Quotes about Understanding

My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle.

The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

If people only talked about what they understood, Earth would be a very quiet place.

Make things as simple as possible but no simpler

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler

I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasure. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.

Simplicity is no virtue unless you are potentially complicated.

Fortunately, however, birds don't understand pep talks. Not even St. Francis'. Just imagine, he went on, preaching sermons to perfectly good thrushes and goldfinches and chiff-chaffs! What presumption! Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut and let the birds preach to him?

And it's what you never will write, said the Controller. Because, if it were really like Othello nobody could understand it, however new it might be. And if were new, it couldn't possibly be like Othello.

You'll have a better understanding of what was actually done if you start by knowing what had to be done - what always and everywhere has to be done by anyone who has a clear idea about what's what.