For the world is not to be narrowed till it will go into the understanding (which has been done hitherto), but the understanding to be expanded and opened till it can take in the image of the world, as it is in fact.
[Neque enim arctandus est mundus ad angustias intellectus (quod adhue factum est), sed expandendus intellectus et laxandus ad mundi imaginem recipiendam, qualis invenitur.]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
The Great Instauration, “Parsceve ad Historiam,” “Aphorisms on the Composition of the Primary History,” #4 (1620)
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Quotations about:
comprehension
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) English-American theoretical physicist, mathematician, futurist
Infinite in All Directions, Part 1, ch. 3 “Manchester and Athens” (1988)
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Based on his Gifford Lectures, Aberdeen, Scotland (Apr-Nov 1985).
Friends are like windows through which you see out into the world and back into yourself. If you don’t have friends you see much less than you otherwise might.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author
(Attributed)
Tolerance not only means tolerating, it also encompasses attempts to comprehend the origins of different views, persuasions, ideologies, and very often also irrational interests and inclinations. […] Tolerance requires understanding of human weaknesses, motives, irrationalism, failures, “bad days,” unreasonable longing, pluses and minuses of mind, will, and character.
Mieczysław Maneli (1922-1994) Polish lawyer, diplomat, jurist, academic
Freedom and Tolerance (1984)
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I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of the people.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist and mathematician
(Attributed)
(Source)
Supposedly after the ruinous stock price collapse of the "South Sea Bubble" in 1720, in which Newton lost £20,000.
The earliest mention of this is found in Joseph Spence, Second Memorandum Book (1756), collected in Joseph Spence (ed. Samuel Weller Singer), Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820). There a Lord Radnor is quoted as saying: "When Sir Isaac Newton was asked about the continuance of the rising of South Sea stock? — He answered, 'that he could not calculate the madness of the people.'" (Note that this supposedly takes place before the bubble bursts.)
Variants:
- I can calculate the motions of erratic bodies, but not the madness of a multitude. ["Mammon and the Money Market," The Church of England Quarterly Review (1850)]
- I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
- I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies but not the madness of men.
- I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.
In the end, there doesn’t have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to.
Robert Brault (b. c. 1945) American aphorist, programmer
(Attributed)
You shouldn’t speak glibly about God. In Judaism you may not speak God’s name as a reminder that any human expression of the divine is likely to be so limited as to be blasphemous. But God should challenge your assumptions — you shouldn’t imagine you’ve got Him in your pocket.
Karen Armstrong (b. 1944) British author, comparative religion scholar
Interview with Bill Moyers, “NOW,” PBS (9 Apr 2004)
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It is tiresome to keep hearing that the Bible is “the best-selling book” of all time, as though the fact that many people buy it indicates that they read it, understand it or follow it.
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
For the Time Being (1972)
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G’KAR: If you’re going to be worried every time the universe doesn’t make sense, you’re going to be worried every moment of every day for the rest of your natural life.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 4×02 “Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” (11 Nov 1996)
But he who knows what insanity is, is sane; whereas insanity can no more be sensible of its own existence, than blindness can see itself.
[Sanus est, qui scit quid sit insania, quippe insania scire se non potest, non magis quam caecitas se videre.]
Apuleius (AD c. 124 - c. 170) Numidian Roman writer, philosopher, rhetorician [Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis]
Apologia; or, A Discourse on Magic [Apologia; seu, Pro Se de Magia], ch. 80 [tr. Bohn’s (1853)]
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Alt. trans.: "He who knows what madness is, is ipso facto sane. For madness cannot know itself any more than blindness can see itself." [tr. Butler (1909)]
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.
Aubrey Menen (1912-1989) British writer, novelist, satirist, theatre critic
Rama Retold, Book 3, ch. 7 [Valmiki] (1954)
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This book is a modern retelling of part of the Ramayana.
A variant of this was inscribed on a silver beer mug given on a gift that President John F Kennedy gave to David Powers:
There are three things which are real:
God, human folly and laughter.
The first two are beyond our comprehension
So we must do what we can with the third.
JACK BURTON: I don’t get this at all. I thought Lo Pan —
LO PAN: Shut up, Mr. Burton! You are not brought upon this world to “get it”!W. D. Richter (b. 1945) American screenwriter, producer, director [Walter Duch Richter]
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) [with Gary Goldman, David Z Weinstein]
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
“The Call of Cthulhu,” ch. 1, opening words (1928)
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That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans:
A European says: I can’t understand this, what’s wrong with me?
An American says: I can’t understand this, what’s wrong with him?
I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.
Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.
Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, critic
(Attributed)
Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.
[L’ineptie consiste à vouloir conclure. […] Oui, la bêtise consiste à vouloir conclure.]
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French writer, novelist
Letter to Louis Bouilhet (4 Sep 1850)
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The phrase is used twice in the letter. The initial phrase is usually translated to "foolishness" or "folly," the second to "stupidity."
Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering — because you can’t take it in all at once.
Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) Belgian-English actress
Quoted in David Hofstede, Audrey Hepburn: A Bio-bibliography (1994)
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The Creator had a lot of remarkably good ideas when he put the world together, but making it understandable hadn’t been one of them.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Nightmare Stacks, ch. 18 (2016)
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A variant of Clarke's Third Law.
Every man hears only what he understands.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe, #385 [tr. Saunders (1892)]
The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 30 (1979)
I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1978)
Understanding everything makes one very indulgent.
[Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent.]
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
Corinne, Book 18, ch. 5 (1807)
It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going on — a truism that I often find damnably annoying.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
Those who are destitute of philosophy may be compared to prisoners in a cave, who are only able to look in one direction because they are bound, and who have a fire behind them and a wall in front. Between them and the wall there is nothing; all that they see are shadows of themselves, and of objects behind them, cast on the wall by the light of the fire. Inevitably they regard these shadows as real, and have no notion of the objects to which they are due. At last, some man succeeds in escaping from the cave to the light of the sun; for the first time he sees real things, and becomes aware that he had hitherto been deceived by shadows. If he is the sort of philosopher who is fit to become a guardian, he will feel it is his duty to those who were formerly his fellow prisoners to go down again into the cave, instruct them as to the truth, and show them the way up. But he will have difficulty in persuading them, because, coming out of the sunlight, he will see shadows less clearly than they do, and will seem to them stupider than before his escape.
Plato (c.428-347 BC) Greek philosopher
The Republic, 7.514
Summ. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, ch. 15 (1946)
He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have a very long head, or a very short creed.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words, #470 (1820 ed.)
It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish philosopher, theologian
Journals (1847)
DESDEMONA: Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
I understand a fury in your words,
But not the words.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Othello, Act 4, sc. 2, l. 37ff (4.2.37-39) (1603)
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It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #121 (14 May 1751)
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Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #117 (30 Apr 1751)
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Presented as a letter from "Hypertatus"
I suppose you could never prove to the mind of the most ingenious mollusk that such a creature as a whale was possible.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1848-04/05)
One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“Physics and Reality” Journal of the Franklin Institute (Mar 1936)
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My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance — but for us, not for God.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
Letter, unsent (1927)
Written (in German) on a letter from a Colorado banker (5 Aug 1927), asking about the question of God. Quoted in H. Dukas, B. Hoffman (eds.), Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981).
It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
I’m not an atheist. I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
In G. Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (1930)
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Note this passage is not present in the Saturday Evening Post interview that was the basis for that chapter of Viereck's book.
In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
(Misattributed)
Carlyle uses this phrase in his The French Revolution: A History, Part 1, Book 1, ch. 2 (1.1.2) (1837), but brackets it in quotations, and prefaces it with "For indeed it is well said ...." Nevertheless, the phrase is often misattributed directly to Carlyle.
The second half of the phrase (and sometimes the whole thing) has also been misattributed to Johann von Goethe, as "The eye sees only what the eye brings means of seeing." This is not found in Goethe's work, but may be distorted from a line in the Prologue to Goethe's Faust: "Each one sees what he carries in his heart."
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Profiles of the Future, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” (Clarke’s Third Law) (1962; rev. 1973)
To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish, to deny him, or define him.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
Memoirs of William Miller, quoted in Life (2 May 1955)
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