Comprehension Quotes - Page 10

• What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Religion, Want

  Mark Twain (2013). “Mark Twain's Letters”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

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• The history of the development of mechanics is quite indispensable to a full comprehension of the science in its present condition. It also affords a simple and instructive example or the processes by which natural science generally is developed.

  Ernst Mach

  Simple, Example, Development

  Ernst Mach (2013). “The Science of Mechanics”, p.1, Cambridge University Press

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• I refer to the misunderstanding of Soviet Russia as an aggressive power, militaristically and ideologically bent upon world domination 'seeing', to quote a recent speech of the British Prime Minister, 'the rest of the world as its rightful fiefdom.' How any rational person, viewing objectively the history of the last thirty-five years, could entertain this 'international misunderstanding' challenges, if it does not defeat, comprehension. The notion has no basis in fact... If Russia is bent on world conquest, she has been remarkably slothful and remarkably unsuccessful.

  Enoch Powell

  Years, Russia, Challenges

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• I must make MAGICK the essential factor in the life of ALL. In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of MAGICK and setting forth its main principles in such a way that ALL may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon MAGICK and the right comprehension and right application thereof.

  Aleister Crowley

  Book, Soul, Way

  Aleister Crowley (1991). “Magick: In Theory and Practice”, Book Sales

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• An old French mathematician said: "A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street." This clearness and ease of comprehension, here insisted on for a mathematical theory, I should still more demand for a mathematical problem if it is to be perfect; for what is clear and easily comprehended attracts, the complicated repels us.

  David Hilbert

  Men, Perfect, Ease

  "Mathematical Problems". Lecture delivered before the International Congress of Mathematicians at Paris, translated by Maby Winton Newson, mathcs.clarku.edu. 1900.

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• Some books accrete things to themselves like a magnet. The writer risks sterility by subjecting the mysterious power of imagination to the devices of mere comprehension.

  John Clellon Holmes

  Book, Imagination, Risk

  1979 Preface to reprint of The Horn.

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• What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain...To contemplate its girth and its circumference, to attempt to define it, to try and fight it all at once, is impossible. The only way to combat it is by fighting specific wars in specific ways.

  Arundhati Roy

  War, Fighting, Our World

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• We've seen in terms of the reaction to some proposals in the Budget already how resistant that public opinion is to, first of all, a public comprehension of the new paradigm in which we have to operate; and secondly, to the rationale for the decisions that we're taking and the reason for those decisions to be implemented and followed through.

  Brian Cowen

  Decision, Public Opinion, Rationale

  Speech at the First Business Roundtable with the Government of Ireland, the Conrad Hotel, Dublin, www.taoiseach.gov.ie. October 30, 2008.

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• There is a pressing need to integrate the study of international economics with the study of international politics to deepen our comprehension of the forces at work in the world.

  Robert Gilpin

  Needs, World, Study

  Robert Gilpin (2016). “The Political Economy of International Relations”, p.3, Princeton University Press

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• The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitiousfabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance

  Thomas Huxley

  Religious, Ignorance, Hands

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1892). “Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions”

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• Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Understanding, Littles

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.206

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• Fifteen hundred years is ample time in which to lose mutual comprehension. Iceland was colonized by the Norwegians at the end of the ninth century AD. Today's Icelanders, with considerable effort, can understand people from the Scandinavian peninsula, but the Scandinavians hardly understand the Icelanders. A thousand years is the minimum time span for a language to change so much that it becomes incomprehensible.

  Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

  Years, Iceland, People

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• Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. The judgmental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary.

  Frank Herbert

  Law, Understanding, Over You

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.166, Penguin

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• Since I have fought against these Jewish-Soviet ideas in Germany, since I have conquered and stamped out this peril, I fancy that I possess a better comprehension of its character than do these men who have only to deal with it in the field of literature.

  Adolf Hitler

  Character, Men, Ideas

  Adolf Hitler (1994). “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939: An English Translation of Representative Passages Arranged Under Subjects and Edited by Norman H. Baynes”

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• I failed everything in school. I left when I was 13 because I had no comprehension of what the hell they were talking about up there at the blackboard. I must have that ADD thing. But, listening to people I thought, that's wonderful to be able to tell a story.

  Malachy McCourt

  School, Talking, People

  Source: bigthink.com

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• A myth... is a metaphor for a mystery beyond human comprehension. It is a comparison that helps us understand, by analogy, some aspect of our mysterious selves. A myth, in this way of thinking, is not an untruth but a way of reaching a profound truth.

  Christopher Vogler

  Thinking, Self, Profound

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• The side effect of expanding consciousness is that negativity starts to evaporate; it goes away like darkness when you turn on a light. Many students have so much torment, stress, depression, sorrow and hate in them these days, but then they get this technique and the negativity starts to go away. They start to feel good because the torment is leaving. Their health gets better and they get happier, their comprehension and their ability to focus grow, their grades go up and a joy for life grows; all of which comes from within.

  David Lynch

  Stress, Hate, Light

  "An Ocean of Solutions: The David Lynch Interview". Interview with Chris Grosso, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I think that tri [to Ram Bahadur Bomjon] was the first time I'd even seen something that made me think, or really feel: "Ah, I don't know what's really going on in the world - I think I do, and it feels like I do, but whatever is really going on is, de facto, beyond the scope of my comprehension - the best we can do is look for hints." I'd known that intellectually before but that was the first time I really believed it viscerally.

  George Saunders

  Thinking, Rams, Looks

  Source: sojo.net

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• [John Boswell] introduction of the concept of "gay" (in the way he defines it) provides us both with a useful instrument of research and at the same time a better comprehension of how people actually conceive of themselves and their sexual behavior.

  Michel Foucault

  Gay, People, Way

  Source: www.questia.com

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• You know, on the spectrum of religious belief, there is atheism - these are people that don't believe. There's theism - these are the believers and agnostics say it's beyond comprehension that the whole issue of God us unknowable. You might be interested to know that perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century Einstein, the one time that he actually used one of these appellations was in a letter about five years before he died and he referred to himself as an agnostic.

  Vincent Bugliosi

  Religious, Believe, Years

  Source: www.cyinterview.com

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• To allow myself to be loved by God in my deepest brokenness is to experience a love that defies human comprehension.

  Michael Card

  Humans, Brokenness

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• Because God is not only infinitely greater and more excellent than all other being, but he is the head of the universal system of existence; the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty; from whom all is perfectly derived, and on whom all is most absolutely and perfectly dependent; of whom, and through whom, and to whom is all being and all perfection; and whose being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence: much more than the sun is the fountain and summary comprehension of all the light and brightness of the day.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Light, Perfection, Excellence

  Jonathan Edwards, Henry Rogers, Sereno Edwards Dwight (1839). “The Works of Jonathan Edwards”, p.125

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• It is up to my spirit to find the truth. But how? Grave uncertainty, each time the spirit feels beyond its own comprehension; whenit, the explorer, is altogether to obscure land that it must search and where all its baggage is of no use. To search? That is not all: to create.

  Marcel Proust

  Creativity, Knowledge, Land

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• The task of man is not to discover new worlds, but to discover his own world in terms of human comprehension and beauty.

  Archibald MacLeish

  Beauty, Men, Tasks

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• As a mode of perception that often becomes a style of life, paranoia weaves around the vulnerable self or group an air-tight metaphysic and world view. Paranoia is an antireligious mysticism based on the feeling or perception that the world in general, and others in particular, are against me or us. Reality is perceived as hostile. By contrast, the religious mystic experiences the ground of being as basically friendly to the deepest needs of the self. That which is unknown, strange, or beyond our comprehension is with and for rather than against us.

  Sam Keen

  Religious, Reality, Air

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