Comprehension Quotes - Page 2

• The universe is then one, infinite, immobile. ... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.

  Giordano Bruno

  Science, Infinite, Limitless

  Giordano Bruno (1962). “Cause, Principle, and Unity: Five Dialogues”

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• The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at all mean, as it is sometimes claimed to mean, a search for mastery over nature.

  Lewis Thomas

  Nature, Mean, Science

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• Without comprehension, the immigrant would forever remain shut - a stranger in America. Until America can release the heart as well as train the hand of the immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Heart, Hands, America

  "Hungry Hearts and Other Stories" by Anzia Yezierska, ("How I Found America", pt. 3), 1920.

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• Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know - even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction - than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.

  Isaac Asimov

  Life, Wise, Wisdom

  "The New Hugo Winners". Book by Isaac Asimov et al., p. 215, 1989.

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• This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human being capable of comprehension. We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among the nations, and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe, may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity.

  Winston Churchill

  Nature, Science, Men

  Winston Churchill (1952). “War Speeches: From September 11, 1943 to August 16, 1945”

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• Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Science, Men, Limits

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• The only hope for developing a new civilization is to accept responsibility for improving our lives through knowledge, understanding, and a deeper comprehension of humanity’s relationship to natural processes of evolution. Our future is determined by effort we put forth to achieve this transition.

  Jacque Fresco

  Responsibility, Civilization, Effort

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• Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

  Isaac Asimov

  Wise, Wisdom, Ignorance

  "The New Hugo Winners: Award Winning Science Fiction Stories". Volume 1, p. 215, 1989.

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• Life is not always easy to live, but the opportunity to do so is a blessing beyond comprehension. In the process of living, we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain.

  L. Lionel Kendrick

  Pain, Struggle, Blessing

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• To understand is to forgive.

  Blaise Pascal

  Forgiveness, Understanding, Forgiving

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• Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.

  John Adams

  Believe, Power, Thinking

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1959). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. 1812-1826”

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• Sometimes people accuse me of being incomprehensible only because they look for an explicative side to my pictures which is not there.

  Paul Gauguin

  People, Looks, Sides

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• Time and reflection... modify, little by little, our vision, and at last comprehension comes to us.

  Paul Cezanne

  Reflection, Vision, Littles

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• Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.

  J. C. Ryle

  Prayer, Believe, Past

  J.C Ryle, Rev Terry Kulakowski, Editor “PRACTICAL RELIGION”, Lulu.com

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• In all our academies we attempt far too much. ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches of medicine, and the medical student learned enough of them. Now, however, chemistry and botany are become sciences of themselves, incapable of comprehension by a hasty survey, and each demanding the study of a whole life, yet we expect the medical student to understand them. He who is prudent, accordingly declines all distracting claims upon his time, and limits himself to a single branch and becomes expert in one thing.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Education, Science, Medicine

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• Only by following out the injunction of our great predecessor [William Harvey] to search out and study the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, can we hope to attain to a comprehension of 'the wisdom of the body and the understanding of the heart,' and thereby to the mastery of disease and pain, which will enable us to relieve the burden of mankind.

  Ernest Starling

  Nature, Pain, Heart

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• There are many things akin to highest deity that are still obscure. Some may be too subtle for our powers of comprehension, others imperceptible to us because such exalted majesty conceals itself in the holiest part of its sanctuary, forbidding access to any power save that of the spirit. How many heavenly bodies revolve unseen by human eye!

  Seneca the Younger

  Eye, Science, Power

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• Comprehensibility is the highest law of all. Unity must be there. There must be means of ensuring it. All the things familiar to us from primitive life must also be used in works of art.

  Anton Webern

  Art, Mean, Law

  Anton Webern (1975). “The path to the new music”, European Amer Music Dist Corp

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• Understand well as I may, my comprehension can only be an infinitesimal fraction of all I want to understand.

  Ada Lovelace

  Want, May, Fractions

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• There exists a passion for comprehension, just as there exists a passion for music. That passion is rather common in children, but gets lost in most people later on. Without this passion there would be neither mathematics nor natural science.

  Albert Einstein

  Children, Passion, People

  Albert Einstein (1995). “Ideas and Opinions”, Three Rivers Press

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• I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.

  Freeman Dyson

  Mind, Religion, Scales

  "Progress In Religion". Freeman Dyson's Acceptance Speech for the Templeton Prize at the Washington National Cathedral, www.edge.org. May 16, 2000.

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• I remember being taught to read at a very early age. Like creepy young. I remember being in the crib, reading. My parents were very impressed. My reading speed, comprehension and overall ability has remained at that level ever since.

  J. J. Abrams

  Reading, Parent, Creepy

  "J. J. Abrams: By the Book". The New York Times Interview, www.nytimes.com. October 24, 2013.

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• You are the only person I know who has the same attitude towards physics as I have: belief in the comprehension of reality through something basically simple and unified... It seems hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that He plays dice and uses 'telepathic' methods... is something that I cannot believe for a single moment.

  Albert Einstein

  Attitude, Believe, Single Mom

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.68, Princeton University Press

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• The majority believes that everything hard to comprehend must be very profound. This is incorrect. What is hard to understand is what is immature, unclear and often false. The highest wisdom is simple and passes through the brain directly into the heart

  Viktor Schauberger

  Wisdom, Nature, Believe

  Viktor Schauberger “Living Energies”, Рипол Классик

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• Every incarnation that we remember must increase our comprehension of ourselves as who we are.

  Aleister Crowley

  Who We Are, Remember, Reincarnation

  Aleister Crowley (2014). “Magick in Theory and Practice”, p.70, Lulu Press, Inc

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