Top 100 Understanding Why Quotes
#1. I must admit, Peter, I have difficulty in understanding why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat.
J.K. Rowling
#2. Herd immunity is, it turns out, not incredibly easy to understand. It took me quite a bit of reading before I fully grasped it. But understanding herd immunity is essential to understanding why we vaccinate the way we do.
Eula Biss
#4. Understanding why something happened does not help to reduce the problem.
Richard Bandler
#5. I like to know why a video has suddenly gone viral, why a song has broken, why a TV show is suddenly rating out of pattern ... I'm pretty good at understanding why things are becoming popular.
Simon Cowell
#6. All along, I was less concerned about walking a path of integrity and more caught up in a compass calibrated by greed. And with a compass such as this, how is it that I'm having a hard time understanding why I am where I am?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
#7. Understanding why so many western women are giving birth to unnaturally large babies that either damage the birth canal or will not fit down it is one of the greatest challenges to modern medicine.
Steven Magee
#8. My brother's death: wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered for more than a year, and died painfully, not understanding why he had lived and still less why he had to die. No theories could give me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and painful dying.
Leo Tolstoy
#9. I was always interested in finding the elegance of each style and understanding why it influences so many people.
Volker Bertelmann
#10. I am a child of the American Century, and I feel a genetic commitment to understanding why it happened, and why I take it so personally.
Hunter S. Thompson
#11. Cate Blanchett is mesmerizing. I don't know why. It's beyond my understanding. Why we all want to work with her is she elevates the rest of us. She's just got some ethereal grace and elegance that's beyond me, and an acute understanding of human nature. She's just exquisite. She's otherworldly.
Brad Pitt
#12. I have trouble understanding why taking a few grand a year in food stamps is somehow magically different than taking trillions as a bailout. Food stamps cost $76.4 billion for 2013, compared with trillions, possibly hundreds of those, for the banks.
Linda Tirado
#13. There may be men who act without understanding why. I do not. To listen much, pick out the good and follow it; to see much and ponder it: this comes next to understanding.
Confucius
#14. One woman said, "Shame is hating yourself and understanding why other people hate you too.
Brene Brown
#15. Compassion does not have to be a face-to-face relationship. Forgiveness does not imply friendship. Understanding why someone has inflicted pain on us is how we set ourselves free of the past, not how we excuse someone's behaviour so they can continue to abuse us.
Vironika Tugaleva
#16. I certainly do believe anyone engaged in the management of money should have a standard of measurement, and that both he and the party whose money is managed should have a clear understanding why it is the appropriate standard, what time period should be utilized, etc.
Warren Buffett
#17. Far more difficult than implementing change is figuring out what works, understanding why it works, grasping when to change, and knowing when not to.
James C. Collins
#18. Listening is not understanding the words of the question asked, listening is understanding why the question was asked in the first place.
Simon Sinek
#19. I am fascinated by the engineering. The science of constructing and understanding why it stands. And I am drawn by the madness, the beauty, the theatricality, the poetry and soul of the wire. And you cannot be a wire-walker without mingling those two ways of seeing life.
Philippe Petit
#20. Before, they had laughed at me, despising me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hated me for my knowledge and understanding. Why? What in God's name did they want of me?
Daniel Keyes
#21. Some people erroneously believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members are not Christian. We have difficulty understanding why anyone could accept and promote an idea that is so far from the truth.
Joseph B. Wirthlin
#22. Butters's voice turned bitter. "Them or us, choose a side?" "It's not about taking sides," Karrin said. "It's about knowing yourself. About understanding why you make the choices you do. Once you know that, you know where to walk, too.
Jim Butcher
#23. We've been very bad at understanding why the right-wing does things.
Kathy Acker
#24. The presence of some serious budgetary myopia is obvious here, as the vast majority of money is spent on studying diseases and virtually none is spent on understanding why healthy people are healthy in the first place.
Richard Matthews
#25. I'm an angel. I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why.
Christopher Walken
#26. Knowledge is not power, it is only potential. Applying that knowledge is power. Understanding why and when to apply that knowledge is wisdom!
Takeda Shingen
#27. Not one word," Kel warned. "Tobe and I have reached an understanding."
Neal's lips twitched. "Why do I feel you did most of the understanding.
Tamora Pierce
#28. Its easy to protest, even a child protests...the hardest part is understanding the 'why and what to protest.
Victor Truth
#29. Why the man had to have an entourage of ten people everywhere he went was beyond his scope of understanding. Most things about the Senator were.
Randall Wood
#30. I will never tell another person, "I don't understand you ... " and why? Because if I say that, it means that I am disabled in a way. The inability to connect to another's perspective is, I believe, a disability.
C. JoyBell C.
#31. My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
Stephen Hawking
#32. I believe very firmly that indigenous populations had a really good, intuitive understanding of why we're here. And we're trying to gain that same understanding through psychology and intellect in modern civilization.
Serj Tankian
#33. How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can-opener works.
Woody Allen
#34. I firmly believe that usually, the person who hurt you doesn't realize what they've done or how much it hurt you. So, continue to pray for the person or situation that caused your pain and anger. Ask God to give you understanding about why they did what they did.
Joyce Meyer
#35. Now all you need is to make a V with your hand and say in a death rattle that you have been and always shall be his friend," Ian noted with heavy irony.
"Why would I ... " I began. Then understanding dawned.
"Holy crap, you're a closet Trekkie!
Jeaniene Frost
#37. How anyone could endure three or four hours of chanting monks and ranting priests was beyond my understanding, just as it was beyond my understanding to know why bishops needed thrones. They would be demanding crowns next.
Bernard Cornwell
#38. How can we be such fools as to go on senselessly taking human life in this way? Why the women in every nation do not rise up and refuse to bring children into a world of this kind is beyond my understanding.
Eleanor Roosevelt
#39. The studies about differences between the sexes that you see kind of get propped up in the media are more often than not denigrating women in some way, saying that women really don't have any spatial understanding, and that's why they can't park.
Jessica Valenti
#40. It's frustrating when our best efforts to help people fail. But if we could see life through their weary eyes and experience their trials with the same frayed emotions, we might understand why.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#41. I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.
Murray Gell-Mann
#42. He does. All that He has decreed He performs. "But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased" (Psa. 115:3); and why has He? Because "there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD" (Pro 21:30).
Arthur W. Pink
#43. When we settled our country, the dark forest was considered in some ways evil and something that you needed to plow or, later, bulldoze. We now have a new understanding of the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the need for bird flyways and why all species matter.
Douglas Brinkley
#44. As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it's hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you're attached to it.
K.d. Lang
#45. Poetry is my understanding with the world, my intimacy with things, my participation in what is real, my engagement with voices and images. This is why a poem speaks not of ideal life but of actual life: the angle of a window; the reverberation of streets, cities, rooms; shadows along a wall.
Sophia De Mello Breyner Andresen
#46. What Richard is talking about is instead admitting to the existence of negative thoughts, understanding where they came from and why they arrived, and then - with great forgiveness and fortitude - dismissing them.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#47. Real life has no understanding of proper structure," the boy said, "which is why news stories are always made of little lies.
Nick Harkaway
#48. Sometimes you can only understand why things happen when you see them in the rearview mirror.
Ron Hall
#49. [Brion calls his working relationship with West a natural fit.] His knowledge and understanding of records across the board is great, ... That's the reason why we got along: We don't see music as something that happens in one genre.
Jon Brion
#50. So, why do you write these strong female characters?
Because you're still asking me that question.
[Equality Now speech, May 15, 2006]
Joss Whedon
#51. You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why.
Darren Aronofsky
#52. Why are all gay men understanding and compassionate?"
"Pfft." I arced an eyebrow at her. "They're not, trust me. Its a myth."
"A straight man wouldn't understand cramps, mood swings, backaches, not to mention the price of tampons ...
Zathyn Priest
#53. The more I write, the less I understand why.
Marty Rubin
#54. The reason we might lose love is because we are always looking outside of us, thinking that the object or action of love is out there. That is why we allow the love, the harmony, the mature understanding, to slip away from ourselves.
Nhat Hanh
#55. Asking "Why?" can lead to understanding. Asking "Why not?" can lead to breakthroughs.
Daniel H. Pink
#56. So, why are so many people lacking in an understanding of the rules? No one has ever taught them!
John J. Daly Jr.
#57. In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.
Mitch Albom
#58. From the age of 12, I had an understanding that singing was something I loved to do more than anything, and I did say to myself, 'Why not?' But there were definitely some doubts along the way.
Patty Griffin
#59. The first thing I didn't understand was my life. It's a mystery. And today I don't understand economy or politics. I don't know why politics or economy are destroying the world, but I will understand after understanding.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
#60. Sometimes people think they are looking for the meaning of life, when really they are looking for an understanding of why they are here. What their purpose is, the purpose of life in general. And that's a much easier question to answer than the meaning of life.
Wendy Mass
#61. Now I understand why you grow so many flowers."
She shifted her head, not understanding.
I said, "To cover the stink of sulphur.
John Fowles
#63. The establishment uses that rationale all the time, and that's why we do what we do. But leadership requires some understanding that you can say no. People have base instincts, but the transcendent also appeal to them.
Norman Lear
#64. When they find what they don't like , they destroy it. Because it scares them-and you girls would scare them as much as anything they've ever seen.' 'Why?' asked Isobel. 'Because ... because of what they believe.
Gordon Dahlquist
#65. Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose, but that's not why people do it normally.
Frank Oppenheimer
#66. She lived her life as a dragon and never understood those who didn't. Why anyone would want to be human was beyond her understanding ... And damn it all, she was brilliant!
G.A. Aiken
#68. He will stay, Minerva, because he needs to understand,' said Dumbledore curtly. 'Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. He needs to know who has put him through the ordeal he has suffered tonight, and why.
J.K. Rowling
#69. To play any character, you have to have a total understanding of why they do what they do.
Jamie Dornan
#70. As an artist, one of the toughest things to do is getting someone to understand why you think the way you think. And as much as i don't wanna care what they think about my thinking, it comes down to making them understand or watching them leave.
Darnell Lamont Walker
#71. Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this? They're professional cynics, and it's too late for them. Why do you want to go back with them? So you can keep up with the Joneses? To buy a gyro just like the Smith has? To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands?
Ray Bradbury
#72. Cadvan smiled. "We are all many," he said. "But most of us don't have the privilege of understanding that as clearly as you do. It is hard to know oneself, but until we do, we cannot know why we act as we do. It's a lifetime's quest, and it never ends.
Alison Croggon
#73. This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?"
And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.
John Steinbeck
#74. Digital Masters spend time understanding customer behavior and designing the customer experience from the outside in. A Digital Master figures out what customers do and why, where, and how they do it. The company then works out where and how the experience can be digitally enhanced across channels.
George Westerman
#75. Every role affords me something different in the way of understanding, and that's really why you take these roles, not to show that thing that people talk about of showing what you can do - that has nothing to do with anything.
Phylicia Rashad
#76. The Holy Spirit is our comforter, our teacher. That's why, in prayer, we can ask the Lord to open up Scripture and make it come alive to us, to open our understanding. He left his Spirit with us until we join him in Heaven.
Michele Bachmann
#77. How'd you remember my brother's name?" She shrugged, not quite understanding the gleam in his eye. "You told me. Why wouldn't I remember it?
Sarah J. Maas
#78. People are always trying to understand.
There is only one way to do that.
It is to discover < + i + >why< + i + > you want to understand.
Idries Shah
#79. The companies that I really admire the most are the ones that have a deep visceral understanding of why people use their service, and they figure out ways of making money that are completely consistent with how people are feeling and what they are doing at the time.
Ben Silbermann
#80. Understanding who we are, where we came from, and why we are upon the earth places upon each of us a great responsibility both to learn how to learn and to learn to love learning.
David A. Bednar
#81. When I was 16 or 17, anyone could have had me if they sang the right song and recruited me in the right way. Which is why I've always had a sneaking understanding for people who took the wrong route. That doesn't mean to say I took it or even contemplated it myself.
John Le Carre
#82. The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists.
David Deutsch
#83. Why did I allow myself to be bored ever in the past and to compensate for it got high or drunk or rages or all the tricks people have because they want anything but serene understanding of just what there is, which is after all so much.
Jack Kerouac
#84. Asperger's doesn't define me. It's a condition that I have to live with and work through, but I feel more relaxed about myself. People will have a greater understanding of who I am and why I do the things I do.
Susan Boyle
#85. As an actor, you have total rights to privacy and mystery, whatever your sexuality, whatever you do. I don't see why that has to be something you discuss openly because you do something in the public eye. I have no understanding of why we turn actors into celebrities.
Ben Whishaw
#86. Of course you should study whatever you want. The written appreciation and understanding of literature, or any kind of artistic endeavour, is absolutely central to a decent society. Why d'you think books are the first things that the fascists burn?
David Nicholls
#87. Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening.
Roger Rosenblatt
#88. Many men honestly do not know what women want, and women honestly do not know why men find what they want so hard to comprehend and deliver.
Deborah Tannen
#91. The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn't separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. He also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That's why the Olympic Flame should never die.
Adolf Hitler
#92. Understanding motivation is one of the most important things we can do in our lives, because it has such a bearing on why we do the things we do and whether we enjoy them or not.
Clayton Christensen
#93. The absence of the understanding of God's time is the reason why our lives are unstable.
Sunday Adelaja
#94. What you give meaning to is what causes your emotion. Before you react know why you are giving something so much energy or fear. When you begin to understand why you give things meaning you can begin to change how you react and why you do what you do.
Shannon L. Alder
#95. For the understanding of a picture a chair is needed. Why a chair? To prevent the legs, as they tire, from interfering with the mind
Paul Klee
#96. Conversation fertilizes our understanding and that is why customers are demanding that businesses converse with them rather than talk down to them.
J. N. HALM
#97. We need to have an understanding of what causes what to happen in the world, and why.
Clayton Christensen
#98. I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important.
Robert Caro
#99. There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
#100. I am sorry for when I do it
hopefully one day you'll realise why.
Please do not be angry;
just understand that today I tried.
Isabel Aanya Leigh
