#comprehensible

A tree is an incomprehensible mystery. ↗

— Jim Woodring

#mystery #tree

One of the monks was doing something incomprehensible at the altar, and the others would occasionally chant a few phrases of mumbo jumbo. ↗

— Ken Follett

#religion #religion

... While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness. ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better. ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... ↗

— Andrew Elfenbein

#incomprehensible #poetry #romantic-poets #romantic

Not longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#beauty #become #exposes #face #features

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate. ↗

— David Brooks

#causes #comprehensible #confront #cult #death

Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness. ↗

— Carl Jung

#cope #cure #darkness #definite #does

Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one. ↗

— Gavin Bryars

#activity #arrogant #assertion #century #comprehensible

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#conviction #deep #emotional #forms #god

I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act. ↗

— Jurgen Habermas

#cannot #comprehensible #context #crime #day

Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force one's mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#any #before #cart #comprehension #doctrines