Showing posts with label understanding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label understanding. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Sherlock on knowledge

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.

Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet

Monday, December 18, 2023

An explanation of some kind ... is necessary—however absurd—to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems of life. 

Algernon Blackwood, The Willows

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Rules

That’s why there’s rules, understand? So that you think before you break ’em.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

Friday, July 10, 2020

Knowledge is a pile of bricks, and understanding is a way of building.

Theodore  Sturgeon

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

A man's worth is just the worth of that which he pursues....Be upright either by nature or by correction.

Contemplate the courses of the stars, as one should do that revolves along with them. Consider also without ceasing the changes of elements, one into another. Speculations upon such things cleanse away the filth of this earthly life.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book 7)

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Man must consider, not only that each day part of his life is spent, and that less and less remains to him, but also that, even if he live longer, it is very uncertain whether his intelligence will suffice as heretofore for the understanding of his affairs, and for grasping that knowledge which aims at comprehending things human and divine. When dotage begins, breath, nourishment, fancy, impulse, and so forth will not fail him. But self-command, accurate appreciation of duty, power to scrutinize what strikes his senses, or even to decide whether he should take his departure, all powers, indeed, which demand a well-trained understanding, must be extinguished in him. Let him be up and doing then, not only because death comes nearer every day, but because understanding and intelligence often leave us before we die. 

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations  (III,1)

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.  I feel I have the right to tell you this because, as I am inscribing these words, I am doing the same.

Ted Chiang, Exhalation

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Jesus said:  If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. 

The Gospel of Thomas, as noted by Elaine Pagels

Friday, February 27, 2015

A life is like a garden.  Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.
Live long and prosper.

Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet

Monday, September 15, 2014

What we look for does not happen;
what we least expect is fashioned by the gods.


Euripides, Bacchae (as quoted from Robin Robertson in the Sept. 25, 2014 New York Review)

Sunday, September 22, 2013



Non coerceri a maximo, sed contineri a minimo divinum est
(“not to be limited by the greatest and yet to be contained in the tiniest—this is the divine”).

Quoted by Pope Francis on the vision of St. Ignatius

Saturday, July 27, 2013

The whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life.  We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can. 

Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

Sunday, July 21, 2013

To Evening

You set me and my thoughts a-wandering
along the path to the eternal void; and then
this wretched time flees, and with it
the throng of woes afflicting it and me;
and while I behold your peacefulness, that warlike
spirit that rages within me sleeps. 

From "Alla sera" by Ugo Foscolo, translated by Allen Shearer, seen on a Metro bus

Friday, March 29, 2013

The longer I live the more convinced I am that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specific ways and have specific realities.

Shiva Naipaul, quoted by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Feb 2002 Atlantic magazine.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

When done for reasons other than competition, physical exercise ... can be a simultaneous act of peaceful prayer (talking to God) and deep meditation (listening to God), allowing me the space to ask without using words while listening to answers that I know already exist: an inner guidance of divinity achieved through outer exertion.

Romano Scaturro, 50@50

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The world is full of ways and means to waste time.


Haruki Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance

Monday, August 06, 2012

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements--surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Job 38:4-7

Sunday, August 08, 2010

I dreamed a lot when I was younger
I'm older now and still I hunger
For some understanding,
There's no understanding, now
Was there ever?

Ambrosia, Harvey