James Rosenquist Quotes

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.

Different people, in good faith, can look at the same fact and interpret it differently. But that's where an interesting conversation begins.

If you would judge, understand.

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

If we notice a few errors in the work of a proven master, we may and even will often be correct; if we believe, however, that he is completely and utterly mistaken, we are in danger of missing his entire concept.

I want to block some common misunderstandings about 'understanding': In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word 'understanding.'

Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand; for there are many ways of knowing the same thing

Everyone only hears what he understands.

Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I'm done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense --Reply by Dove to Aly's silent inquiry

... it's always interesting when one doesn't see. If you don't see what a thing means, you must be looking at it wrong way round.

What's a book? Everything or nothing. The eye that sees it all.

What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.

When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.

I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don't.

What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.

The better you hear a thing put, the more certain you are there's another view.

Understanding' is merely the sum total of our misunderstandings.

The question is not what you look at – but how you look & whether you see.

The problem for us is less to discover the way it really is than to see the meaning of the way.

Knowledge is silver. Outlook is gold. IQ is a lead weight.

A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception. Through metaphors, we see the world as one thing or another.

Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.

There is truth in all things, if you understand them well.