Neque enim quaero ut credem, sed credo ut intelligam. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.

-St Anselm
  Proslogion, ch.1 (translated by M  J Charlesworth).

I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.

-Appleton, Sir Edward Victor
  In the Observer, 28  Aug.

If you don't believe it, you won't understand it.

-St Augustine originally Aurelius Augustinus
Quoted in Erasmus De Libero  Arbitrio (1523).

Be not curious in unnecessary matters: for more things are shewed unto thee than men understand.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Ecclesiasticus 3:23.

Lo sguardo dei cani che non capiscono e non sanno che possono aver ragione a non capire. The gaze of dogs who don't understand and who don't know that they may be right not to understand. 185

-Calvino, Italo
  Il Barone Rampante, ch.10.

The people may be made to follow a course of action, but they may not be made to understand it.

-Confucius or K'ung Fu-tse,'The MasterK'ung'
c.479  BC  The Analects.

Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, which, to admire, we should not understand.

-Congreve,William
  Valentine. Love for Love, act 4, sc.21.

'I don't think I understand people very well.I only know whether Ilike ordislikethem.' 'Thenyouarean Oriental.'

-Forster, E(dward) M(organ)
  A Passage to India, ch.2.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-Franklin, Benjamin
Attributed prayer, traditionally known as the'Prayer of St Francis'.

Some comrades apparently find it hard to understand that democracy is just a slogan.

-Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich
  In the Observer,1 Feb.

Ce ge¤  nie particulier de la femme qui comprend l'homme mieux que l'homme ne se comprend. Awoman'sparticular talent istounderstand a manbetter than he understands himself.

-Hugo,Victor Marie
  Les Mise¤  rables, vol.1, bk.1, ch.9.

Ist es schwer und kann es ein AuÞenseiter begreifen,dass man eine Geschichte von ihrem Anfang in sich erlebt, vom fernen Punkt bis zu der heranfahrenden Lokomotive aus Stahl, Kohl und Dampf, sie aber auchjetzt noch nicht verl a« sst, sondern von ihr gejagt wird und aus eigenem Schwung vor ihr l a« uft, wohin sie nur st o« Þt und wohin man sie lockt. It is so difficult and can an outsider understand that you experience a story within yourself from its beginning, fromthe distant point up to theapproaching locomotive of steel, coal and steam, and you don't abandon it even now, but want to be pursued by it and have time for it, therefore are pursued by it and of your own volition run before it wherever it may thrust and wherever you may lure it.

-Kafka, Franz
Diary entry,  Aug. Collected in Max Brod (ed)  The Diaries of Franz Kafka,1910^1913 (1948).

In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishingof hisideas, though it bringsgratifications, isa curious anti-climax.

-Kazin, Alfred
  In Think, Feb.

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!

-Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)
   Address in Berlin's Rudolf  Wilde Platz, 26  Jun, 22 months after the erection of the wall dividing the city.

   There ain't twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures. The others pretend and don't care.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
The Light That Failed.

Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications. Adults never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

-Saint-Exupe¤  ry, Antoine de
  Le Petit Prince.

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot.You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away.

-Salinger,J(erome) D(avid)
The Catcher in the Rye, ch.9.

I don't consider myself dovish and I certainly don't consider myself hawkish. Maybe I would describe myself as owlishöthat is wise enough to understand that you want to do everything possible to avoid war.

-Schwarzkopf, H Norman
  In the NewYorkTimes, 28 Jan.

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futuritycastsuponthepresent; thewordswhichexpress what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
A Defence of Poetry.

When I do not understand, I like to say nothing.

-Sophocles
OedipusTyrannus, 569 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).