„Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.“

„I felt in Georgia and on the east coast generally very squeezed. People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box or they need to label you and fix you in time and location. I feel a greater fluidity here. People are much more willing to accept that nothing is permanent, everything is changeable so there is freedom and I do need to live where I can be free.“

—  Alice Walker American author and activist 1944

On living in California, as quoted in "A long walk to freedom" in The Guardian (25 February 2001) http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/feb/25/fiction.features1.

„Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.“

—  Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910

„I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!“

—  Jean Paul Sartre, livro The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 1
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

„Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.“

—  Michael Crichton, livro Sphere

Fonte: Sphere

„Over the course of the war I came to understand a lot. The Communists are right... It's terrible that many people haven't understood anything and want to return everything back..“

—  Albert Marquet French artist 1875 - 1947

from the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenburg; as quoted by Mikhail Guerman, in Albert Marquet – The Paradox of Time, Parkstone Aurora Publishers, Bournemouth England, 1995, p. 82
Ilya Ehrenburg wrote that Marquet said him this shortly after the War, in 1946.

„This vain presumption, of understanding everything, can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the understanding of one single thing, thus truly tasting how knowledge is accomplished, would then recognize that of the infinity of other truths, he understands nothing.“

—  Kim Stanley Robinson, livro Galileo's Dream

Fonte: Galileo's Dream (2009), Ch. 15, p. 354; note: though this statement is incorporated into the story as one Galileo spoke, it is actually a quotation of one he historically made in his Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kimler/hi322/Dialogue-extracts.html as translated by Stillman Drake.

„It's pathetic how we can't live with the things we can't understand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed.“

—  Chuck Palahniuk, livro Choke

Variante: It’s pathetic how we can’t live with the things we can’t understand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed.
Fonte: Asfixia

„If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There's nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.“

—  Desmond Tutu South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner 1931

„Some people want it all
But I don't want nothing at all
If it ain't you baby
If I ain't got you baby
Some people want diamond rings
Some just want everything
But everything means nothing
If I ain't got you, Yeah“

—  Alicia Keys American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress 1981

Fonte: Alicia Keys: Unplugged

„So, that’s what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That’s what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me.“

—  Charles Bukowski, livro Misto Quente

Fonte: Ham on Rye

„The whole thing's illusion, [Jacob], and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect.“

—  Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

Fonte: Water for Elephants

„Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around.“

—  Richard Yates, livro Revolutionary Road

Fonte: Revolutionary Road

„Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. In short, we live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.“

—  Václav Havel playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic 1936 - 2011

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)
Contexto: There appear to be no integrating forces, no unified meaning, no true inner understanding of phenomena in our experience of the world. Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. In short, we live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.

„I want to know that I've done everything I could every day I think of all those people out there who are depending on us. I think about it. It does make me feel we need more work, more help. Get those spectators on the playing field, or out of the arena. Really, that is how I feel about it. I do what I can, and I do it the way I do everything… there's nothing part of the way for me.“

—  Tom Cruise American actor and film producer 1962

„Learn to understand others. Most people do not want to understand others, instead wanting others to understand them. This is egotism. We should try to think less of ourselves and more of others. Try to understand others better.“

—  Jun Hong Lu Australian Buddhist leader 1959

Quotes from Words of Wisdoms Vol.2
Original: (zh_Hant) 要學會理解別人。 每一個人都不會想到去瞭解別人， 都想讓別人瞭解自己， 這就是一切以“我”為出發點。 活在世界上， 少想自己，多想別人，多瞭解別人。

„Some die because they feel everything, others because they feel nothing. Some are fools because they suffer no regrets, and others because they do.“

—  Baltasar Gracián, livro Oráculo Manual e Arte de Prudência

Unos mueren porque sienten y otros viven porque no sienten. Y assí, unos son necios porque no mueren de sentimiento, y otros lo son porque mueren de él.
Maxim 208 (p. 118)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

„it is true that you may fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all of the people all the time… dogs, on the other hand, with them all you need to do is flick your wrist and they run off looking for some stupid tennis ball.“

—  Darby Conley American cartoonist 1970

famous cat quotes
Bucky Katt's Big Book of fun, page 114
Bucky Katt

„If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you“

—  Haruki Murakami, livro Kafka on the Shore

Fonte: Kafka on the Shore

„Wisdom is, I suppose, the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.“

—  Charles Spurgeon British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist 1834 - 1892

The Fourfold Treasure (1871) No. 991 http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0991.htm