Top 100 If You Can Understand Quotes
#1. If you see a strange thing, try to understand it! If you can understand it, nothing strange will remain!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#2. So next time you hear a raving demagogue counseling hatred for other, slightly different groups of humans, for a moment at least see if you can understand his problem: He is heeding an ancient call that - however dangerous, obsolete, and maladaptive it may be today - once benefitted our species.
Carl Sagan
#3. Virtually all of life's ills boil down to mindlessness. If you can understand someone else's perspective, then there's no reason to be angry at them, envy them, steal from them.
Ellen Langer
#5. If you can understand the purpose of a small tree, you will be able to understand yourself and become free.
Debasish Mridha
#6. If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.
Ethan Hawke
#7. Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially.
Tom Freston
#8. I wonder if you can understand, I never really knew what it was to want, until you.
Nora Roberts
#9. If you can understand human behavior, it can't hurt you nearly as much.
Carol Plum-Ucci
#10. I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand, as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.
Ron Howard
#11. If you can understand the humor in the drawing part you'll probably get the humor in the audio part.
Eric San
#12. I don't think you have to like a character, but if you can understand why they do what they do, or the position they're in or why they make certain choices, then you can get behind them.
Christian Cooke
#13. In this great age of communication, there a lot of people you can't actually understand. I know everyone tweets, and twits and texts and all that, but actually we've all got voices, and it is awfully nice to hear them and if you can understand what people are saying.
Penelope Keith
#14. When you first read a script is the purest moment. That's when you can understand how an audience will ultimately receive it. The first reading of the script is so important because you're experiencing it all for the first time, and it's then that you really know if it's going to work or not.
David Tennant
#15. Nonviolence is a method that transforms, first of all, the individual once you understand it and embrace it. It begins with you and, if you can, about transforming individuals so that they love unconditionally.
Coretta Scott King
#16. You can't always understand if someone's into you or not, so you should never really pursue something too far without gauging that first.
Carly Rae Jepsen
#17. No one wants their stuff stolen. No one wants their physical person harmed. If you understand the implications of those two truths, you can come to see the egregious moral and practical problems of a state-managed society.
Jeffrey Tucker
#18. What I mean is that you aren't even supposed to know we exist. Therefore, how can you completely understand something if you're not supposed to know it's there?
Christina Daley
#19. Ignorance," he rejoined, sounding cross. "You modern people live in your own version of the Dark Ages, dismissing anything you can't understand. If the relic didn't stop him, what the hell did?
Sylvain Reynard
#20. You can have your own language. You can have your own dialect; you can have your own way of saying things, but if you don't actually understand the way the language fits together, it's chaos.
Nick Earls
#21. If you want to understand the jungle, you can't be content just to sail back and forth near the shore. You've got to get into it, no matter how strange and frightening it might seem.
Carl Jung
#22. Don't judge me until you understand me. You can't understand me if you've already judged me.
Orson Scott Card
#23. I can understand there are things like shadows they need to fix after a shoot, but it's unfair to represent an image of yourself if it's not true. They're gonna see what you look like on film anyway, so why try to cover all your wobbly bits in a photo?
Emily Blunt
#24. It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it's a painting, and if you can walk around it it's a sculpture.
Tom Stoppard
#25. But what does interest me is the notion that if you do a lot of work it means there's a potential for other people to understand that a lot of things are possible with a sustained effort and that the broadening of experiences is possible and I think that's all art can be.
Richard Serra
#26. If you can't explain what you are doing to a nine-year-old, then either you still don't understand it very well, or it's not all that worthwile in the first place.
Albert Einstein
#27. To be an atheist you have to have ten thousand times more imagination than if you are a religious fundamentalist. You must take the responsibility to acquire information, digest and use it to understand what you can.
Peter Greenaway
#28. The best leaders make mistakes and then learn from them. The best leaders never make the same mistakes again. The only way you can learn is if you understand the mistakes that were made.
Joelle Charbonneau
#29. He should have just checked it. I don't understand why some people insist on hauling those giant bags around everywhere they go - not when you can check one bag free on international flights. Check it at the gate if you don't trust the belt system.
Sabra Hunter
#30. I understand how not even a priest can resist you when you want him. I can understand how love is something horrible and complex and hurting and something that still happens even if it shouldn't, and can't, and how one can want to be somebody else's world. I get it. And it fucking hurts.
Aleksandr Voinov
#31. You have to have faith that you are doing God's will. Sometimes you will not understand. Sometimes you will doubt. But if you are doing God's will, you can't be wrong, you can't go wrong.
Philippa Gregory
#32. Our children do not need a makeover, they just need to be understood. If you understand their emotional needs now, you can save them a lifetime of searching for what they never had as a child.
Florence Littauer
#33. For me, geopolitical issues are becoming more important, because how can you understand economy if you don't understand geopolitics? People think economists just deal with spreadsheets and charts. That's a narrow-minded caricature.
Nouriel Roubini
#34. I learned that if you bring black people together, you bring them together with a song. To this day, I don't understand how people think they can bring anybody together without a song.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
#35. You want war??
...
Out there you can find books, films about the war how brutal is it. If you disire for more... it sounds like you are cruel, so far I can understand it you are the bad guy, aren't you?
Deyth Banger
#36. In the scriptures, we are told you can't really understand happiness unless you understand sadness. You don't know pleasure if you don't know pain. It's part of life. So can you learn something from somebody who has gone from success to success to success? I don't think so.
Clayton Christensen
#37. Try to walk as much as you can, and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her. If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.
Vincent Van Gogh
#38. I motivate others by making sure that they understand to go after their dreams and don't let anyone tell you you can't. If you are motivated enough and put the work in that you can achieve anything in life that you set your mind to.
Magic Johnson
#39. What appears to be a breakdown can often be a breakthrough ... IF you understand God's grace
Carl Lentz
#40. One has to understand what the enemy is all about: the enemy's history, the enemy's culture, the enemy's aspirations. If you understand these well, you can perhaps move towards peace.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
#41. If you understand the system you can design appropriate action.
Edward De Bono
#42. Perhaps there are people in this world who love their fountain pens with every fiber of their being - and that's very sad. If you're not in love with him, you can understand him.
Banana Yoshimoto
#43. I tell you we must have bodies. You cannot make doctors without them, and the public must understand it. If we can't get them any other way we will arm the students with Winchester rifles and send them to protect the body-snatchers on their raids.
Erik Larson
#44. Oh, now look. She prays to the Mother of Jesus as if she believes she can intercede for her. Ma infantile, you surely do not understand the depth of those repetitious lines, do you
Sai Marie Johnson
#45. If you can't summarize an issue on one page, you don't understand the issue well enough.
Ronald Reagan
#46. If you're going to yell at me, do it in English, please. I'd like to understand the insult so I can frame an appropriately pithy response.
Chloe Neill
#47. Redrafts can be very lucrative for me, but you must understand that if films go through many drafts or writers it's because someone doesn't want to do the picture and never will.
William Monahan
#48. If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.
Haruki Murakami
#49. If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology.
Bruce Schneier
#50. If you really understand something, you can say it in the fewest words, instead of thrashing about.
Paul Graham
#51. I think you can be the greatest orator of all time, the greatest motivator of all times, but if those players know that you don't care about them, and you don't try to understand them, then they're never going to hear what you have to say.
Mike Singletary
#52. In protesting for your rights in any form you may, but it's only good, If they can understand your problems and feelings and not only to judge you.
Auliq Ice
#53. Others first. Whatever your corporate mission, paint a clear and compelling picture that others can understand and embrace. State your mission in terms that appeal to your team's best instincts. Persuade and empower as if you are leading and mentoring volunteers.
Tony Dungy
#54. I know I seem unlovable and impossible at times, but if you'll take the time to understand what my needs are, I'll do the same for you. Then we can have a relationship filled with passion, excitement, and sexual fulfillment. - Light Her Fire
Ellen Kriedman
#55. Kept talking about how she's studying every holy book she can get her hands on, aiming to understand God's word. I quoted St. Augustine to her. 'If you understand it, it isn't God.' Gave her a cup of chamomile tea.
Jeanne DuPrau
#56. Oh Jesus, thank You. It's only through You that I can fathom such grace. To be redeemed to You through a mercy I can't even begin to understand. But I believe in You. I trust in You. And I'm clinging to Your promises as if they truly are life rafts in a dark and stormy sea.
Diane Moody
#57. I think the American public can accept the fact if you tell them that every time you pick up the phone it's going to be recorded and it goes to the government. I think the public can understand that.
Raymond Kelly
#58. Then you have to be nothing. Want nothing. You can't have them-Kat or Annabel-if you need them. You're not a husband. You're not a father. You're a man with a task. Understand?
Greg Hurwitz
#59. It's flabbergasting. I can understand if you have your legs spread and you're pushing yourself into the camera - that's sexually erotic. But the sensual contours in the male or female shape? Come on, guys, relax.
Helena Christensen
#60. Addie believes in books. They are more interesting than real life and easier to understand. Sometimes you can guess the ending. Things usually work out, and if they don't, you can always tell yourself it was only a book.
Kim Church
#61. If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark. And that only I can know, only I can understand my own condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too.
Michael Cunningham
#62. [To beginning readers (ages 4 to 8) at a reading of "Noelle's Treasure Tale"]: If you discover a word in my book that you don't understand, ask your parents so they can look it up in the dictionary for you.
Gloria Estefan
#63. People always mean well, but they don't understand that when you're seriously depressed, suicidal ideation can be the only thing that keeps you alive. Just knowing there's an out - even if it's bloody, even if it's permanent - makes the pain almost bearable for one more day.
Terri Cheney
#64. The 8 key words that will move practically anyone to your side of the issue: 'If you can't do it, I'll definitely understand.'
Bob Burg
#65. I'm not sure why, but I seem to be drawn to stories about abuses of power. But I'm also drawn, not so much to victims' stories, as stories that tend to show how power works. Because if you don't understand the criminals, you can't figure out how to stop the crimes.
Alex Gibney
#66. Perhaps someday, when you are a father, Prince, you will understand how empty is your heart if your child is a hollow toy that you can move where you will him to be
Ashlee Willis
#67. If you've never been caught up in the cycle of violence, you can't understand it. Even if you know you deserve better, even if you know you should just leave, it just isn't that easy.
Jasinda Wilder
#68. Know that you make a difference in this world, even if you can't see it or understand it - you do.
Karen Higginbottom
#69. ...I understand where you're coming from. I know it isn't just a question of revenge. It's the feeling there are some things you can't let pass. If you did, you wouldn't be able to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards.
Jean-Claude Izzo
#70. I feel we don't really need scriptures. The entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food. If you can't learn from your daily activities, how are you going to understand the scriptures? (233)
Swami Satchidananda
#71. If you want to understand the nature of something, to find out the truth, that is one thing. If you want to play semantics, make up wild thought 'experiments', that is another thing. I am not so interested in the latter, though I do appreciate that it can be fun, however unproductive.
Patricia Churchland
#72. For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.
Tom Waits
#73. Words - I wonder if you can realize how much I love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and people to understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literary mind.
Aldous Huxley
#74. Compassion is the capacity to understand the suffering in oneself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief.
Thich Nhat Hanh
#75. Engineers are funny animals. If you tell an engineer about a problem, any problem, his first instinct is to measure it. Tell an engineer you don't love him anymore and he'll ask for a graph of your love over time so that he can understand exactly how big the problem is and when it started.
Phil Lapsley
#76. If you are miserable and ill, I can understand why you would not want to live a long time. But if you are happy and productive, why not? Why should people have to grow old and die?
Damon Knight
#77. If you're a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don't understand talent any more than we understand electricity.
Maya Angelou
#78. The point of history, the very essence of it as a field of study, is to find correspondences. You look at the past so that you can understand it, and through it you come to a better understanding of your own time. If you're lucky, sometimes you can even extrapolate to possible futures." "I'm not
M.R. Carey
#79. People are beginning to understand there is nothing in the world so remote that it can't impact you as a person. It's not just diseases. Economists are now beginning to say if we are going to have good markets in Africa, we're going to have to have healthy people in Africa.
William Foege
#80. So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar.
Zhuangzi
#81. Styling is my form of painting. I can understand the process behind it, the being afraid to start, and the diving into it. I've learned not to be afraid of doing something that might not be right. If you don't try then you won't know.
Lori Goldstein
#82. What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.
Newt Gingrich
#83. Evie: "Can we not talk?"
Jack: "But you're such a charming conversationalist. Still, if you'd prefer to simply bask in the glory of my company, I understand. You're probably overwhelmed by holding my hand and want to enjoy the moment.
Kiersten White
#84. You came so that you could learn about your dreams," said the old woman. "And dreams are the language of God. When he speaks in our language, I can interpret what he has said. But if he speaks in the language of the soul, it is only you who can understand.
Paulo Coelho
#85. I do understand! I understand what they do not, and that is you can only do with what you have. What God has given you. If you try to be anyone else, it is the worst thing that can happen because you cannot ever be them - and then you give up being you
Siri Mitchell
#86. Ask yourself if you are in this for the long run
if it's only your weight you want to change or if you are willing to use your eating patterns as a portal to the inner universe. And if the answer is the latter, then there is no end to what you can learn, be, understand, become.
Geneen Roth
#87. First of all," he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view
until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
Harper Lee
#88. But I'd understand if you chose love, Adam love, over music love. Either way you win. And either way you lose. What can I tell you? Love's a bitch.
Gayle Forman
#89. If you understand what makes him tick-what is magic for him- then you can understand anyone
Rene Denfeld
#90. My teachings are easy to understand
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them,you'll fail.
My teachings are older than the world.
How can you grasp their meaning?
If you want to know me,
Look inside your heart.
Lao-Tzu
#91. I can begin to understand how anchor monsters are made. If you're not careful, you can become used to being treated as though you're special and begin to expect it.
Anderson Cooper
#92. Step into my shoes follow my journey my mountains my valleys my surprise potholes and if you can keep going the way I keep going perhaps you'll understand my choices & strength.
Karen Salmansohn
#93. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it enough.
John C. Maxwell
#94. That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen ... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because ... the sound of the rain needs no translation.
Alan Watts
#95. If you're against globalisation, it doesn't achieve much by sort of bombing the head offices of Shell or Nestle. You unsettle people much more by blowing up an Oxfam shop because people can't understand the motive.
J.G. Ballard
#96. Which goes to show you, you can make all the laws you want, but you cannot change people's ways. If you must change them, you have to understand that it will take a long time.
Miriam Makeba
#97. Control is an illusion - a fact you will learn very fast if you become ill, or have things fall apart in some other way. When we understand vulnerability and suffering as an essential part of being human, our individual fate can be easier to manage.
Harriet Lerner
#98. If you know a country's geography, you can understand and predict its foreign policy.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#99. Sorry?" said Dalziel turning. "What's that you said?"
He cupped a large hand to a proportionally large ear.
If the buggers get clever, he had once told Pascoe, pretend you can't hear. Then pretend you can't understand. Nothing's funny if it's repeated and explained.
Reginald Hill
#100. The greatest pleasure is not - say - sex or geometry. It is just understanding. And if you can get people to understand their own humanity - well, that's the job of the writer.
William Golding
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