Great Throughts Treasury

"Man masters nature not by force but by understanding." - Jacob Bronowski

"In no country does one find so many men of eminent capacity for business, shrewd, forcible, and daring, who are so uninteresting, so intellectually barren, outside the sphere of their business understanding." - James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce

"At the moment that you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don’t understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time." - Jane Wagner

"What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it." -

"Four things are required to develop generosity of spirit: (1) The intention to serve God in all our affairs. (2) The belief that if that intention is honored, the Universe will provide all that is required materially and spiritually for our success. (3) The understanding that we receive as we give, and that our own creativity is enhanced through mentoring others. (4) Practical groundedness. God can’t deliver the lottery jackpot unless we buy a ticket!" - Joan Borysenko

"Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart." - John Adams

"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

"The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness an crookedness is our own. the wisdom of god created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the ye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glitterings, what is that to truth?" - John Milton

"If the will, which is the law of our nature, were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, understanding, and reason, no other hell could equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious madness, a horrid thought!" - John Milton

"Our happiness, satisfaction, and our understanding, even of God, will be no deeper than our capacity to know ourselves inwardly, to encounter the outer world from the deep comfort that comes from being at home in one’s own skin, from an intimate familiarity with the ways of one’s own mind and body." - Jon Kabat-Zinn

"From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor." - Joseph Addison

"Life is an island in an ocean of loneliness, an island whose rocks are hopes, whose trees are dreams, whose flowers are solitude, and whose brooks are thirst. Your life, my fellow men, is an island separated from all other islands and regions. No matter how many are the ships that leave your shores for other climes, no matter how many are the fleets that touch your coast, you remain a solitary island, suffering the pangs of loneliness and yearning for happiness. You are unknown to your fellow men and far removed from their sympathy and understanding." - Kahlil Gibran

"Life is that which we see and experience through the spirit; but the world around us we come to know through our understanding and reason. And such knowledge brings us great joy or sorrow." - Kahlil Gibran

"Knowledge and understanding are life's faithful companions who will never prove untrue to you. For knowledge is your crown, and understanding your staff; and when they are with you, you can possess no greater treasures." - Kahlil Gibran

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." - Kahlil Gibran

"It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding." - Kahlil Gibran

"We are called upon to love in faith – to nurse our firm belief in the stars of sweet reasonableness that continue to shine behind the darkness of events which seem to us our and grim beyond our understanding." - Karl Rahner

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." - Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

"Miserable indeed is a world in which we have knowledge without understanding, criticism without appreciation, beauty without love, truth without passion, righteousness without mercy, and courtesy without a warm heart!" - Lin Yutang

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis

"Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it." - Marian Anderson

"Depression, achievement, and physical health are three of the most obvious applications of learned optimism. But there is also the potential for a new understanding of yourself." - Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman

"Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word ‘being’? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew the question of the meaning f Being. But are we nowadays even perplexed at our inability to understand the expression ‘Being’? Not at all. So first of all we must reawaken an understanding for the meaning of the question." - Martin Heidegger

"Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they; to God’s word? Yea, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health, or to the gifts of the mind such as understanding, skill, wisdom? Yet men toil for them day and night and take no rest. Therefore our Lord God commonly gives riches to foolish people to whom He gives nothing else." - Martin Luther

"Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding" - Martin Luther

"The object of religion is conduct; and conduct is really, however men may overlay it with philosophical disquisitions, the simplest thing in the world. That is to say, it is the simplest thing in the world as far as understanding is concerned; as regards doing, it is the hardest thing in the world." - Matthew Arnold

"When is a man in mere understanding? I answer, “When a man sees one thing separated from another.” And when is a man above mere understanding? That I can tell you: “When a man sees All in all, then a man stands beyond mere understanding.”" - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

"He that lends an easy and credulous ear to calumny is either a man of very ill morals or has no more sense and understanding than a child." - Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL

"To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one’s life without knowing where it really leads – such is the behavior of the multitude." - Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL

"To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one's life without knowing where it really leads - such is the behavior of the multitude." - Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL

"The greatest threats to human survival will not be natural ones, but originate from inside ourselves.. For our ancestors, understanding themselves better was a pleasant luxury. But nowadays learning to control the mind may have become a greater priority for survival than seeking any further advantages the hard sciences could bring." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

"Education fails unless the three R's at one end of the school spectrum lead ultimately to the four P's at the other - Preparation for Earning, Preparation for Living, Preparation for Understanding, and Preparation for Participation in the problems involved in the making of a better world." - Norman Cousins

"Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many. What is genius or courage without a heart?" - Oliver Goldsmith

"We’re here - to learn to love in spite of the human condition, to transcend the human condition of being fearful. We get so bogged down in worldly things we don’t understand that we’re here for a spiritual quest. Understanding that this journey is the most exciting part of being human has revolutionized my life." - Oprah Winfrey, born Oprah Gail Winfrey

"Persons of strong character are usually the happiest. They do not blame others for troubles that can usually be traced to their own actions and lack of understanding. They know that no one has any power to add to their happiness or detract from it unless they themselves are so weak that they allow the adverse thoughts and wicked actions of others to affect them." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"I believe a time will come when in greater understanding we shall have no boundaries anymore." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"There is no stronger force that you can employ against temptation than wisdom. Complete understanding will bring you to the point where nothing can tempt you to actions that promise pleasure but in the end will only hurt you." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy quite as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or exercise or praise." - Phyllis McGinley

"Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it becomes an error of the understanding." - Plato NULL

"No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding." - Plato NULL

"A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, or in the realm of intuitions and duty." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The great success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion. A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, namely, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, in the realm of intuitions and duty." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To one who pays attention to God’s immensity, it is clear that nothing at all can exist which does not depend on Him. This is true not only of everything that subsists, but of all order, of every law, and of every reason of truth and goodness... Hence, neither should we think that eternal truths depend upon the human understanding or on other existing things; they must depend on God alone, who as the supreme legislator, ordained them from all eternity." - René Descartes

"What is man? Shall I say a rational animal?… a thinking being, that is to say, a mind, an understanding, or a reasonable being… A thing which thinks." - René Descartes

"Science offers the best answers to the meaning of life. Science offers you the privilege before you die of understanding why you were ever born in the first place." - Richard Dawkins

"Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence." -

"The image of God was no less resplendent in man’s practical understanding, namely that storehouse of the soul in which are treasured up the rules of action and the seeds of morality." -

"Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand." -