Herbert Spencer Quotes

The world only goes round by misunderstanding.

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

As a writer I've learned certain lessons. One of them is to be careful about how you put a view, and to bear in mind how easily and readily you'll be misinterpreted.

Hence it happens that one takes words for concepts, and concepts for the things themselves.

It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.

Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

I'm loath to do interviews. What comes out is generally not what I meant or thought I was saying or thought they were asking.

What we perceive things to be when they come out of our mouth is not what the listener perceives it to be. They think it differently. They're not your blood. They're not your mind. You get in an argument.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

People misinterpret what I say all the time: They think I'm being offensive, when really, I'm only being opinionated.

I'm surprised sometimes at how some of my actions are misinterpreted.

I like being misunderstood.

When people sometimes misquote me, I don't know if they understand what I'm saying.

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.

If you hear the question wrong, you will answer wrong.

Unfaithful to their meanings, words perturb our perturb our powers of reason ... the only safe words are our words.

Who hears wrong, replies wrong.

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

Any order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood

I really hate misunderstandings - to a degree that it's hard for me to watch sitcoms, or any kind of funny movie where there's, like, this big mishap, or miscommunication. It gives me such anxiety that I almost can't make it through the movie.

A lot of things get misinterpreted with me, I guess.

Folks really need to be very cautious about overanalyzing or overparsing what I've said to this reporter or that reporter.

I think the most fundamental error we make is mistaking a noisy, anomalous event for the norm. This happens all the time - in the stock market, in reports of crime and natural disaster, etc. The fact is that big, noisy, anomalous events catch our attention because they're anomalous, which isn't a problem in and of itself.

It's okay to be misunderstood - as long as you're not misunderstood by your consumers.