Quotes about Understanding

Sorrow makes us all children again[,] destroys all differences of intellect[.] The wisest know nothing[.]

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time.

But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind?

Yes, but does Maine have anything to SAY to Florida?

Treat all people as if they are real, because who knows, perhaps they are.

Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, it shall ripen into truth, and you shall know why you believe.

I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.

I would put myself in the attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I blench and withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he meant who said, No man can see God face to face and live.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing

Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Spiritual Laws," Essays and Lectures . (Library of America November 15, 1983)

Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth,—is the fundamental law of criticism.

He's spilled the beans. He's poured out His intentions, allowing us full access. The humans put the Forbidden Book on display tables and shelves. But we actually read it; indeed we must no matter how loathsome.