The understanding of what you actually are is far more important than the pursuit of what you should be.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti in Think on These Things
The mind which is alert, watchful, which is free of fear, is an innocent mind; and it is only the innocent mind that can understand reality, truth or God.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti in Think on These Things
Every life, properly understood, is compelling. Anyone aspiring to be an artist knows there’s no such thing as why-bother or nothing-to-see.
—David Shields
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
—Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird
The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology.… Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace.
—Thích Nhất Hạnh
People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.
—Flannery O'Connor
God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.
—Joseph Campbell
My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
—J. B. S. Haldane
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
—Peter Drucker
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.
—Neil Gaiman
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
—Soren Kierkegaard
It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.
—Charles Baudelaire
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
—Groucho Marx
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.
—H. L. Mencken