allen

What I've learned to do is be certain that I am uncertain. To revel in the fuzziness of my understanding of the world. And to look with great anticipation toward the next moment I'll figure out that I'm wrong about something. And that lets you get on this trajectory where you just become more and more and more open. — Mike McHargue

Keep in mind that every single generation before us has worked under the assumption that they possessed all the major tools for understanding the universe, and they were all wrong, without exception. — David Eagleman

For centuries the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination - a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science's ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God in a lab is the day people stop needing faith! — Dan Brown

There is no reason to not trust your process, no reason to get frustrated, no reason to criticize, or judge others, nothing wrong with getting old, or not being able to get pregnant, or being handicapped, or being short or tall or gay, or injured, or divorced or married to an idiot, or with Christianity or Judaism or Islam, or indigenous beliefs, or pollution, crime, war, Bush, etc. When this understanding grows, we realize where we're at now is just as perfect as wherever we could possibly get to. — Bryan Kest

There was something beautiful in someone trying to purchase happiness for a dying woman via a three-dollar box of french fries. I remember hoping that one dally someone would buy me french fries if that's all I wanted, even if he knew they'd be no good in the end.
I remember understanding what love really is.It didn't hurt; it didn't ignore your prayers, didn't seem to not care that your mom was dying. It didn't leave you wondering what you did wrong. Love tried to make you happy, even if it was useless. Love would do you anything to make you happy. — Jackson Pearce

The population suffers from a fear of change, for their conditioning assumes a static identity, and challenging ones belief system, usually results in insult and apprehension, for being wrong is erroneously associated with failure. When in fact, to be proven wrong should be a celebrated, for it is elevating someone to a new level of understanding. — Peter Joseph

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide. — Larry Crabb

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview. — Dalai Lama

As a researcher, every once in a while you encounter something a little disconcerting. And this is something that changes your understanding of the world around you, and teaches you that you're very wrong about something that you really believed firmly in. — Sendhil Mullainathan

When people are forced to respect civil rights and human rights or face legal consequences, they don't like it. Civil rights laws will be scrupulously observed only when people accept that it is morally wrong to oppress or discriminate against fellow human beings. That awareness can come only through education. A law will enable integration in public places, but it does not foster understanding or appreciation in the hearts of people who continue to live with their prejudices. — Arun Gandhi

I would hate to say as a non-African-American person that it would be wrong for a black person to direct white people in a movie. Wouldn't that be awful of me to say that? The only sympathizing thing I might say for people that want to [grumble] is that a filmmaker should have an understanding for the place where the people you're portraying are coming from. — Mick Jagger

I am not. I am certain of the things that matter. Kindness and honor are always good. Do not build God in your own image, with your doubts and fears, your need to judge and condemn, your need for safety, and to be right whatever the cost to others, and ultimately to yourself. Let your soul be still, and know that God is never capricious, never cruel and never wrong. It is our understanding that stumbles. Even the cleverest of us are yet children, and the wisest of us know that. — Anne Perry

Once you are enlightened, you don't do wrong things. You don't take to wrong things. Then you start understanding all these prophets, all these great incarnations, you start understanding what they were. Then you understand that all these religions have come out of one Tree of Life, which is spirituality. — Nirmala Srivastava

Hence it comes to pass, that a man, who is very sober, and of right understanding in all other things, may in one particular be as frantic, as any in Bedlam; if either by any sudden very strong impression, or long fixing his fancy upon one sort of thoughts, incoherent ideas have been cemented together so powerfully, as to remain united. But there are degrees of madness, as of folly; the disorderly jumbling ideas together, is in some more, and some less. In short, herein seems to lie the difference between idiots and madmen, That madmen put wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue and reason right from them: but idiots make very few or no propositions, and reason scarce at all. — John Locke

The morality that
goes with this understanding is, above all, the frank recognition of your
dependence upon enemies, underlings, out-groups, and, indeed, upon all
other forms of life whatsoever. Involved as you may be in the conflicts
and competitive games of practical life, you will never again be able to
indulge in the illusion that the "offensive other" is all in the wrong, and
could or should be wiped out. — Alan W. Watts

I mean, by such flightiness, something that feels unsatisfied at the center of my life - that makes me shaky, fickle, inquisitive, and hungry. I could call it a longing for home and not be far wrong. Or I could call it a longing for whatever supersedes, if it cannot pass through, understanding. Other words that come to mind: faith, grace, rest. In my outward appearance and life habits I hardly change - there's never been a day that my friends haven't been able to say, and at a distance, "There's Oliver, still standing around in the weeds. There she is, still scribbling in her notebook." But, at the center: I am shaking; I am flashing like tinsel. Restless. I read about ideas. Yet I let them remain ideas. I read about the poet who threw his books away, the better to come to a spiritual completion. Yet I keep my books. I flutter; I am attentive, maybe I even rise a little, balancing; then I fall back. — Mary Oliver

A crowd whose discontent has risen no higher than the level of slogans is only a crowd. But a crowd that understands the reasons for its discontent and knows the remedies is a vital community, and it will have to be reckoned with. I would rather go before the government with two people who have a competent understanding of an issue, and who therefore deserve a hearing, than with two thousand who are vaguely dissatisfied.
But even the most articulate public protest is not enough. We don't live in the government or in institutions or in our public utterances and acts, and the environmental crisis has its roots in our lives. By the same token, environmental health will also be rooted in our lives. That is, I take it, simply a fact, and in the light of it we can see how superficial and foolish we would be to think that we could correct what is wrong merely by tinkering with the institutional machinery. The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living. — Wendell Berry

It's easy to love those we like, but what about those we don't, and why would we anyways? There may be someone who doesn't like us, yet they're accepting of us, unconditionally loving us.
Love means, I accept you as someone as imperfect as I am, someone who wants security and acceptance, someone who may be scared and shows it in the wrong ways, someone who is as worthy of my understanding, love, and acceptance as may feel I am of theirs. Someone who needs someone to love them first. — Russell Kyle

Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark" ... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference? — John Adams

Working with victimized people requires a committed moral stance. The therapist is called upon to bear witness to a crime. She must affirm a position of solidarity with the victim. This does not mean a simplistic notion that the victim can do no wrong; rather, it involves an understanding of the fundamental injustice of the traumatic experience and the need for a resolution that restores some sense of justice. — Judith Lewis Herman

Psychologically, the teaching of abstractions first is wrong. Indeed, a thorough understanding of the concrete must precede the abstract. — Morris Kline

Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. "Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it's always invigorating," [Charlan] Nemeth [a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley] says. "It wakes us right up. — Jonah Lehrer

Memory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier. — Holly Black

Several years ago, I realized that I didn't want to spend all my life in medicine. It had me in a sort of spiritual box, like a plant whose roots are getting crowded. I felt I wasn't growing. So I promised myself that I would quit while I still had the energy to get involved in something new. There's nothing wrong with medicine. There's more paperwork, more lawsuits, less understanding between doctors and patients. But it's still a great business. But not for me - not any longer. — Richard S. Weeder

I didn't mean for you to take that the wrong way," He said abruptly. Mae stared at him in amazement. So, for that matter, did Jamie.
"What?"
"Demons don't touch anyone without a reason," Nick went on, his eyes shut again. "You can imagine what kind of reasons we usually have. I don't like
not anyone
I didn't mean anything by it."
"Oh," said Jamie. "Oh, that's okay! That's fine. I understand. I am filled to the brim with understanding and, and acceptance! I'm very Zen like that. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these. — Lloyd Shearer

If people have a basic understanding of right from wrong, possess a strong desire to better themselves and persist in there cause, they can break the chain of any negative environment. — Dave Pelzer

I tell you that I'm not dictatorial, I'm not intolerant, I'm not overpowering! You're all wrong, wrong, wrong, I tell you! I'm the most relaxed and understanding of people! None of you, I insist, must ever say I'm dictatorial again! — Neville Chamberlain

I fear depression - intensely. It is by far the most painful ailment I have ever faced. It is the thing that slammed into me, ran me over repeatedly, and then kicked me in the head when I was down. I struggled for change, for understanding, to figure out what was "wrong" with me - no one knew. Or at least, they didn't guess correctly. — Jeannie Davide-Rivera

Oh, bullshit. This isn't one of those stories, Avice. One moment of cack-handedness, Captain Cook offends the bloody locals, one slip of the tongue or misuse of sacred cutlery, and bang, he's on the grill. Do you ever think about how self-aggrandising that stuff is? Oh, all those stories pretending to be mea culpas about cultural insensitivity, oops, we said the wrong thing, but they're really all about how ridiculous natives overreact. Avice, we must have made thousands of fuckups like that over the years. Think about it. Just like our visitors did when they first met our lot, on Terre. And for the most part we didn't lose our shit, did we? — China Mieville

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence - and even start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors. — Suzy Kassem

The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists. — David Deutsch

With a true masterpiece, there are no words required. Discourse is rendered redundant. That's why the work of a master transcends all notions of education, of class. It rises above the onlooker's understanding of what is considered good or bad, or right or wrong in the world of art. With the artist who has achieved mastery, skill, experience and knowledge are transparent, leaving only the message for all to see. — Jacqueline Winspear

The sort of formality that goes into my artwork I would not expect from everybody in the world. I'm sort of pushing that point to its limit, in my mind, but I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with using a laptop so long as we have some understanding of how it works a little bit. — Tristan Perich

Faythe ... ?" The tremor in his voice broke my heart. Then understanding surfaced, and his tear-filled eyes searched mine desperately. "No. No," he whispered through clenched teeth. "This was not wrong. It's the only thing I've done right in months. Don't you dare regret this. — Rachel Vincent

I thought perhaps I had been wrong, too quick to judge the essence of a being by its appearance, still not fully understanding that, in the world God has given us, all things must change. — Alice Hoffman

Confusing being mortal with being threatened can occur in any realm. The fact that something could go wrong does not mean that we are in danger. It means we are alive. Mortality is the sign of life. In the most intimate and personal of arenas, many of us have love and trusted someone who violated that trust. So when someone else comes along who intrigues us, whose interests we share, who we enjoy being with, with whom there could b some mutual enrichment and understanding, that does not mean that we are being violated again. Experiencing anxiety does not mean that anyone is doing anything to us that is unjust. — Sarah Schulman

The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination- an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfilment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past but who may really be the guides to our future. To do this we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the water in the rivers, the trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain? — Arundhati Roy

One reason for the spiritual sickness of our society is that so many do not know or care about what is morally right and wrong. So many things are justified on the basis of expediency and the acquiring of money and goods. In recent times, those few individuals and institutions that have been courageous enough to stand up and speak out against adultery, dishonesty, violence, and other forms of evil are often held up to ridicule. Many things are just plain and simply wrong, whether they are illegal or not. Those who persist in following after the evil things of the world cannot know 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. — James E. Faust

No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you. — Mark Helprin

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward - reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. — Michael Crichton

Nothing is wrong with her that is dangerous or harmful. She just feels deeper than others — Abbi Glines

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

They have it wrong in asking if Schroeder favors Britain over France, or France over Britain. Schroeder favors Germany. That is what we all have to understand. — Gerhard Schroder

If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong; but perhaps he is never so altogether wrong and pig-headed and utterly reprehensible as he is represented to be by those who add the possession of prejudices to the other almost insuperable difficulties of understanding him. — Jane Addams

Don't ask me what good and what evil are, we knew
what it was each time we had to act when blindness was an ex-
ception, what is right and what is wrong are simply different
ways of understanding our relationships with the others, not that
which we have with ourselves, one should not trust the latter — Jose Saramago

Of all the things we are wrong about, error might well top the list ... We are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honourable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world. — Kathryn Schulz

Act with God's compassion, mercy and forgiveness in mind and you will always be right. Act with revenge in your heart and you will always be wrong. — Shannon L. Alder

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. — Danny Hillis

The fact that it wasn't tells me that we've got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong, and we've got to figure out what was there. And that's what I call fundamental fault analysis. — David Kay

When a man reaches his maturity in understanding and in years, the feeling comes over him that his father was wrong to beget him. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Start out understanding religion by saying everything is possibly wrong ... As soon as you do that, you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from ... — Richard P. Feynman

My mother is a good woman - a very good woman - and I am, I think, not quite all criminality, but we do not pull together. I am a piece of machinery which, not understanding, my mother winds up the wrong way, setting all the wheels of my composition going in creaking discord. — Miles Franklin

23 Doing wrong is j like a joke to a fool, but k wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding. — Anonymous

Old Testament scholar David Atkinson writes: "Shame . . . is that sense of unease with yourself at the heart of your being."89 We know there is something wrong with us, but we can't admit it or identify it. There is a deep restlessness, which can take various forms - guilt and striving to prove ourselves, rebellion and the need to assert our independence, compliance and the need to please others. Something is wrong, and we may know the effects, but we fall short of understanding the true causes. — Timothy Keller

You forget your feet when the shoes are comfortable. You forget your waist when the belt is comfortable. Understanding forgets right and wrong when the mind is comfortable. There is no change in what is inside, no following what is outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable. You begin with what is comfortable and never experience what is uncomfortable when you know the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable. — Zhuangzi

Oh, I'm sure Tristin will do it" She said casually as she hung the dress back on the hanger. I stared at her in confusion. "Surely he knows how to put a condom."

The visual made my insides squirm with panic.
"I mean the whole thing! All of it!" I cried.
"Oh" She looked at me with surprise and then her expression dissolved into understanding. "Honey, it will all come naturally."

"How do I know what natural is though? How do I know what's right? What if I do it all wrong?"
She smiled. "The thing about men, Alexis, is they generally don't find any of it wrong. In fact, usually the more wrong it is, the more they like it. — Kristie Cook

The world is tearing itself apart," the retired General began. "This administration is compromising national security. In another few years he will be gone to go write his memoirs and tour the country doing speaking engagements before picking up a job in some think tank. Then guys like you and me will be left holding the mess that he created. We will have inherited an unworkable situation in the Middle East. "He forced Mubarak out; clearly the wrong move. We had a good deal going with Gaddafi and many worked very hard to get him into our camp, but we did flip him. Then the President helps the militias overthrow him without the slightest understanding of the region and the complicated east, west, and south tribal conflict overlaid on top of sectarian issues. — Jack Murphy

You thought wrong. I'm a new man, bein's I'm in lurve and all. I'm a softer, more understanding man. A kinder, gentler - " Deacon snorted. "Fuck. I couldn't even say that shit with a straight face. — Lorelei James

That's what makes the creationist viewpoint not just staggeringly wrong, but sadly impoverished. In twisting around the Second Law of Thermodynamics, they take a powerful tool for understanding the world and try to make it into a barrier to understanding instead. — Bill Nye

If you look at the history of big obstacles in understanding our world, there's usually an intuitive assumption underlying them that's wrong. — Jeff Hawkins

So long as there are employers who attack social understanding and have wrong ideas of justice and fair play it is not only the right but also the duty of their employees - who are, after all, an integral part of our people - to protect the general interests against the greed and unreason of the individual. For to safeguard the loyalty and confidence of the people is as much in the interests of the nation as to safeguard public health. — Adolf Hitler

The rational approach start from the idea that everything is explainable and that mystery is in some sense the enemy. This means that it prefers pejorative, and even wrong, answers to admitting its own lack of understanding. — Jeremy Narby