Wisdom Quotes

"Understanding requires a willingness to be questioned by what we seek to understand."

"Every conversation is an event in which something true comes to light."

"We bring our whole selves to the act of understanding, not just our intellects."

"The prejudices we inherit are not necessarily impediments to truth-seeking."

"Understanding is not the goal of conversation but rather what conversation accomplishes."

"Understanding requires a openness that goes beyond merely rational thought."

"Every understanding brings with it the possibility of new misunderstanding."

"We come to understand ourselves only through understanding what is other than ourselves."

"Understanding requires that we suspend our immediate assumptions and listen carefully."

"The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying glass."

"Only those thoughts which do not calculate are true thoughts."

"The real is what resists symbolization absolutely."

"There is no metalanguage."

"Lack is the condition of desire."

"The analyst must know how to be absent."

"The imaginary locks us into illusions of completeness."

"Interpretation is not explanation."

"Speech is a gift that turns into debt."

"The analyst must become a blank screen."

"One must name the real to contain it."

"The imaginary offers false unity; the real disrupts it."

"One must fail to understand to understand."

"One speaks to the dead in every analysis."

"Interpretation is an act of creation, not discovery."

"The analyst's silence is more powerful than speech."

"To think is to experiment, but experimenting takes many casualties."

"We must construct planes of consistency, not planes of organization."

"We do not see the world as it is; we see it as we are."

"We must escape the logic of the either-or and embrace the logic of the and-and."

"The margin speaks as loudly as the center, if we listen."