Understanding Quotes

Small men curse what they cannot understand. ~ A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin Science explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the nerves, but this would never give understanding. ~ Howards End by E. M. Forster An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences. ~ The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton "O Mr. Rokesmith, before you go, if you could but make me poor again! O! Make me poor again, Somebody, I beg and pray, or my heart will break if this goes on! Pa, dear, make me poor again and take me home! I was bad enough there, but I have been so much worse here. Don't give me money, Mr. Boffin, I won't have money. Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good little Pa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs. Nobody else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, nobody else knows how unworthy I am, and yet can love me like a little child. I am better with Pa than any one--more innocent, more sorry, more glad!" ~ Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens She did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them. ~ Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis Human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars. ~ Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies. ~ The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." ~ Emma by Jane Austen "As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don't blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it again." ~ Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great things sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not receive them, because his heart was still full of little things. ~ Howards End by E. M. Forster