Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

An inability to handle language is not the same thing as stupidity.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Instead of judging people, we need to pray.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Back when I was in school, few people understood dyslexia and what to do for it. My teachers thought I was lazy and not very clever, and I got bored easily… thinking of all the things I could do once I left school. I couldn’t always follow what was going on.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

You know how big love is? Love is big. love can hold anger; love can even hold hatred.

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.

When people get married young, you don’t really understand the true definition of marriage.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

I particularly admire are Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome who wrote in a certain tone of voice which was humane and understanding of humanity, but always ready to annotate its little foibles. I think I’d lay my cards down on that, and say that it’s that that I’m trying to do.

To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

You pity the fool because you don’t want to beat up a fool! You know, pity is between sorry and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won’t have to beat him up. So that’s why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don’t know no better. That’s why I pity them!

Jesus is a divine guest inside of you all the time – one who loves, understands, sees and hears you. He wants to live in oneness with you… to be the centerpiece of everything you do.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people – more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true – in certain rare, isolated cases.

I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

We should play free football, defend lively with a passion, and have the best understanding in offence.

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

You can see neurosis from below – as a sickness – as most psychiatrists see it. Or you can understand it as a compassionate man might: respecting the neurosis as a fumbling and inefficient effort toward good ends.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

We’re not trying to make you less of a man. We just want you to love us as deeply and as wholesomely and as fully as we love you.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

It’s the way I study – to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.

The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.

I don’t hate women – they just sometimes make me mad.