Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Understand

"This is the end I aim at: to acquire knowledge of the union of mind with the whole of nature... To do this it is necessary first to understand as much of nature as suffices for acquiring such knowledge, and second to form a society of the kind which permits as many as possible to acquire such knowledge. Third, attention must be paid to moral philosophy... Fourthly, because health is no small means to achieving this end, the whole of medicine must be worked out. And fifthly... because it is possible to gain more free time and convenience in life, mechanics is in no way to be despised." -

"We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love." -

"Thinking, not growth, makes manhood. Accustom yourself, therefore, to thinking. Set yourself to understand whatever you see or read. To join thinking with reading is one of the first maxims, and one of the easiest operations." - Isaac Taylor

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless." -

"Every enthusiast contains a false enthusiast, every lover a false lover, every man of genius a false man of genius, and, as a rule, every fault its counterfeit: this is necessary in order to assure the continuity of one's personality, not only in the eyes of others but in one's own - in order to understand oneself, count upon oneself, think of oneself; in order, in short, to be oneself." - Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry

"The architect must not only understand drawing, but music." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL

"I have said that the soul is not more than the body, and I have said that the body is not more than the soul, and nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, and whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, and I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, and to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, and there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero, and there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, and I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, for I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.) I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, in the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and everyone is sign'd by God's name, and I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, others will punctually come for ever and ever. " - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"People who lead fulfilling lives generally have found a sense of “home” in what they do. They have a philosophy of life that connects them to a larger vision. They accept that life is a continuing challenge. More often than not, they are able to live according to their own schedules, choosing work that is interesting and complex enough to keep them engaged. They get excited about being effective and about being stretched to learn new things. They have a few good friends who understand their vision and perhaps even share common aspirations. They are not driven by urgency, competition, or the demands of the ego." - Carol Adrienne

"Nobody can, even for the sake of unity, do violence to his conscience and to truth itself. Whoever in conscience feels obliged to understand the Word of God in a certain way cannot and may not declare he understands it otherwise." - Bernard Johannes Alfrink

"I have meditated on the different religions, endeavoring to understand them, and I have found that they stem from a single principle with numerous ramifications. Do not therefore ask a man to adopt a particular religion (rather than another), for this would separate him from the fundamental principle. It is this principle itself which must come to seek him." - Al-Hallaj NULL

"I finally understand what life is about; it is about losing everything… so every morning we must celebrate what we have." - Isabelle Allende Llona

"I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand." - Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

"I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe I shall not understand." - Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

"A knave is one who disobeys the imperatives of conscience; a fool is one who cannot hear or understand them." -

"Parents belong to the world of the past; children belong to the world of the future. Both share the world of the present, but neither can enter or fully understand the other’s world and time. It is easier to communicate across miles than across years. We meet and laugh awhile; we separate and grieve awhile. And then we remember." - Joseph A. Bauer

"Forgiveness. The experience of reconciliation following upon some breach of trust, marked on the one side by the acknowledgement of wrongdoing and the desire to make amends and on the other side by the capacity to understand and the willingness to resume friendly relations." - Anton Theophilus Boisen

"He produces not only our choice, but also the very freedom that is in our chance... In order to understand that God creates our free will in us, we must understand only that He wills us to be free. But He will not only that we should be free in power, but that we should be free in its exercise." - Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

"By happiness we are to understand the internal satisfaction of the soul, arising from the possession of good; and by good, whatever is suitable or agreeable to man for his preservation, perfection, convenience, or pleasure." - Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui

"Whether or not you decide to emulate that which you have come to understand through empathetic identification, you will never be quite the same again. In learning to think and to feel, to understand and to value more like another you will have grown in your own self-understanding and in your capacity to speak and interact with others. You, and that which you are now able to embrace, may well find in one another nurture, respect, protection, and enrichment. It is in such qualities of living that true meaning will be encountered, however tentative and fluctuating that meaning may be. It is in the very midst of the flux of the meaningful that its perpetuation and its renewal is to be found." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter

"Only the intelligent can understand what is obvious and what is concealed. Strength may be good or it may be evil. The same is true of weakness. The ideal is moderation… Purify the heart; that is all." - Zhou Dunyi, also Chou Tun-i or Zhou Dunshi

"It's taken me all my life to understand that it is not necessary to understand everything." - René Coty, fully René Jules Gustave Coty

"Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education." -

"I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence - as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." - Albert Einstein

"It is not enough to teach a man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and the morally good. Otherwise, he – with his specialized knowledge – more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community." - Albert Einstein

"A passionate translation of the Sh’ma: Sh’ma: listen, or wake up. Yisroel: you who seek to understand and connect with God. Adonai: the Eternal One who has been present since the beginning of time and who expresses love and wisdom by entering our hearts and our world as Eloheynu: our God. Adonai Ekhad: this Eternal energy is the unity within and between all things." - Leonard Felder

"We narratively represent our selves in part in order to answer certain questions of identity. It is useful to distinguish two different aims of self-representation that in the end are deeply intertwined. First, there is self-representation for the sake of self-understanding. This is the story we tell ourselves to understand ourselves for who we are. The ideal here is convergence between self-representation and an acceptable version of the story of our actual identity. Second, there is self-representation for public dissemination, whose aim is underwriting successful social interaction." - Owen Flanagan

"If you try to see the Presence of God everywhere. If you realize that fundamentally you have nothing to deal with but your own thoughts. If, in short, you understand that you are in a mental universe, that things are thoughts, and that one’s life history is fundamentally the expression of his belief about God." - Emmet Fox

"Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people’s behavior, it would all make sense." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Despite many assertions to the contrary, the brain is not “like a computer.” Yes, the brain has many electrical connections, just like a computer. But at each point in a computer only a binary decision can be made – yes or no, on or off, zero or one. Each point in the brain, each brain cell, contains all the genetic information necessary to reproduce the entire organism. Brain cell is not a switch. It has a memory; it can be subtle. Each brain cell is like a computer. The brain is like a hundred billion computers all connected together. It is impossible to understand because it is so complex." -

"We must learn to understand each other and listen without judgment, to learn from each other and not be dismissive of what we don’t understand." - David Green

"To understand the mysteries of life and to appreciate the grandeur of our existence, we need to look way beyond our every day reality. If we can be expansive and think about the creation of our Souls and the nature of the universe, and consider why God made us and how we can accomplish our “mission,” then we can put this lifetime into a broader spiritual perspective." - Tom Gregory

"A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought: to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does… Through the ecstasy of deeds he learns to be certain of the presence of God." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Extreme rationalism may be defined as the failure of reason to understand itself." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept its premise that time has a meaning which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The strong, manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one’s inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, love, fear, grief, and hate; and if a man does not give way to these, he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience." - Tokugawa Ieyasu

"If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"If we want to understand the psyche we have to include the whole world." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"If we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all." - Stuart Kauffman, fully Stuart Alan Kauffman

"Politics is not about objective reality, but virtual reality. What happens in the political world is divorced from the real world. It exists for only the fleeting historical moment, in a magical movie of sorts, a never-ending and infinitely revisable docudrama. Strangely, the faithful understand that the movie is not true – yet also maintain that it is the only truth that really matters." - Michael Kelly

"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all of your life, but in a new way." -

"Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it." - Abraham Lincoln

"To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love." -

"There is no other way of guarding one’s self against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect. A prudent prince must therefore take a third course, by choosing for his council wise men, and giving these alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else; but he must ask them about everything and hear their opinion, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"The mistake the world is making with the simple peoples is to try and hurry them into political concepts they don’t understand and aren’t prepared to cope with. I know. I am a peasant myself." -

"We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs the will: 'liking' is a matter of sense and sensibility. Nevertheless, if we really love others it will not be too hard to like them also. If we wait for some people to become agreeable or attractive before we begin to love them, we will never begin. If we are content to give them a cold impersonal 'charity' that is merely a matter of obligation, we will not trouble to understand them or to sympathize with them at all. And in that case we will not really love them, because love implies an efficacious will not only to do good to others exteriorly but also to find some good in them to which we can respond. " -

"There are seven marks of a wise man. The wise man does not speak before him who is greater than he in wisdom; and does not break in upon the speech of his fellow; he is not hasty to answer; he questions according to the subject matter; and answers to the point; he speaks upon the first thing first, and the last; regarding that which he has not understood he says, I do not understand it, and he acknowledges the truth." - Mishnah or The Mishnah NULL

"One hundred years after its invention, film art still occupies a marginal place in academic circles. The very activity of watching television is routinely dismissed as inherently inferior to the activity of reading, regardless of content. But narrative beauty is independent of medium. Oral tales, pictorial stories, plays, novels, movies, and television shows can all range from the lame and sensationalist to the heartbreaking and illuminating. We need every available form of expression and all the new ones we can muster to help us understand who we are and what we are doing." - Janet H. Murray

"We are on the brink of a historic convergence as novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers move toward multiform stories and digital formats; computer scientists move toward the creation of fictional worlds; and the audience moves toward the virtual stage. How can we tell what is coming next? Judging from the current landscape, we can expect a continued loosening of the traditional boundaries between games and stories, between films and rides, between broadcast media (like television and radio) and archival media (like books or videotape, between narrative forms (like books) and dramatic forms (like theater or film), and even between the audience and the author. To understand the new genres and the narrative pleasures that will arise from this heady mixture, we must look beyond the formats imposed upon the computer by the older media it is so rapidly assimilating and identify those properties native to the machine itself." - Janet H. Murray

"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand." -