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

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

It is always the unreadable that occurs.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.

Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‚Why?‘ ceaselessly.

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.

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. I didn’t think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilisation, we wouldn’t be focusing on anything else. That would be our first priority. So I didn’t understand how that added up.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‚Eureka!‘ but ‚That’s funny…‘

Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can’t make head nor tail out of it.

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.

Gravitation is, so far, not understandable in terms of other phenomena.

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

North Americans don’t understand… that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

We’re in very bad trouble if we don’t understand the planet we’re trying to save.

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way – by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

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 fool wonders, the wise man asks.

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

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

A psychoneurosis must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

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.

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

I gave ‚em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I’d have done the same thing.

The fact is that people are good, Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

‚Mystic River‘ just smelled interesting to me. So I read it and liked it right away. Even the dialogue in it was great.

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I’ve had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.