Top 40 Understanding Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.”

— John Locke

Also featured in: Learning Quotes, Enlightenment Quotes, Knowledge Quotes, Teacher Quotes

2. “Listening is not understanding the words of the question asked, listening is understanding why the question was asked in the first place.”

— Simon Sinek

Also featured in: Thursday Inspirational Quotes, Quotes About Listening

3. “If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.”

— Chinua Achebe

Also featured in: Quotes About Stories

4. “Stop. Take 3 deep breaths and smile everywhere in your body, observing what’s happening in your body. Proceed now with kindness and understanding.”

— Deepak Chopra

Also featured in: Self-Care Quotes, Inner Peace Quotes, Feel Good Quotes, Emotion Quotes, Wellness Quotes

5. “The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.”

— Carl Sagan

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Feel Better Quotes, Intelligence Quotes, Quotes About the Brain

6. “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”

— Stephen R. Covey

Also featured in: Goal Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Life Quotes

7. “To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Also featured in: Study Quotes, Knowledge Quotes, Thought Provoking Quotes, Math Quotes

8. “The purpose of today’s training is to defeat yesterday’s understanding.”

— Miyamoto Musashi

9. “I have learned to live my life one step, one breath, and one moment at a time, but it was a long road. I set out on a journey of love, seeking truth, peace and understanding. I am still learning.”

— Muhammad Ali

10. “Meditation is not a withdrawal from life. Meditation is a process of understanding oneself.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Self-Realization Quotes, Enlightenment Quotes, Meditation Quotes

11. “Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Philosophical Quotes, Wise Quotes, Philosophy Quotes, Stoic Philosophy Quotes

12. “I still believe in peace, love, and understanding.”

— John Lennon

13. “The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Also featured in: Science Quotes, Math Quotes

14. “Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.”

— Jane Goodall

Also featured in: Care Quotes, Make A Difference Quotes, Positive Life Quotes, Be Kind Quotes, Changing the World Quotes

15. “Knowledge is not power, it is only potential. Applying that knowledge is power. Understanding why and when to apply that knowledge is wisdom!”

— Takeda Shingen

16. “If you’re scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you, and that understanding empowers you.”

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

Also featured in: Science Quotes, Knowledge Quotes, Different Quotes

17. “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”

— Brené Brown

Also featured in: Psychology Quotes, Empathy Quotes, Mental Health Quotes, Compassion Quotes

18. “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”

— Carl Sagan

19. “Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.”

— Miyamoto Musashi

20. “Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.”

— Aaron Swartz

Also featured in: Quality Quotes, Humility Quotes

21. “Investment philosophy is the clear understanding that by owning shares of stocks, one owns businesses, not pieces of paper.”

— Warren Buffett

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Wealth Quotes, Making Money Quotes, Philosophy Quotes

22. “Unless you really understand others, you can hardly attain your own self-understanding.”

— Miyamoto Musashi

23. “All knowledge and understanding of the Universe was no more than playing with stones and shells on the seashore of the vast imponderable ocean of truth.”

— Isaac Newton

24. “For broad understanding and deep feeling, you need pain and suffering.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

25. “Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, Knowledge is not understanding, Understanding is not wisdom.”

— Clifford Stoll

26. “A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.”

— Franz Kafka

Also featured in: Depressing Quotes, Sad Quotes

27. “We don’t use the term ‘working class’ here because it’s a taboo term. You’re supposed to say ‘middle class,’ because it helps diminish the understanding that there’s a class war going on.”

— Noam Chomsky

28. “Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.”

— George Soros

Also featured in: Failure Quotes, Mistake Quotes

29. “There is power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own.”

— Kobe Bryant

Also featured in: Positive Motivation Quotes, Helping Quotes

30. “We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself.”

— C.G. Jung

Also featured in: Psychology Quotes, Human Nature Quotes, Real Quotes

31. “If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.”

— Niels Bohr

32. “Words can travel thousands of miles. May my words create mutual understanding and love. May they be as beautiful as gems, as lovely as flowers.”

— Nhat Hanh

Also featured in: Flower Quotes

33. “Patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace.”

— Dieter F. Uchtdorf

34. “It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; and to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.”

— Khalil Gibran

35. “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”

— William Blake

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Thought Provoking Quotes

36. “We’re fascinated by the words – but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”

— Ram Dass

Also featured in: Silence Quotes

37. “You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.”

— Guy Finley

Also featured in: Inner Peace Quotes, Letting Go Quotes

38. “Aristotle can be regarded as the father of logic. But his logic is too scholastic, full of subtleties, and fundamentally has not been of much value to the human understanding. It is a dialectic and an organon for the art of disputation.”

— Immanuel Kant

Also featured in: Art Quotes

39. “You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.”

— Albert Camus

Also featured in: Experience Quotes, Existentialism Quotes

40. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”

— Khalil Gibran

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Suffering Quotes, Hurt Quotes