Understood Quotes

2381 quotes by 1743 authors

As the mind learns to understand more complicated combinations of ideas, simpler formulae soon reduce their complexity; so truths that were discovered only by great… — Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet
In the beginning, I would find a character I understood. That was my focus. Not now - but you basically get offered the exact same… — Channing Tatum
A writer is justly called 'universal' when he is understood within the limits of his civilization, though that be bounded by a country or an… — George Edward Woodberry
Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates. — Georg C. Lichtenberg
Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites. — Plato
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to… — Samuel Johnson
It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the… — Joseph Campbell
Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We understand ourselves best and are best understood by others through the persons who came nearest… — Lucy Larcom
Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different… — Alfred North Whitehead
Power ... is the supreme end for all those who have not understood. — Simone Weil
One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear. — Mary Oliver
The bottomless bitter misery of childhood: how little even now it is understood. Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair. — Iris Murdoch
I've never really understood attachment to a place for reasons of birth. That my mother happened to give birth to me in a certain place… — Alberto Manguel
I am not looking to be understood or liked. Like me or not, I don't care. I am an outsider, that is the way I… — Jimmy Connors
Sex cannot be contained within a definition of physical pleasure, it cannot be understood as merely itself for it has stood for too long as… — Elizabeth Janeway
The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence.… — Reinhold Niebuhr
Having seen a non-market economy, I suddenly understood much better what I liked about a market economy. — Esther Dyson
Frigidity is largely nonsense. It is this generation's catchword, one only vaguely understood and constantly misused. Frigid women are few. There is a host of… — Phyllis McGinley
Only the old are innocent. That is what the Victorians understood, and the Christians. Original sin is a property of the young. The old grow… — Malcolm Bradbury
Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other clause - that it must be lived… — Soren Kierkegaard

Who Wrote These Understood Quotes

1,743 authors contributed a total of 2,381 Understood Quotes, led by these top contributors: