When God loves a creature he wants the creature to know the highest happiness and the deepest misery He wants him to know all that being alive can bring. That is his best gift. There is no happiness save in understanding the whole.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society and any eminent departure from it under any circumstances lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

Through mutual understanding sincerity and goodwill and with great wisdom and broad views the leaders on both sides should jointly initiate new opportunities for peace stability cooperation and mutual benefit.

The theoretical understanding of the world which is the aim of philosophy is not a matter of great practical importance to animals or to savages or even to most civilised men.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

Even though I disagree with many of the changes when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony they are still fine privates outstanding well motivated privates.

Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy - in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that in most cases it's not government's role to be the primary dispenser of empathy.

All's the government should do is keep the taxes and regulations at a manageable rate keep a decent standing army and get out of the way.

The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.

I pinch myself because of the understanding that I've been blessed with a real rare opportunity that few Americans ever get - to serve their government and their people at this level.

A President needs political understanding to run the government but he may be elected without it.

If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.

May joy and good fellowship reign and in this manner may the Olympic Torch pursue its way through ages increasing friendly understanding among nations for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic more courageous and more pure.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are as standing in a dictionary how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

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

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

O that unbelievers would learn of faithful Abraham and believe whatever is revealed from God though they cannot fully comprehend it! Abraham knew God commanded him to offer up his son and therefore believed notwithstanding carnal reasoning might suggest may objections.

Growing up if I hadn't had sports I don't know where I'd be. God only knows what street corners I'd have been standing on and God only knows what I'd have been doing but instead I played hockey and went to school and stayed out of trouble.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love of kindness of understanding of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.

It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world of character my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.