Quotes about Misunderstanding
Through the generations there seems to run a chain of wounds and needs. And when we try to avoid inflicting wounds ourselves, we discover that even with our best intentions we cannot avoid encountering people who feel rejected, misunderstood, or hurt by us.
— Henri Nouwen
The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.
— Stephen Hawking
A trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree that we do -- namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
I think that when people hear the president [George W. Bush] speak, frankly, they think he's really stupid. But what people don't realize is that there's a genius behind that stupidity, and that genius is Harlan McCraney.
— Arianna Huffington
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.
— Soren Kierkegaard
Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.
— Margaret Atwood
I already told you," said Adam. "There is no need to swear." "Sorry, it just fucking slipped out," said Zeb.
— Margaret Atwood
Perhaps he was merely being friendly. Perhaps he saw the look on my face and mistook it for something else. Really what I wanted was the cigarette.
— Margaret Atwood
The difficulty is that I have no mouth through which I can speak. I can't make myself understood, not in your world, the world of bodies, of tongues and fingers; and most of the time I have no listeners, not on your side of the river. Those of you who may catch the odd whisper, the odd squeak, so easily mistake my words for breezes rustling the dry reeds, for bats at twilight, for bad dreams.
— Margaret Atwood
your kiss no longer literature but fine print, a set of instructions.
— Margaret Atwood
By the time the average Christian gets his temperature up to normal, everybody thinks he has a fever!
— Watchman Nee
Many of the judgments we make of one another—judgments that cause great pain—are preventable, because they are based on misunderstanding
— Sheila Walsh