C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Understanding
Humility is the light of the understanding.
The light of the understanding, humility kindleth and pride covereth.
They understand but little who understand only what can be explained.
The understanding also hath its idiosyncrasies as well as other faculties.
Obtuseness is the rule, not the exception.
His understanding at the best is of the middling size.
The power of perception is that which we call the understanding.
Fools usually know best that which the wise despair of ever comprehending.
Women have the understanding of the heart, which is better than that of the head.
It is by no means necessary to understand things to speak confidently about them.
Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.
The defects of the understanding, like those of the face, grow worse as we grow old.
What we do not understand we do not possess.
The understanding of some men is clear, that of others brilliant. The former illumines its surroundings; the latter obscures them.
We can sometimes love what we do not understand, but it is impossible completely to understand what we do not love.
When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, this is metaphysics.
Do not crowd the understanding; it can comprehend so much and no more. A pint pot will not contain the measure of a quart.
I know no evil so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common.
Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.
Knowing is seeing.***Until we ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it by our own understandings, we are as much in the dark and as void of knowledge as before, let us believe any learned author as much as we will.
It is the understanding that sees and hears; it is the understanding that improves everything, that orders everything, and that acts, rules, and reigns.
The improvement of the understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver and make out that knowledge to others.
It is the same with understanding as with eyes; to a certain size and make, just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond brings darkness and confusion.
A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.
He who calls in the aid of any equal understanding, doubles his own; and he who profits of a superior understanding, raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior understanding he unites with.
It is not the eye, that sees the beauty of the heaven, nor the ear, that hears the sweetness of music or the glad tidings of a prosperous accident, but the soul, that perceives all the relishes of sensual and intellectual perfections; and the more noble and excellent the soul is, the greater and more savory are its perceptions.
The understanding, that should be to the blind faculty of the will, is blind itself; and so brings all the inconveniences that attend a blind follower under the conduct of a blind guide.
The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.