“Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshipped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow.” PeopleIfsThinkingWorldIdeasReasonChurchUnderstoodHollywoodAncientFeaturesMinorsDeitiesPublic LifeScientologyAncient World Author:Lawrence Wright
“The idea of being the Substitute in offering an atonement to satisfy the demands of God’s law for others was something Christ understood as His mission from the moment He entered this world and took upon Himself a human nature. He came from heaven as the gift of the Father for the express purpose of working out redemption as our Substitute, doing for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves.” WorldHumansIdeasMomentsLawPurposeFatherHeavenChristHuman NatureThis WorldDemandUnderstoodWork OutMissionsRedemptionSubstitutesOfferingAtonement Author:R. C. Sproul
“Since art is the expression of beauty and beauty can be understood only in the form of the material elements of the true idea it contains, art has become almost uniquely feminine. Beauty is woman, and also art is woman.” ArtIdeasFormBeautyExpressionMaterialsElementsUnderstoodArt IsFeminineFeminine BeautyWomen Beauty Author:Remy de Gourmont
“I perceived that the 'thing' and the 'idea' were taken to be equivalents of feeling, and understood the lie of the world of will and idea. Is the milk bottle the symbol of milk?” WorldIdeasFeelingsLyingTakenUnderstoodSymbolsBottlesMilk Author:Kazimir Malevich
“The idea that God may be approached and understood through intellectual analysis is uniquely Christian... It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind.” WorldMayIdeasChristianLeftBehindsModernGrewIntellectualUnderstoodEuropeAccidentsAnalysisModern Science Author:Freeman Dyson
“From this simple phenomenon, this idea of saying something twice, more often, as often as possible, in order to make oneself understood - the most artful things developed... the principle of repetition!” IdeasOrderSimplePrinciplesUnderstoodOneselfPhenomenonRepetition Book:The path to the new music Source: The path to the new music
“I hold to the idea that civility, understood as the willingness to engage in public discourse, is the first virtue of citizens.” FirstsIdeasVirtueCitizensUnderstoodWillingnessDiscourseCivilityPublic Discourse Author:Mark Kingwell
“Who can think that this eviction of Germans was undertaken only as a temporary experiment? Those who adopted the decision on the eviction of the Germans from these territories, and who understood that Poles from other Polish districts would at once move into these territories, cannot suggest after a while to carry out reverse measures. The very idea of involving millions of people in such experiments is unbelievable, quite apart from the cruelty of it, both towards the Poles and the Germans themselves.” PeopleThinkingIdeasMovingDecisionMillionsUnderstoodExperimentsCrueltyTemporaryTerritoryReverseUnbelievableAdoptedPolishInvolvingEviction Author:Vyacheslav Molotov
“Walt understood all of those things, and even common things about people. For instance: Usually you get your idea of what kind of day it is by looking at the horizon, because the horizon is your eye level. So what Walt did is to eliminate the horizon.” PeopleKindIdeasEyeArtistLevelsCommonUnderstoodInstanceHorizonWaltCommon Things Author:John Hench
“Beauty of form affects the mind, but then it must be understood that it is not the mere shell that we admire; we are attracted by the idea that this shell is only a beautiful case adjusted to the shape and value of a still more beautiful pearl within. The perfection of outward loveliness is the soul shining through its crystalline covering.” MindStillsIdeasSoulBeautifulFormValuesBeautyCasesShapesUnderstoodPerfectionShiningMereAdmireShellsPearlsCoveringLovelinessShining Through Book:Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks Source: Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks
“I'm not comfortable with words. I love images ,and I love sounds, and I love feelings. I like the idea of intuition. I think a lot of things in life are understood that way. But you internalize these things; they don't really pop out. Certain things are built inside - little areas of understanding. I feel that I live in darkness and confusion, and I'm trying, like we all are, to make some sort of sense of it.” ThinkingWayFeelsTryingLittlesIdeasFeelingsCertainUnderstandingSoundDarknessComfortableUnderstoodBuiltAreasPopsIntuitionConfusionThings In LifeLove FeelingImages Of Love Author:David Lynch
“With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the Korean War and that I was going to try to fix a tiny bit of that.” KnowsWantWritingTryingBookIdeasWarFeltBitsImaginationUnderstoodTinyScoreKoreanKorean War Author:Linda Sue Park
“This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.” KnowsIdeasKnowledgeBearsUnderstoodScalesPairsMottoMy MottoEmblemsInterrogation Book:The Essays Source: The Essays
“Women well understood how to restrict birth through timing of sexual intercourse, herbs and abortifacients. I suspect the focus on men's control of women as the means of reproduction came later, in the last five percent or so of human history, with the idea of children as property and labor. One needed to have as many as possible, never mind about women's health or mobility or brainpower. Women's freedom was restricted in order to make sure of the paternity and ownership of children.” MenMindHumansWellsMeanChildrenIdeasLastsOrderFiveFocusBirthNeededPercentUnderstoodLaborPropertySuspectsOwnershipTimingHuman HistoryIntercourseHerbsReproductionMobilityWomen's Health Author:Gloria Steinem
“Quite generally, the familiar, just because it is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why.... The analysis of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was, in fact, nothing else than ridding it of the form in which it had become familiar.” ThinkingKnowsWayIdeasFactsFormUsedUnderstandingAcceptingKnowingUnderstoodAccountsAssumingFamiliarUsed To BeAnalysisThoughtfulDeceivingPros And Cons Author:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
“What will the greatest experiment discover? I have no idea!, maybe nothing!, If we won't check, we will never know. In science there is never a guarantee of success. If you understood this last sentence, then you understood the most important message of this lecture.” IfsKnowsImportantIdeasLastsScienceMessagesUnderstoodMathematicsSentencesExperimentsChecksNo IdeaGuaranteesLectures Author:Nathan Seiberg
“My own feminist revolution evolved slowly, and traveled the world with me. To this day I have no idea what dissident professor or librarian placed feminist tests on the bookshelves at the university library in Jeddah, but I found them there. They filled me with terror. I understood they were pulling at a thread that would unravel everything. Now that I am older, I can see that feeling terrified is how you recognize what you need. Terror encourages you to jump, even when you don't know if you will ever land.” IfsKnowsWorldNeedsI CanIdeasFeelingsFoundMy OwnLandRevolutionUnderstoodTestsFilledLibraryUniversityTerrorFeministNo IdeaThis DayProfessorsThreadPullingTraveledTerrifiedLibrarianBookshelvesDissidents Author:Mona Eltahawy
“I don't think Steve [Jobs] started Apple as a scam. But he understood early on the power of marketing. The idea of the computer as a bicycle for the human mind - I think that was something he believed.” ThinkingMindHumansIdeasJobsComputerUnderstoodMarketingApplesHuman MindBicycleScams Author:Alex Gibney
“Steve Jobs did not start started Apple as a scam. But he understood early on the power of marketing. The idea of the computer as a bicycle for the human mind - I think that was something he believed. He believed in making people comfortable with these machines, which is why he spent so much time thinking about how to design them a certain way, how to make them so user-friendly and interactive, and why he spent so much time studying the Zeitgeist.” PeopleThinkingWayMindHumansIdeasJobsCertainStudyDesignComfortableComputerUnderstoodMachinesMarketingApplesFriendlyHuman MindUsersBicycleInteractiveScamsZeitgeistUser Friendly Author:Alex Gibney
“I thought that Christian was a noun, a person looking for authenticity. I never understood that idea that a band could be Christian or something could be Christian. But it just can be and is.” PersonsIdeasChristianBandUnderstoodAuthenticityNouns Author:Rob Bell
“I don't feel one could even remotely touch the idea of intimidating others, but because I've understood the other side of the experience, I will occasionally, if I smell that could even be in the air for a few minutes, say to the director, "Please, you must tell me anything you want. Please say all the things you think might be terribly hurtful like, 'That was boring.'"” IfsThinkingWantFeelsIdeasMightSidesAirMinutesPleaseDirectorsUnderstoodBoringSmellIntimidatingHurtful Author:Kenneth Branagh
“I am in between. Trying to write to be understood by those who matter to me, yet also trying to push my mind with ideas beyond the everyday. It is another borderland I inhabit. Not quite here nor there. On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone.” FeelsWritingTryingMindIdeasMatterUnderstoodEverydayBridgesGood DayBad DayThose Who Matter Author:Sergio Troncoso
“...there is no resistance to the idea that what is foreign can be known. Can be understood. Can be held in the embrace of love that holds the Universe. Given this Earth on which we live and grow, given its beauty and generosity, its majesty and comfort, how can one doubt that one is loved? That in fact there is an abundance, not a scarcity of love? It is all anyone ever wants, really, I believe, and it is all around us as we starve.” WantBelieveIdeasFactsEarthUniverseGivenI BelieveGrowsKnownDoubtComfortUnderstoodEmbraceResistanceGenerosityAbundanceMajestyScarcity Author:Alice Walker
“A signal is comprehended if it serves to make us notice the object or situation it bespeaks. A symbol is understood when we conceive the idea it presents.” IfsIdeasSituationObjectsUnderstoodSymbolsSignals Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
“Peter Sarsgaard, he's an extraordinary actor, and I would say that Peter has really brought into my life and my sister's life a sense of presence as an actor that I never really understood or knew about until I met him. They've been together for a very long time, and he introduced me to the idea of the presentation.” LongIdeasTogetherActorsMetsLong TimeUnderstoodExtraordinaryMy SisterPeterPresentation Author:Jake Gyllenhaal
“The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings. What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.” PeopleWantTryingIdeasMomentsFeelingsViewsMistakeHighestUnderstoodPoint Of ViewPrioritiesMotivatedBiggest Mistake Author:David D. Burns
“I always say about that movie [ Brokeback mountain], which I think maybe over time is more understood, is that this is about two people desperately looking for love. To be loved. And who were probably capable of it. And they just found it with someone of the same sex.that does not dismiss the fact that it is about, really, primarily, the first kind of very profound gay love story. Hopefully it can create an equality of an idea: that is, it's possible that you can find love anywhere.” PeopleThinkingFirstsKindDoeTwoIdeasFactsStoriesFoundSexGayMountainCapableUnderstoodProfoundLove StoryHopefullyFinding LoveLooking For LoveBrokeback MountainGay Love Author:Jake Gyllenhaal
“I don't think I had any idea at the time how to work with someone as masterful as he is. And I don't think at the time I really understood what was happening. I think I was in a space where I was like: there are all these things. I was shooting all these takes with David, and I was just confused, as a person, and as an actor feeling a little too big for my britches and that this thing was happening and then also not having enough skill yet, and technique to know exactly where I was, and know about the character.” ThinkingKnowsLittlesPersonsIdeasEnoughCharacterFeelingsBigsActorsSpaceSkillsHappeningsUnderstoodTechniqueShootingConfused Author:Jake Gyllenhaal
“The idea that hardware on networks should just be caches for movable process descriptions and the processes themselves goes back quite a ways. There's a real sense in which MS and Apple never understood networking or operating systems (or what objects really are), and when they decided to beef up their OSs, they went to (different) very old bad mainframe models of OS design to try to adapt to personal computers.” WayShouldTryingIdeasDifferentRealProcessDesignObjectsComputerModelsUnderstoodDecidedApplesDescriptionNetworkingBeefHardwareOperating SystemsPersonal ComputersCacheMainframe Author:Alan Kay
“It was a realization for me when Oprah was talking about New Moon. I was like, "Oh, my god, she's watched a movie that I've been in!" People were like, "It just kicked in for you?," but it's just work for me. The idea that somebody that I've admired for so long had seen something that I'd done was when I understood the magnitude of it.” PeopleLongIdeasDoneTalkingMoonUnderstoodRealizationMagnitudeNew Moon Author:Tinsel Korey
“People often say that aesthetics is a branch of psychology. The idea is that once we are more advanced-all the mysteries of art-will be understood by psychological experiments. Exceedingly stupid at this idea is, this is roughly it.” PeopleArtIdeasPsychologyMysteryStupidUnderstoodExperimentsPsychologicalBranchesAesthetics Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
“When I speak or when I offer ideas and explain how the universe seems to work from the point of view that I've understood, it seems to give people a lift - an unshackling or freeing.” PeopleGivingIdeasSeemsUniverseSpeakViewsOffersUnderstoodPoint Of ViewLifts Author:Fred Alan Wolf
“The reason artists want to have works in museums is that we want our works to be seen by as many people as possible and we want our ideas to be understood in more complicated ways.” PeopleWayWantIdeasReasonArtistUnderstoodComplicatedMuseums Author:Theaster Gates
“We liked the idea of introducing the audience to the world, and to show how much they had accepted or were confused by it. It was gratifying to see the people who embraced it immediately and understood it and got into it. They have tracked the characters through the six episodes, so it felt that now we can launch into the journey element of it. And really explore more of the Badlands.” PeopleWorldIdeasCharacterShowsFeltAudienceJourneyElementsSixUnderstoodAcceptedConfusedIntroducingEpisodes Author:Miles Millar
“I'm still committed to the socialist idea because the socialist idea, correctly understood, includes the principles of freedom and social justice. It also includes the recognition of the value of democracy. When we speak about social justice, it means that freedom should be used not only in the interest of profit but also in the interest of the advancement of the people who create all values.” PeopleShouldMeanStillsIdeasUsedValuesSpeakSocialInterestJusticePrinciplesDemocracyUnderstoodSocial JusticeProfitCommittedRecognitionSocialistAdvancement Author:Mikhail Gorbachev
“Both [Donald] Trump and Bernie [Sanders] got to this idea of the vanishing middle class sooner and with more passion than more mainstream politicians, and benefited from it. The difference, of course, is that Bernie understood this in a more compassionate framework, and talked about it in conjunction with a revitalization of another part of the American project, which is the notion that we are all created equal, and that our laws and culture and action ought to reflect that.” IdeasActionLawCulturePassionCoursesDifferencesClassMiddleOughtTrumpPoliticianEqualProjectsUnderstoodNotionMiddle ClassCompassionateMainstreamFrameworkVanishingConjunctionsRevitalization Author:George Saunders
“The whole idea of what is evidence for causation in epidemiology cannot be separated from tTindustry understood that if they could raise doubt about how you could conclude something caused cancer, that they put so much effort into getting so many receptive public health authorities to say, "Well, causation requires that these five things be met." So that is, in fact, nonsense.” IfsWellsIdeasWholeFactsEffortDoubtFiveMetsAuthorityUnderstoodEvidenceRaisesCancerNonsensePublic HealthReceptiveCausationEpidemiology Author:Devra Davis
“Just getting totally absorbed in that and therefore when I came back around to [Buckminster Fuller] and found that much of it was made up, I realized that nevertheless, it really was crucial, crucial for how he understood himself, I believe, and certainly crucial for how anyone else ever engaged in his ideas and therefore as a starting point, how can we engage in his ideas today, but with a remove of knowing that it is a myth and being able to navigate it in that sort of level, at that level of reading him as a story.” BelieveMadeIdeasStoriesTodayAbleReadingFoundI BelieveLevelsKnowingUnderstoodStartingMythI RealizedEngagedRemoveCrucialNeverthelessStarting PointNavigateBuckminster Fuller Author:Jonathon Keats
“Evolutionary theory, properly understood, does not conflict with the idea that God occasionally intervenes in nature - for example, by once or twice causing a beneficial mutation to occur. Biologists have not detected any such interventions despite the data and theory they have assembled about mutation. However, I think it is a mistake to expect biological experiments to be able to detect such one-off acts of divine intervention, especially if those acts occurred in the distant past. Science isn't in that line of work.” IfsThinkingDoeIdeasAblePastLinesMistakeExampleDivineTheoryConflictUnderstoodExperimentsDespiteDataInterventionBeneficialBiologistDivine InterventionMutation Author:Elliott Sober
“Civilization just takes it as a given that the whole world was flooding. Then science came and you had geology and modern astrophysics, and time became well understood going back billions of years. So enlightened religious people, as a necessity, had to shed the magical elements of the Bible. A little known fact is that Thomas Jefferson did just that. There's something called the Jefferson Bible. It's not widely publicized because it sort of conflicts with certain people's ideas of what the founding fathers were.” PeopleWorldYearsWellsLittlesIdeasWholeFactsCertainFatherGivenReligiousKnownModernCivilizationConflictElementsUnderstoodBillionsWhole WorldEnlightenedShedFoundingGeologyFloodingAstrophysics Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Whiteness allows the architectural ideas to be understood most clearly - the difference between opacity and transparency, solid and void, structure and surface. These things are more perceptible in a white environment. They have a greater clarity.” IdeasDifferencesWhiteEnvironmentGreaterUnderstoodStructureSurfaceClarityVoidTransparencyWhiteness Author:Richard Meier
“I've known him since 1954 and I've never taken Mujib Rahiman seriously - I understood from the very first moment that there was no depth to him, no preparation, that he was an agitator breathing a lot of fire and with an absolute lack of ideas.” FirstsIdeasMomentsKnownTakenFireUnderstoodAbsolutesDepthPreparationBreathing Author:Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
“The idea that speaking at all on the topic, demanding public space in which to have that debate, is itself an act of complicity with violence, and violence against Israelis, understood as synonymous with Jews, and so violence against Jews, clearly stops the speech with an unspeakable allegation.” IdeasSpaceViolenceSpeechUnderstoodJewDebateTopicsUnspeakableComplicityAllegations Author:Judith Butler
“The way I understood purgatory - and maybe you've got a different version - but in Chicago in the '70s, the idea was it was like detention. You had screwed up and you go over there in purgatory and you sit there until the end of days and then we'll decide. You'd made your mistake, and you were in prison, and it's not terrible and it's not great, and you feel a little crappy because you were not in the presence of God.” WayFeelsLittlesMadeIdeasDifferentEndsMistakeTerribleUnderstoodPrisonVersionsThe End Of The DayChicagoPresence Of GodScrewed UpPurgatoryDetention Author:George Saunders
“To the extent that I've ever understood postmodernism - and I'm sure there are people out there who do, but I'm not one of them - one of its distinguishing traits is the story's awareness of its own artifice, and how that awareness becomes part of the story. And if that's right, then I have no idea how I ever got lumped into postmodernism except that I believe, since I was first published, people just haven't quite known where else to put me.” PeopleIfsFirstsBelieveIdeasStoriesI BelieveKnownAwarenessHavensUnderstoodNo IdeaTraitsPostmodernismArtifice Author:Steve Erickson
“I've never understood this puritanical idea that feminism has to be a cult. You know, we all have to think alike or dress alike or have a similar ideology.” ThinkingKnowsIdeasFeminismUnderstoodDressesIdeologyCult Author:Naomi Wolf
“If you start with the idea that you are going to be writing about a night in a graveyard, and that there are only a few living people in that frame, all sorts of interesting and difficult technical problems arise. And then form - new form, or experimental form - might be understood as just trying to tell that story most movingly and efficiently.” PeopleIfsWritingTryingIdeasStoriesProblemMightFormNightDifficultInterestingUnderstoodAriseGraveyard Author:George Saunders
“It certainly wasn't taught in school beyond the idea of "girls can do anything that boys can do" - I understood that kind of pop culture feminism. I did not understand anything else about feminism.” KindIdeasSchoolCultureGirlCan DoBoysFeminismTaughtUnderstoodPopsPop Culture Author:June Diane Raphael
“I don't think money can be understood through a lens limited to economics. And most books about money tell you the history of money, the instrument. But money is also an idea, one that we exchange to survive.” ThinkingBookIdeasUnderstoodEconomicsInstrumentsLenses Author:Kabir Sehgal
“I've never understood the 'things to do before you die' idea. If I was ill, I'd be in no mood to have a swim with a dolphin.” IfsIdeasDiesUnderstoodIllMoodThings To DoSwimDolphins Author:Karl Pilkington