quotations about understanding
The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
Could ... dogmatical reasoners become sensible of the strange infirmities of human understanding, even in its most perfect state, and when most accurate and cautious in its determinations; such a reflection would naturally inspire them with more modesty and reserve, and diminish their fond opinion of themselves, and their prejudice against antagonists.
DAVID HUME
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
What makes a subject difficult to understand -- if it is significant, important -- is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Occasions
The gap between scientific consensus and public understanding is tricky. For one thing, it's among the reasons we can't muster a sustained global effort to combat climate change. And it turns out, the gap can't be closed with more facts. Culture and past experience shape our worldviews more than objective evidence. The phenomenon is called "cultural cognition," and it's why a full third of people doubt humans have evolved over time despite the 98 per cent of scientists who agree on evolution.
MARC & CRAIG KIELBURGER
"Global Voices: Close gap between science, public understanding", Times Colonist, April 16, 2017
A Jedi gains power through understanding and a Sith gains understanding through power.
PALPATINE
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Treat people with understanding when you can, and fake it when you can't until you do understand.
KIM HARRISON
Rules of the Game: Discover, Learn, Invent The Art of Speeding Up Your Career
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
MARIE CURIE
attributed, Our Precarious Habitat
The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Plague
Understanding is wider than knowledge.
ELENA BORISOVA & OLGA SOULEIMANOVA
Understanding by Communication
The best way to understand something is to try to change it.
JEROME BRUNER
New York Times, June 7, 2016