#understand

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand. ↗

— Simone Weil

#cannot #crushed #crushing #feel #feels

The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#american experience #basic #basic human rights #citizens #experience

It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control. ↗

— Oprah Winfrey

#come #control #deep #deep down #down

... understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is the one weapon against the world's bombardment, the one medicine, the one instrument by which liberty, health, and joy may be shaped or shaped towards, in the individual, and in the race. ↗

— James Agee

#age

My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver. ↗

— Gene Wolfe

#be true #clearly #combat #every #experience

Nobody could understand why a guy would love his guitar, then all of a sudden turn around and try to destroy it. Jimi was just different. ↗

— Bobby Womack

#could #destroy #different #guitar #guy

Possibly because I've lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life. ↗

— Mo Yan

#circumstances #difficult #difficult circumstances #i #i think

The man who can put himself in the place of other men, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for him. ↗

— Owen D. Young

#future #him #himself #man #men

Begin. . . where you are, NOT where you want to be. Begin stuck in the doldrums of your false story--if that is where you are. Begin there because, in truth, there is no other place to start from. Tell yourself that you are going to listen for the sound of your own voice--and remind yourself when you forget. And you will forget, over and over again. ↗

— Florence Falk

#art #clarity #lifestyle #living #loneliness

The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, to use one's reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child. Love, being dependent on the relative absence of narcissism, requires the developement of humility, objectivity and reason. I must try to see the difference between my picture of a person and his behavior, as it is narcissistically distorted, and the person's reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears. ↗

— Erich Fromm

#conflict #empathy #erich-fromm #humility #love