#tan

They didn't understand what they were doing. I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race. ↗

— Michael Crichton

#humanity #science #understanding #science

We understand more than we know. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#science #understanding #wisdom #science

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir ↗

— Khaled Hosseini

#drama #the-kite-runner #smile

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. ↗

— Charles William Eliot

#books #constant #counselors #friends #most

Any fool can know. The point is to understand. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#learning #understanding #wisdom #wisdom

When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch. ↗

— Bette Davis

#double-standards #empowerment #feminism #gender #hypocrisy

I laugh at myself. I don't take myself completely seriously. I think that's another quality that people have to hold on to... you have to laugh, especially at yourself. ↗

— Madonna

#self-acceptance #self-confidence #laugh

The dhampir dorm appeared before me, about half its windows lit. It was near curfew; people were going to bed. I burst in through the doors, feeling like my heart was going to explode from the exertion. The first person I saw was Stan, and I nearly knocked him over. He caught my wrists to steady me. "Rose, wh—" "Strigoi," I gasped out. "There are Strigoi on campus." He stared at me, and for the first time I'd ever seen, his mouth seriously dropped open. Then, he recovered himself, and I could immediately see what he was thinking. More ghost stories. "Rose, I don't know what you're—" "I'm not crazy!" I screamed. Everyone in the dorm's lobby was staring at us. "They're out there! They're out there, and Dimitri is fighting them alone. You have to help him." What had Dimitri told me? What was that word? "Buria. He said to tell you buria." And like that, Stan was gone. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#stan #crazy

If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation. ↗

— Erich Fromm

#freedom #life #understanding #art

The four stages of acceptance: 1. This is worthless nonsense. 2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view. 3. This is true, but quite unimportant. 4. I always said so." (Review of The Truth About Death, in: Journal of Genetics 1963, Vol. 58, p.464) ↗

— J.B.S. Haldane

#dispute #haldane #opportunism #science #self-contradiction