If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

It’s a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they’re different. It’s very limiting.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

When we believe the best of people, we let go of each thing they do that is hurtful to us. And we choose to think things like, ‚I don’t believe they meant to hurt me.‘ ‚Maybe they’re having a bad day or don’t feel well.‘ ‚They probably don’t even realize how they sound.‘

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

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

Man can be understood only by ascending from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. In other words, he is first of all a cosmic problem.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

We welcome the scrutiny of the world – because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect.

The second time around, I’ll understand that, as a husband, my wife doesn’t care about my opinions. I just need to tell her the things that will continue to help me stack the brownie points.

It took Simone a long time to understand why people want Daddy’s autograph. I’d tell her, and my wife would tell her, too, ‚People see Daddy in the movies, and they are excited to meet him.‘ But she couldn’t really grasp it.

I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.

If… many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.

If you would judge, understand.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I’m no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people’s progress.

The answer I found is you stay away from the people who make fun of you, and you join these ad hoc groups who understand your craziness.

Understand: any phenomenon in the world is by nature complex. The people you deal with are equally complex. Any action sets off a limitless chain of reactions. It is never so simple as A leads to B. B will lead to C, D and beyond.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

There is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.

To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.

The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

I got a fancy reputation. During high school, every puzzle that was known to man must have come to me. Every damn, crazy conundrum that people had invented, I knew.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

If you’re in business or politics, you need to have an intense understanding of what’s going on around you.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?

Once I get on a puzzle, I can’t get off.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

I’m a good teacher and am great at observation and picking out what’s wrong and fixing it.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

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.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.