“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. — Carl Jung”

“The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say. — Kahlil Gibran”

“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. — Fyodor Dostoevsky”

“Everyone hears only what he understands. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”

“Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it. — Charles Kettering”

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. — Galileo Galilei”

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning to understand, because to understand is to be free. — Baruch Spinoza”

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand. — Albert Einstein”

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. — Kahlil Gibran”

“Understanding a person does not mean condoning; it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him. — Erich Fromm”

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. — Marie Curie”

“Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so. — Lemony Snicket”

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. — Henri Bergson”

“Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. — Søren Kierkegaard”

“Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding. — Lao Tzu”

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand. — Neil Armstrong”

“Man is always inclined to be intolerant towards the thing, or person, he hasn’t taken the time adequately to understand. — Robert R. Brown”

“Don’t you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn’t developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don’t expect to see. — Douglas Adams”

“If you know the why, you can live any how. — Friedrich Nietzsche”

“Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek. — Dalai Lama”

“If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change. — Thich Nhat Hanh”

“Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. — Mahatma Gandhi”

“Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love. — John Steinbeck”

“We are all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding. — Beau Taplin”

“If you try to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes — even for a minute — understanding and compassion will come. — Paul Winfield”

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice or solutions, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. — Henri Nouwen”

“Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear. Just offering a listening ear and an understanding heart for someone’s suffering can be a big comfort. — Roy T. Bennett”

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate. — Albert Schweitzer”

“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart — one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them. — Marvin J. Ashton”

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross”

“I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. — Helen Keller”

“It is understanding that gives us the ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences. — Harry S. Truman”

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. — Dalai Lama”

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. — Stephen R. Covey”

“Once true listening ability is lost, a true understanding opportunity is also lost. — Minh Niem”

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. — Kahlil Gibran”

“Understanding others can pay big dividends if you pay attention. — Jay Levinson”

“Listening — truly listening — means you get to learn something new or better understand what makes someone tick. — Jenn Granneman”

“The way we’re going to get to understanding is for each man to open his heart and his mind and look in himself as he looks at his neighbor. — Pearl Bailey”

“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. — Seneca”

“If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other better. — Lyndon B. Johnson”

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. — Elbert Hubbard”

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi”

“Love does not dominate; it cultivates. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”

“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. — Blaise Pascal”

“You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you need is understanding. — Guy Finley”

“Understanding your past can help you create a better future. — Robert Tew”

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them. — Rainer Maria Rilke”

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving. — Dale Carnegie”

“Understanding can overcome any situation, however mysterious or insurmountable it may appear to be. — Norman Vincent Peale”

“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words; they lie concealed in the silence between the words. — John O’Donohue”

“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. — Eleanor Roosevelt”

“Understanding is a two-way street. — Eleanor Roosevelt”

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life. — Jiddu Krishnamurti”

“Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it involves the power of going out of oneself and appreciating what is noble and loving in another. — Thomas Hughes”

“Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious. — Phillips Brooks”

“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness. — Julia Roberts”

“There is no substitute for true understanding. — Kai Lai Chung”

“One true understanding tends to lead to another, just as one erroneous understanding leads to another false interpretation. — Duncan Heaster”

“It is a luxury to be understood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson”

“To be great is to be misunderstood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson”

“Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. — Baruch de Spinoza”

“The less I understand life, the more I live it. — Jules Renard”

“There are two kinds of people in this world — those who long to be understood and those who long to be misunderstood. It is the irony of life that neither is gratified. — Carl Van Vechten”

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened. — Lao Tzu”

“Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. — Freeman Teague Jr.”

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood. — Stephen R. Covey”

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. — Carl Jung”

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. — Carl Jung”

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. — Carl Jung”

“What we think, we become. — Buddha”

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. — Buddha”

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. — Buddha”

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. — Buddha”

“I am not what happened to me; I am who I choose to become. — Carl Jung”

“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. — Lao Tzu”

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, I change. — Carl Rogers”

“If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun. — Alain de Botton”

“In trying to please other people, we lose our hold on our life’s purpose. — Epictetus”

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest human battle ever and to never stop fighting. — e.e. cummings”

“Self-knowledge is the path to a happy life and is necessary for understanding others, and for making sense of the world in which we live. — Richard E. Bailey”

“I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. — Joan Didion”

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself that I hardly existed. I had to go out in the world and see it and hear it and react to it before I knew at all who I was. — Mary Oliver”

“What mindfulness is saying to all of us is: Find your own way. Listen to your own heart. Because what we’re trying to do is live our life as if it really matters. — Jon Kabat-Zinn”

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. — Carl Jung”

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes. — Carl Jung”

“We now have to look in the mirror to see the person that needs the understanding, which is ourselves, and help to solve the unsolvable. — Ray J. Dodkins”

“Everyone’s broken. The only difference is how. — Anna-Marie McLemore”

“You have within your power the ability to make whatever you want become real, this ability is limited only by your ability to perceive in reality the things you have envisioned. — Steven Redhead”

“Trying to understand is like straining through muddy water. Have the patience to wait! Be still and allow the mud to settle. — Lao Tzu”

“Patience is the companion of wisdom. — St. Augustine”

“Patience is the mark of true love. If you truly love someone, you will be more patient with that person. — Thich Nhat Hanh”

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. — Mahatma Gandhi”

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. — Albert Einstein”

“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy. — Saadi”

“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in your mind. — David G. Allen”

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. — F. Scott Fitzgerald”

“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself. — John Steinbeck”

“Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. — H.H. Williams”