Misunderstanding Quotes

1. "The French believe that all errors are distant, someone else's fault. Americans believe that there is no distance, no difference, and therefore that there are no errors, that any troubles are simple misunderstandings, consequent on your not yet having spoken English loudly enough."
Author: Adam Gopnik

2. "Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature."
Author: Adrian Cronauer

3. "Tell me, if you thought a man had a tendresse for you, but he wasn't doing anything about it. And you wanted to hurry him up a little so you made a move, an unmistakable move; one that nobody could pretend had been a misunderstanding. And he - he ignored it - ignored you. What would you feel?"
Author: Ahdaf Soueif

4. "Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate."
Author: Albert Schweitzer

5. "Revelation comes with these misunderstandings. Stuart's life and way of thinking momentarily exposed. Like a break in the hedgerow during the country lane part of a journey. For an instant you glimpse scenery you haven't seen before - fields of poppy and cornflower, trees gnarled in the shape of demons."
Author: Alexander Masters

6. "Motherhood is like this: a series of tiny moments that add up to an enormous love, with lots of other moments of frustration and misunderstanding and complexity woven in between."
Author: Allison Winn Scotch

7. "Even between the best of friends, mistakes and misunderstandings can happen."
Author: Avigdor Lieberman

8. "As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media."
Author: Bell Hooks

9. "Have you heard from his lordship lately?" I asked."Oh no! About six months ago I had indeed one little note, but I gave it to Macara by mistake, and really I don't know what became of it afterwards.""Did Macara express hot sentiment of incipient jealousy on thus accidentally learning that you had not entirely dropped all correspondence with the noble Earl?""Yes. He said he thought the note was very civilly expressed, and wished me to answer it in terms equally polite.""Good! And you did so?""Of course. I penned an elegant billet on a sheet of rose-tinted note-paper, and sealed it with a pretty green seal bearing the device of twin hearts consumed by the same flame. Some misunderstanding must have occurred, though, for in two or three days afterwards I received it back unopened and carefully enclosed in a cover. The direction was not in his lordship's hand-writing: Macara told me he thought it was the Countess's."
Author: Charlotte Brontë

10. "Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one we have dreamed into being. We love pople when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on top of the other might match. But dream worlds are not static like cutouts; sooner or later they change shape, leading to misunderstanding, loneliness and loss of love."
Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

11. "That which triggers understanding often is found by bringing misunderstanding to the light."
Author: Dane R Pascoe

12. "Change comes with both fear and some pain. Those two ingredients create mistrust, misunderstanding and misinformation. Such is the process of democracy."
Author: David Mixner

13. "It isn't about the welfare check. It never was.It isn't about sexual permissiveness, or personal morality, or failures in parenting, or lack of family planning. All of these are inherent in the disaster, but the purposefulness with which babies make babies in places like West Baltimore goes far beyond accident and chance, circumstance and misunderstanding. It's about more than the sexual drives of adolescents, too, though that might be hard to believe in a country where sex alone is enough of an argument to make anyone do just about anything.In Baltimore, a city with the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, the epidemic is, at root, about human expectation, or more precisely, the absence of expectation."
Author: David Simon

14. "There have been some friendships lost over this. That's the most difficult for me. I find it very uncomfortable to know that I was at one time close friends with someone, and because of jealousies and misunderstandings and so on, these friendships have dissolved."
Author: Donald Johanson

15. "I'm so sick of people misunderstanding Asians in America and what we're about."
Author: Eddie Huang

16. "I was much affected by the internal troubles of the Punch family; I thought that with a little more tact on the part of Mrs. Punch and some restraint held over a temper, naturally violent, by Mr. Punch, a great deal of this sad misunderstanding might have been prevented."
Author: Edmund Gosse

17. "... Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion!..."Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust."
Author: Émile Zola

18. "A misunderstanding of the Laws of the Universe is at the heart of this conversation as the people of your society wage wars against the things they do not want: war against terror, war against AIDS, war against teenage pregnancy, war against violence, war against cancer—and every one of those things is getting bigger because attention to unwanted creates more unwanted."
Author: Esther Hicks

19. "On the flip side of everything we think we absolutely have pegged lurks an equal amount of the unknown. Understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings. Just between us, that's my way of comprehending the world. In a nutshell."
Author: Haruki Murakami

20. "Differences give rise to disagreements, and the combination of these disagreements can give rise to even greater misunderstandings. As a result, sometimes people are unfairly criticized. This goes without saying. It's not much fun to be misunderstood or criticized, but rather a painful experience that hurts people deeply."
Author: Haruki Murakami

21. "Despite Japan's desires and efforts, unfortunate differences in the ways that Japan, England, the United States, and China understood circumstances, together with misunderstandings of attitudes, made it impossible for the parties to agree."
Author: Hideki Tojo

22. "It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you."
Author: Ian McEwan

23. "One could only be nice to each other for a while. That was the best one could do. Men and women should best keep at a safe distance, having nothing to do with each other until both had found their way out of their misunderstanding, their confusion or the disruption of all relationships. One day, something else might come. But only then. Something strong. Something mysterious. Something greater to which everyone could submit."
Author: Ingeborg Bachmann

24. "There is an old question, rarely voiced these days, but nevertheless running as an undercurrent beneath the squabbles and misunderstandings that occur in households, workplaces and universities on a daily basis. ‘What do women want?' has been asked in a bewildered, almost exasperated, tone since women first began to say they wanted more. Yet the answer seems to us to be simple and entirely self-evident. Women want what all sentient human beings want. They want to develop their own talents and put them to good use, to earn and control their own money so they can be truly independent and make free choices. They want to gain status and respect as they prove to be worth of it. To love and to be loved as free and equal adults, to be allowed their human flaws and foibles and not to be unfairly judged for them, and to be forgiven when they fail, behave badly or have trouble coping. To be the subject and not the object. They want, in short, what men want. – pg. 237"
Author: Jane Caro Catherine Fox

25. "I'm standing in misunderstanding. I must have just stepped in it."
Author: Jarod Kintz

26. "But let there be no misunderstanding. The war against terror is every bit as important as our fight against fascism in World War II. Or our struggle against the spread of Communism during the Cold War."
Author: Jim Bunning

27. "Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people's religion. And religion may, in a sense, be understood as popular misunderstanding of mythology. (8)"
Author: Joseph Campbell

28. "You're right. The fact that the entire party of fifty guests caught you and Jill Moench kissing in the closet was a complete misunderstanding." Theo snorted, turning to Penny, "His girlfriend certainly got a surprise at her party. And it wasn't the kind where everyone jumps out from behind the couch to yell, ‘Surprise!"
Author: Katlyn Charlesworth

29. "It does grieve me to think there are people misunderstanding my heart on an issue."
Author: Kirk Cameron

30. "Glaring at the doctor, Kev spoke in Romany. "Ka xlia ma pe tute." (I'm going to shit on you.)"Which means," Rohan said hastily, " ‘Please for­give the misunderstanding; let's part as friends.' ""Te malavel les i menkiva," Kev added for good mea­sure. (May you die of a malignant wasting disease.)"Roughly translated," Rohan said, "that means, ‘May your garden be filled with fine, fat hedgehogs.' Which, I may add, is considered quite a blessing among the Rom."
Author: Lisa Kleypas

31. "The painter is not simply someone who looks and who sees. Above all, the artist is someone who exposes a personal vision by rendering it visible. The painter shows or allows the seeing of "something" that without him, without his intervention, would not be seen. He manifests through his work a possibility of seeing that would otherwise remain latent. In other words, painting is an art that reveals or unveils the world from an angle that the world itself does not present to us. Painting creates. It does not limit itself to imitation or reproduction. Any desire to confine painting within the limits of déjà vu would be a gross misunderstanding of the essence of what painting is. Painting allows us to see that which without it would never be seen."
Author: Marcel Paquet

32. "Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life."
Author: Miguel Angel Ruiz

33. "Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama."
Author: Miguel Ruiz

34. "Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields. The peril of a clash is aggravated by a more or less predominant sense of combativeness, posed by every human being. To resist this inherent fighting tendency the best way is to dispel ignorance of the doings of others by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse."
Author: Nikola Tesla

35. "Long term I do believe internationally there is a huge misunderstanding of Russia."
Author: Oleg Deripaska

36. "We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that's who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer."
Author: Pema Chödrön

37. "If you ask the question of Americans, should we pay our bills? One hundred percent would say yes. There's a significant misunderstanding on the debt ceiling. People think it's authorizing new spending. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize new spending; it allows us to pay obligations already incurred."
Author: Peter Welch

38. "Because that's bullshit. Okay, maybe the Las Vegas thing was our fault, well mostly Uncle Jared's and Jason's fault, but it was supposed to be a twenty-four hour buffet," he explained. "And that Disneyworld thing," he shook his head in disgust, "was all a simple misunderstanding. There was no need to get the police involved," he said on a sniff."
Author: R.L. Mathewson

39. "Fame is finally only the sum total of all the misunderstanding that can gather around a new name."
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke

40. "In the strange heat all litigation brings to bear on things, the very process of litigation fosters the most profound misunderstandings in the world."
Author: Renata Adler

41. "They preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth. They are the focus of evil in the modern world.... So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."
Author: Ronald Reagan

42. "In adaptive terms, belief has been extraordinarily useful. It is, after all, by believing various propositions about the world that we predict events and consider the likely consequences of our actions. Beliefs are principles of action: whatever they may be at the level of the brain, they are processes by which our understanding (and misunderstanding) of the world is represented and made available to guide our behavior."
Author: Sam Harris

43. "It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment."
Author: Samuel Alexander

44. "Maddie was about to follow when a girl beside her said, "Excuse me." Her hair was red, and her cheeks were dusted with light brown freckles. She had a mouth that seemed to want to smile, but for some reason her lips were tight. "I have been standing here for two entire minutes waiting for a seat." "Oh!" said Maddie. "I'm so sorry. I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding." She leaned closer and whispered helpfully, "The seats here don't come to you. You have to walk over to them." The girl's mouth gaped as if she was insulted. Maddie nodded sympathetically. "I agree," Maddie said. "I've often thought that chairs that come to you are a hexcellent idea."
Author: Shannon Hale

45. "People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. That is a complete misunderstanding. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a result, people have hitherto been beating the air in their struggle against objections, because they have fought intellectually with doubt instead of fighting morally with rebellion."
Author: Søren Kierkegaard

46. "Fellow-feeling. . .is the most important factor in producing a healthy political and social life. Neither our national nor our local civic life can be what it should be unless it is marked by the fellow-feeling, the mutual kindness, the mutual respect, the sense of common duties and common interests, which arise when men take the trouble to understand one another, and to associate together for a common object. A very large share of the rancor of political and social strife arises either from sheer misunderstanding by one section, or by one class, of another, or else from the fact that the two sections, or two classes, are so cut off from each other that neither appreciates the other's passions, prejudices, and, indeed, point of view, while they are both entirely ignorant of their community of feeling as regards the essentials of manhood and humanity."
Author: Theodore Roosevelt

47. "T can be eye-opening to think of some of the unrealistic expectations we hold ourselves to. These are the "shoulds" we set up in our lives which then become the breeding ground for embarrassment: I should never spill a drink; I should never lose my footing, even on slippery pavement; I should never misunderstand another person's behavior (the latter misunderstanding having constituted my "chrysalis crime.")"
Author: Toni Bernhard

48. "Without the heavy set aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs retying; without the conversation at meals and the hearty appetites and getting dressed for church on time; without the tears of laughter or the worry about making both ends meet, the unpaid bills, the layoffs, both seasonal and unexpected; without the toys that have to picked up lest somebody trip over them, and the seven shirts that have to be washed and ironed, one for every day in the week; without the scraped knee and the hurt feelings, the misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, the voices calling for her so that she is perpetually having to stop what she is doing and go see what they want - without all this, what have you? A mystery: How is it that she didn't realize it was going to last such a short time?"
Author: William Maxwell

49. "For a man to think he can fulfil his destiny without a woman is a misunderstanding, a miscalculation; it is reckless and folly. Certainly a woman is not everthing, but everything depends on her."
Author: Yasmina Khadra

50. "As usual, it occurred to me that words were the only thing that could possibly save me from this situation. This was a characteristic misunderstanding on my part. When action was needed, I was absorbed in words; for words proceeded with such difficulty from my mouth that I was intent on them and forgot all about action. It seemed to me that actions, which are dazzling, varied things, must always be accompanied by equally dazzling and equally varied words."
Author: Yukio Mishima

Misunderstanding Quotes Pictures