#understanding

Some things are only capable of being done in space. Examples of that are looking at our Earth from that far away, and understanding the entire processes of storms and weather patterns, and oceans, and coastlines. ↗

— Laurel Clark

#being #being done #capable #coastlines #done

I fall in love with contradictions without understanding. I can't really portray them unless I do. So in a roundabout way I have to fall in love, it's my duty. If love is about understanding and understanding is compassion and compassion is love, I have to have compassion towards the world. ↗

— Joseph Fiennes

#compassion #contradictions #duty #fall #i

In rereading one of the best essays I know on Dante's Paradiso, Giovanni Getto's "Aspetti della poesia di Dante" (Aspects of Dante's Poetry, 1947), one can see that there is not one single image of Paradise that does not stem from a tradition that was part of the medieval reader's heritage, I won't say of ideas, but of daily fantasies and feelings. It is from the biblical tradition and the church fathers that these radiances come from, these vortices of flame, these lamps, these suns, these brilliances and brightnesses emerging "like a horizon clearing" (Par. 14.69)...For medieval man, reading about this light and luminosity was equivalent to when we dream about the sinuous gracefulness of a movie star, the elegant lines of a car...It is this appeal to a poetry of understanding that can make the Paradiso fascinating even for the modern reader who has lost the reference points familiar to his medieval counterpart. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#poetry-of-understanding #dreams

Manlius ... took care in his invitations, actively sought to exclude from his circle crude and vulgar men like Caius Valerius. But they were all around; it was Manlius who lived in a dream world, and his bubble of civility was becoming smaller and smaller. Caius Valerius, powerful member of a powerful family, had never even heard of Plato. A hundred, even fifty years before, such an absurdity would have been inconceivable. Now it was surprising if such a man did know anything of philosophy, and even if it was explained, he would not wish to understand. ↗

— Iain Pears

#civilization #crudeness #education #knowledge #like-mindedness

I finally realized that yeah I did want to be an actor and it wasn't out of habit, but I needed to grow up for myself and then kind of re-enter the industry with a sound understanding of what my sensibilities and my values are as a relatively formed human being. ↗

— Claire Danes

#being #did #finally #formed #grow

The tax laws are written by men with considerable net worth, and with little understanding of what wage-earners must do to make ends meet. ↗

— Martin L. Gross

#ends #laws #little #make #meet

The one thing I seek above all else is understanding. Sometimes I'm so frustrated and I don't get it. But I'm lucky to have a good management team and people around me who explain things and answer my questions. ↗

— Justin Guarini

#answer #around #else #explain #frustrated

Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. ↗

— G. I. Gurdjieff

#cannot #free #functions #govern #himself

A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity. ↗

— Robert Hall

#confide #equally #friend #once #opinion

The New Right, in many cases, is doing nothing less than placing a heretical claim on Christian faith that distorts, confuses, and destroys the opportunity for a biblical understanding of Jesus Christ and of his gospel for millions of people. ↗

— Mark Hatfield

#christ #christian #christian faith #claim #confuses