Understanding

The only way of explaining the creation is to show that the creator had absolutely no job at all to do, and so might as well not have existed.
~ Peter William (P.W.) Atkins, The Creation (1981).

Oh! that the faculty would look deeper into, and make themselves better acquainted with, the crying evil of obesity -- that dreadful tormenting parasite on health and comfort. Their fellow-men might not then descend into premature graves, as I believe many do, from what is termed apoplexy, and certainly would not, during their sojourn on earth, endure so much bodily and consequently mental infirmity.
~ William Banting, Letter On Corpulence, Addressed to the Public. Fourth Edition (1869).

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod,
Or love in a golden bowl?
~ William Blake, from The Book of Thel (1789). Thel's Motto

What Tae-bo is, first I started off with karate and boxing, and I combined dance and a lot of exercises together and make it exercise from the inside out. When you take the letters ...
The T stands for totally commit yourself. To be the best you can be, totally commit yourself.
The letter A stands for awareness.
And the letter E stands for excellent at your own level. Not anybody else's level.
The letter B stands for body. You need a body to perform those three things in.
And letter O stands for obedient, be true to God's word and be true to your body and you'll get everything you need.
--Billy Blanks, Trinity Broadcasting Network (Interview; 22 March 2001). Praise The Lord

It is difficult to understand precisely what the state hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare and crime.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr.

We think we are so individual and so misunderstood when we are young; but the nature our strain of blood carries is inside us there, waiting, like our skeleton.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, My Mortal Enemy (1926). Part II. III

I would not rob from rich men what they earn,
But I would have them sweet compassion learn.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, from City Ballads (1885). Want

A wise foot makes an easy journey.
~ (William) Bliss Carman, The Friendship of Art (1904). On Being Coherent

An expert is a man who tells you a simple thing in a confused way in such a fashion as to make you think the confusion is your own fault.
~ William B. Castle, in Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin, 29:18 (1955).

No commentary throws such a light on a great poem or any impassioned work of literature, as the voice of a reader or speaker who brings to the task a deep feeling of his author and rich and various powers of expression.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

Nothing but sympathy with society will lead to its cure.
~ William Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Society -- the State

We understand ourselves better, our conceptions grow dearer, by the very effort to make them clear to another.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

There is no conflict between liberty and safety. We will have both, or neither.
~ (William) Ramsey Clark, Crime and Justice (1974).

My wife doesn't. Understand me?
~ William Cole

Rage grasps the sword, while Pity melts the eyes.
~ William Collins, in The Poetical Works of Mr. William Collins (1802). An Epistle, Addressed To Sir Thomas Hanmer, On His Edition Of Shakspeare's Works (1743)

It is one of my rules in life never to notice what I don't understand.
~ (William) Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868).

Try to understand me, and you won't talk of my affliction -- you will talk of my gain.
~ (William) Wilkie Collins, Poor Miss Finch (1872). Chapter XV: The End of the Journey

For 'tis a rule, that holds for ever true,
Grant me discernment, and I grant it you.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Progress of Error

I know flattery when I hear it; but I do not often hear it.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (1970).

A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.
~ W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics For Industry, Government & Education, 2nd ed. (1993). Chapter 4. A System of Profound Knowledge

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
~ W. Edwards Deming

Understanding is the rediscovery of the I in the Thou; the mind rediscovers itself at ever higher levels of connectedness.
~ Wilhelm Dilthey, in Pattern and Meaning in History: Thoughts on History and Society (1961).

Understanding rests primarily on the relationship, contained in any experience which can be characterized as an act of understanding, of expression to what is expressed.
~ Wilhelm Dilthey, in Gesammelte Schriften, VII (Collected Works, Volume VII; 1927). Establishing the Historical World in the Human Sciences

We explain nature, we must understand mental life.
~ Wilhelm Dilthey, in Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding (1977 English translation). Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology (originally written in 1894)

All finite things have their roots in the infinite, and if you wish to understand life at all, you cannot tear out its context. And that context, astounding even to bodily eyes, is the heaven of stars and the incredible procession of the great galaxies.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, An Apology For The Arts (1945).

To understand any living thing, you must, so to say, creep within and feel the beating of its heart.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, from The Human Situation: The Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow, 1935-1937 (1937).

Common sense cannot enable men to judge, where the experience of common life cannot be applied.
~ William Drummond (of Logiealmond), Academical Questions (1805).

In the end ... understanding is not only the highest virtue, it is also the highest happiness, for it avails more than any other faculty in us to avoid pain and grief.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume II (1935). The Life of Greece

Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume II (1935). The Life of Greece

Seven types of ambiguity.
~ William Empson, (Book title, 1930).

Arise! approach! unlock thy treasur'd stores!
~ William Falconer, The Shipwreck (1762). Canto I

It wasn't until the Nobel Prize that they really thawed out. They couldn't understand my books, but they could understand $30,000.
~ William Faulkner (on reviewers), quoted in The National Observer (3 February 1964).

Wonder. Go on and wonder.
~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (October 1929).

Know yourself and you will be better able to understand others.
~ William Feather, As We Were Saying (1921).

A humane man is not satisfied with merely expressing a tender sympathy in the sufferings of others, but proves the sincerity of that sympathy by doing what he can to relieve or to remove them.
~ William Fleming, A Manual of Moral Philosophy (1860). Part II, Book II: Social Ethics

We understand the triple bottom lines of sustainability must all be addressed for us to be successful.
~ William Clay Ford, Jr., Speech at CERES conference (April 2000). The Road to Sustainability

Exploration of the full range of our own potentialities is not something that we can safely leave to the chances of life. It is something to be pursued avidly to the end of our days.
~ John William Gardner, Self-Renewal: The Individ­ual and the Innovative Society (1963).

Read it. Clear as a bell. Whack. Slick as a whistle. Whack. Neat as a pin, hay? Clean. Whack. And remember what you read. Okay? Whackwhackwhackwhackwhack.
~ William H. Gass, from In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Short Stories (1968). Icicles

The Enlightenment is "being", and it grows; its end is serenity.
~ William Gibson, A Season in Heaven; Being The Log Of An Expedition After That Legendary Beast, Cosmic Consciousness (1974).

His gentle spirit rolls
In the melody of souls --
Which is pretty, but I don't know what it means.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, from Bab Ballads (1868). The Story of Prince Agib

It is my duty, and I will.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, from Bab Ballads (1868). Captain Reece

Throughout my ministry, I have sought to build bridges between Jews and Christians. I will continue to strongly support all future efforts to advance understanding and mutual respect between our communities.
~ Billy Graham, The Associated Press (2 March 2002). Billy Graham Apologizes for Comments

There seem to be three main characteristics of the paranormal. 1: it involves phenomena of light, such as glowing balls, mists, UFOs, etc. 2: there is a dissolution of boundaries in the observer where he experiences something outside his belief in what is possible. 3: there is a higher or different intelligence at work or sensed in these cases.
~ Dennis William Hauck, in OMNI's Prime Time Live (Interview; 15 October 1996). High Strangeness

A complete, consistent, unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). The Unification of Physics

All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know; and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, Volume II (1821-1822). Essay VIII. On the Ignorance of the Learned

Only one man ever understood me. And he really didn't understand me.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel

Conscious life is engaged quite as much in trying to find out what it wants as in trying to get it.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, Human Nature and Its Remaking (1918). Preface

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.
~ Billie Holiday

As in the night all cats are gray, so in the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes are obscure.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter V. The Automaton-Theory

Get but that "peace of God which passeth understanding," and the questions of the understanding will cease from puzzling and pedantic scruples be at rest.
~ William James, from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897). Reflex Action and Theism

There is a verge of the mind which these things haunt; and whispers therefrom mingle with the operations of our understanding, even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves to break among the pebbles that lie upon our shores.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lectures XVI and XVII: Mysticism

It would be an error to suppose that the great discoverer seizes at once upon the truth, or has any unerring method of divining it. In all probability the errors of the great mind exceed in number those of the less vigorous one. Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth are among the first requisites of discovery; but the erroneous guesses must be many times as numerous as those which prove well founded.
~ William (W.) Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1873). Chapter XXVI: Character of the Experimentalist

I see the winos talking to themselves
And I can understand.
~ Billy Joel, in The Bridge (1986 album). Big Man On Mulberry Street

You may never understand
How the Stranger is inspired,
But he is not always evil,
And he is not always wrong.
Though you drown in good intentions,
You will never quench the fire.
You'll give in to your desire
When the Stranger comes along.
~ Billy Joel, in The Stranger (1977 album). The Stranger

I never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand it.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), from Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light (1904).

Some people say they cannot understand a million million. Those people cannot understand that twice two makes four. That is the way I put it to people who talk to me about the incomprehensibility of such large numbers. I say finitude is incomprehensible, the infinite in the universe is comprehensible.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), A Lecture Delivered Before The Academy Of Music, Philadelphia (29 September 1884). Wave Theory Of Light

You can understand perfectly, if you give your mind to it.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson)

[I]t is the simple truth that readiness to be taught is the proof and condition of wisdom, just as willingness to serve is the proof and condition of greatness.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Faith and Knowledge (1904). IX. Humility

Hardly anybody recognizes the most significant moments of their life at the time they happen.
~ William Patrick (W.P.) Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (1982).

I was actually praising him when I called him a gerbil.
~ Bill "The Spaceman" Lee (on manager Don Zimmer), quoted in Tales from the Red Sox Dugout (2000).

If you do not understand,
Pass and do not do it wrong.
~ William Douw (W.D.) Lighthall, from Thoughts, Moods and Ideals (1887). The Wind-Chant

In truth this is The Great Enigma with which the generations of mortal men have ever been confronted -- What am I? Whence am I? Why am I? What is my final end? What the means to it? There is something in human nature which forces man to ask these questions.
~ William Samuel Lilly, The Great Enigma (1892). Chapter I: The Twilight of the Gods

It has been justly said that the greatest discovery of our lives is that the world is not so bad as, in the first disappointment of youth's extravagant expectations, we are disposed to regard it.
~ William Mathews, from The Great Conversers, And Other Essays (1874). II. Literary Clubs

It is very easy to persuade oneself that a phrase that what one does not quite understand may mean a great deal more than one realizes. From this there is only a little step to setting down one's impressions in all their original vagueness. Fools can always be found to discover a hidden sense in them.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

[T]oo many new ideas can overload processing capacity so that we cannot understand anything.
~ Wilbert J. ("Bill") McKeachie, Teaching Tips: A Guidebook for the Beginning College Teacher (8th edition; 1986).

[The media] tends to report rumors, speculations, and projections as facts. ... How does the media do this? By quoting some "expert" ... and you can always find some expert who will say something hopelessly hopeless about anything.
~ Peter McWilliams, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (1995). Part Two -- The Cure.

Come, then, since all things call us, the living and the dead,
And o'er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed.
~ William Morris, from Poems by the Way (1891). The Day is Coming

We create our own misery and unhappiness. ... The purpose of suffering is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it.
~ Willie Nelson, Willie: An Autobiography (1988).

Education is the long term key to sustainable environmental progress. Almost all citizens are supportive of environmental progress and many have a real affinity for the beauty of the natural world. However, they often lack a true understanding of issues and a background necessary to make informed, rational decisions about environmental affairs.
~ William Nieter

People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

Look heavenward, if you wish, but never to the horizon; that way danger lies. Truth is not there, happiness is not there, certainty is not there, but the falsehoods, the frauds, the quackeries, the ignes fatui (false beacons) which have deceived each generation all beckon from the horizon and lure the men not content to look for the truth and happiness that tumble out at their feet.
~ William Osler, An address delivered to Yale students (20 April 1913). A Way of Life

Neither despise, nor oppose, what thou dost not understand.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Personal Cautions

Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part II. Of Conduct in Speech

I hope you get this message
When you won't, others will
You may not understand me
But Billy will love you still.
~ William Everett ("Billy") Preston, in That's the Way God Planned It (1969 album).

Be not worried if you cannot understand all you hear or read -- pass by that which does not awaken the answering ring of the spiritual keynote within you. This is a safe test, and rule. Apply it to all writings and teaching ...
~ Yogi Ramacharaka (William Walker Atkinson) (written in the early 1900's), in Advanced Course in Yoga Philosophy and Ancient Fundamentals (December 2000).

The minute a thing is long and complicated it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept but they are understood.
~ Will Rogers

I'm not sure what a syntax means. But it must be bad because it's got "sin" and "tax" in it.
~ Will Rogers

The minute you read something and you can't understand it you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.
~ Will Rogers, The Lawyers Talking (Weekly Article; 28 July 1935)

Well, I can understand a man perhaps being eccentric enough to want to own a silk hat.
~ Will Rogers

Nobody understands,
Quite why we're here
We're searchin' for answers
That never appear.
~ W. Axl Rose (nee William Bruce Rose, Jr.), in Use Your Illusion I (1991 album). Dead Horse

There is no way there, but to be there.
~ William Samuel, The Awareness of Self-Discovery (1970).

[A] snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale. Act IV, scene iii

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act I, scene ii

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act II, scene iii

Ever till now
When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act II, scene ii

He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I

I understand a fury in your words,
But not the words.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act IV, scene ii

My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act I, scene iii

My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act I, scene v

O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
But there's more in me than thou understand'st.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act IV, scene v

Oh! that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves.
~ William Shakespeare, Coriolanus. Act II, scene i

Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act V, scene iii

So quick bright things come to confusion.
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act I, scene i

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act III, scene iii

In my business, Rule Number One is:
Mock that which you don't understand.
~ Bill Shein (writer).

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?"
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king."
~ William Stafford, in The Way It Is (1998). A Story That Could Be True

People who do not understand themselves have a craving for understanding -- a thing which is rather surmised and never spoken than known and clothed in words.
~ Wilhelm Stekel, Marriage at the Crossroads (1931).

What strange and magic power in sympathy resides?
It doubles all our joys, our sorrows it divides.
~ William Wetmore Story, from Poems By William Wetmore Story (1856). Couplets. XVII

Never resort to mathematics until you have exhausted all the possibilities of a couple of toothpicks and a piece of string.
~ William Bushnell Stout

The time when a maxim or principle is worth something is when you are tempted to violate it.
~ William Graham Sumner, from War, And Other Essays (1911). Essay XV. The Conquest of the United States by Spain (1898)

I may be crude. I use slang. But I always try to make myself understood. The average man -- the man in the street -- has only about 300 words in his vocabulary. He needs the message, and I speak his language, so he will understand.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

To discover a flaw in our makeup is a chance to get rid of it, and add a new line of beauty to our life.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday, from The Real Billy Sunday: The Life and Work of Rev. William Ashley Sunday, D.D., The Baseball Evangelist (1914). XV: Some of Sunday's Sayings

You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around -- and why his parents will always wave back.
~ William D. (Bill) Tammeus

[A]ll controversies that can never end, had better perhaps never begin.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. I (1731). Miscellanea. Part II. Of Poetry

It's hard for the modern generation to understand Thoreau, who lived beside a pond but didn't own water skis or a snorkel.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

And my manner is, whatever is in debate, to search it thoroughly, being of an opinion, that, what is really true, stands the firmer, for being shaken: like a house that is built upon a rock.
~ William Walwyn, A Still and Soft Voice (1647)

We are more than what we do ... much more than what we accomplish ... far more than what we possess.
~ William Arthur Ward

To probe the unknown! So soon begins the quest,
That never ends until asunder fall
The locks and bolts of the Last Door of All.
~ William Watson, The Eternal Search (1915).

Who but the listening stars may understand?
~ William Watson, from Epigrams of Art, Life and Nature (1884). XCVIII

I liked things better when I didn't understand them.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (5 January 1993).

[I]f something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 minutes, than it's probably not worth knowing anyway.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (6 January 1989).

We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled.
~ Bill Watterson, Speech at Kenyon College Commencement, Gambier, Ohio (20 May 1990). Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled

The commentator's professed object is to explain, to enforce, to illustrate.
~ William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences: From the Earliest to the Present Times, Vol. 1 (1837). Book IV, Chapter II. The Commentatorial Spirit of the Middle Ages

If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, of joys, of base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own, which he thinks so peculiarly isolated from the web of life, how much kinder, how much gentler he would be!
~ William Allen White, from In Our Town (1906). XIX: "Thirty"

And I am glad my heart can say,
When others trip and fall
(Although I safely passed that way),
"I understand it all."
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Understood

There is but one important theme, and that is Life Immortal.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Hello, Boys! (1919). Conversation

Understand this first, last, and always: The world wants the best thing. It wants your best.
~ Frances Elizabeth Willard, How to Win: A Book For Girls (1886). Chapter III. Aimless Reverie Versus a Resolute Aim -- The New Profession

The path that you follow is not about going somewhere, but about coming back to you, Over and over again. Only this time, you are awake to who that is and the life that you are living.
~ Angel Kyodo Williams, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace (2000).

Remember to love and hold out your hand
because it's easy to hurt when we don't understand.
~ Don Williams, Jr., Reflections of a Wayward Soul (2004). Natural Law

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. In those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.
~ Fritz Williams

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
~ H.H. Williams

There are only three great puzzles in the world, the puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and, between each of these and part of both of them, the puzzle of God. ... God is the greatest puzzle of all.
~ Niall Williams, As It Is In Heaven (1999).

If there are no easy answers, there are still available and discoverable hard ones, and it is these that we can learn to make and share.
~ Raymond Henry Williams, in Resources of Hope (1989).

The human crisis is always a crisis of understanding: what we genuinely understand we can do.
~ Raymond Henry Williams, Culture and Society (1958).

The risk of insult is the price of clarity. To be clearly understood one must speak the simple, essential truth as plainly as he is able.
~ Roy H. Williams

I will not bargain any more for anything, if I can help it. How can one bargain for anything that is worth while? And what else is worth bargaining for?
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams, War in Heaven (1930). Chapter Twelve. The Third Attempt On The Graal

For the beginning is assuredly
the end -- since we know nothing, pure
and simple, beyond
our own complexities.
~ William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946). Book 1, Preface

I wanted to write a poem
that you would understand.
For what good is it to me
if you can't understand it?
~ William Carlos Williams, from Al Que Quiere! A Book of Poems (1917). January Morning

Illumination is both our source and our destiny, the reason we came here and the reason we stay.
~ Marianne Williamson, Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (1994). Part I. Chapter 2. The Luminous Mind

We must relinquish our passive observation of the world outside; we can open the door to the world we want. In understanding ourselves, we come to understand the world. In allowing ourselves to heal, we become the healers of the world. In praying for peace, we become bringers of peace. Thus we actualize the power within us to remedy the psychic wounds of humanity.
~ Marianne Williamson, Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (1994).

[N]o easy answers to what? To unclear questions? To questions not properly asked? To stupid questions?
~ Garry Wills, quoted in Proverb Wit & Wisdom (1997).

What happens all too often is that we run from the parts of ourselves that we least recognize. You have to be willing to stand up to that and push beyond it.
~ August Wilson

There is no better high than discovery.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, in The Scientist magazine, Volume 18, Issue 1 (Interview; 19 January 2004). First Person | E.O. Wilson

I'm at my best in a messy, middle-of-the-road muddle.
~ Harold Wilson (remark in Cabinet, 21 January 1975), in Philip Ziegler (1993). Wilson

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.
~ Robert Wilson, quoted in Sunday Times (London; 17 November 1991).

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.
~ Robert Wilson, quoted in The Theatre Of Robert Wilson (1996).

People have murdered each other, in massive wars and guerilla actions, for many centuries, and still murder each other in the present, over Ideologies and Religions which, stated as propositions, appear neither true nor false to modern logicians -- meaningless propositions that look meaningful to the linguistically naive.
~ Robert Anton Wilson, Quantum Psychology (1990).

It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect.
~ William P. Young, The Shack (2007).

If you lose the dullards back in the dust, you don't want them anway.
~ William K. Zinsser, On Writing Well (1976). 5. The Audience