Interpreting Quotes

• The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

  Sigmund Freud

  Dream, Science, Collective Unconscious

  The Interpretation of Dreams ch. 7 (1900)

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you live with the myths in your mind, you will find yourself always in mythological situations. They cover everything that can happen to you. And that enables you to interpret the myth in relation to life, as well as life in relation to myth.

  Joseph Campbell

  Life, Finding Yourself, Mind

  14 Copy quote

• We should let Scripture interpret us more than we interpret Scripture.

  Timothy Keller

  Scripture, Should

  13 Copy quote

• No matter your position, circumstances, or opportunities in life, you always have the freedom of mind to choose how you experience, interpret, and, ultimately, shape your world.

  Brendon Burchard

  Opportunity, Mind, World

  Brendon Burchard (2012). “The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vocabulary enables us to interpret and to express. If you have a limited vocabulary, you will also have a limited vision and a limited future.

  Jim Rohn

  Future, Vocabulary, Entrepreneur

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Apr 02, 2016

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging, therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried.

  Oswald Chambers

  God, Faith, Confidence

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.137, Discovery House

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• What I "discovered" was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Happiness, Happy, Discovery

  81 Copy quote

• The gospel must be preached afresh and told in new ways to each generation, since every generation has its own unique questions. The gospel must constantly be forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing his place of address.

  Helmut Thielicke

  Change, Christian, Unique

  Helmut Thielicke (1970). “How modern should theology be?”

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes you search so hard for words. You look for a way to interpret the language of this heart and the unspoken bond you feel. But in the end you are left with nothing but silence. And deep down you hope it’s understood.

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Inspirational, Hope, Islamic

  158 Copy quote

• No wonder psychedelics are threatening to an authoritarian religious hierarchy. You don’t need faith to benefit from a psychedelic experience, let alone a priest or even a shaman to interpret it. What you need is courage—courage to drink the brew, eat the mushroom, or whatever it is, and then to pay attention, and make of it what you will. Suddenly, the tools for direct contact with the transcendent other (whether you call it God or something else) is taken from the hands of an anointed elite and given to the individual seeker.

  Dennis McKenna

  Religious, Courage, Taken

  100 Copy quote

• In that inevitable, excruciatingly human moment, we are offered a powerful choice. This choice is perhaps one of the most vitally important choices we will ever make, and it determines the course of our lives from that moment forward. The choice is this: Will we interpret this loss as so unjust, unfair, and devastating that we feel punished, angry, forever and fatally wounded-- or, as our heart, torn apart, bleeds its anguish of sheer, wordless grief, will we somehow feel this loss as an opportunity to become more tender, more open, more passionately alive, more grateful for what remains?

  Wayne Muller

  Death, Powerful, Grief

  36 Copy quote

• What one wishes is to be touched by truth and to be able to interpret that truth so that one may use what one is feeling and experiencing, be it despair or joy, in a way that will add meaning to one's life and will hopefully touch others as well.

  Michael Jackson

  Joy, Feelings, Wish

  FaceBook post by Michael Jackson from Dec 20, 2012

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I've been surprised that it means that to them. If a person can use a poem of mine to interpret her life or his life, good. I can't control that. Nor would I want to.

  Maya Angelou

  Good Life, Mean, People

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Oct 04, 2012

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a great tragedy when the Bible is interpreted by those who are not in love.

  Bill Johnson

  Tragedy, Great Tragedy

  12 Copy quote

• As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".

  John Muir

  Nature, Heart, Garden

  John Muir (1999). “To Yosemite and Beyond: Writings from the Years 1863-1875”

  1284 Copy quote

  Show source

• These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premisses or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science.

  Michael Polanyi

  Art, May, Belief

  8 Copy quote

• No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshippers' description. I don't see how they could survive their own insanity. But it's not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny.

  Glen Cook

  Destiny, Insanity, Shadow

  "The White Rose". Book by Glen Cook, 1985.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no fixed physical reality, no single perception of the world, just numerous ways of interpreting world views as dictated by one's nervous system and the specific environment of our planetary existence.

  Deepak Chopra

  Reality, Views, Perception

  "Power, Freedom, and Grace". Book by Deepak Chopra, 2006.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• The director is responsible for interpreting the playwright's work through the cast with the help of the staff. It is the director's artistic concept of the play that the cast, staff, and crew work to obtain.

  Laurence Sterne

  Play, Theatre, Directors

  4 Copy quote

• These systems attempt to box God into a government confined within the perspective of man. Yet when humanity is used as the starting point for interpreting and interacting with God's creation, faulty theology and sociology emerge as mankind attempts to fashion God into the image of man.

  Tony Evans

  Christian, Fashion, Men

  Tony Evans (2014). “One Nation Under God: His Rule Over Your Country”, p.24, Moody Publishers

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science is about explaining the world, and religion is about interpreting it. There shouldn't be any conflict.

  Paul Davies

  Spring, World, Conflict

  13 Copy quote

• As you think, so you become.....Our busy minds are forever jumping to conclusions, manufacturing and interpreting signs that aren't there.

  Epictetus

  Life, Thinking, Jumping

  103 Copy quote

• The principle rule of interpreting Scripture is that Scripture interprets Scripture.

  R. C. Sproul

  Principles, Scripture

  37 Copy quote

• Interpreting the dance: young women in white dancing in a ring can only be virgins; old women in black dancing in a ring can only be witches; but middle-aged women in colors, square dancing...?

  Mason Cooley

  White, Squares, Color

  4 Copy quote

• In my experience when critics raise these objections, they invariably violate one of seventeen principles for interpreting the Scriptures....For example, assuming the unexplained is unexplainable....failing to understand the context of the passage....assuming a partial report is a false report...neglecting to interpret difficult passages in light of clear ones; basing a teaching on an obscure passage; forgetting that the Bible uses nontechnical, everyday language; failing to remember the Bible uses different literary devices.

  Norman Geisler

  Bible, Teaching, Light

  24 Copy quote