Robertson Davies Quotes

An object is frequently not seen, from not knowing how to see it, rather than from any defect of the organ of vision.

Comprehension follows perception.

Consciousness of a fact is not knowing it: if it were, the fish would know more of the sea than the geographers and the naturalists.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant.

If you will give the matter a moment's thought, you'll see that memory is the highest faculty of the human mind.

I believe in order to understand

Did they know why they knew? Not at all. But the Knew!

What we do not understand we do not possess.

What a man does not understand, he does not possess.

I like to say understanding is the power.

A phenomenon must be to some extent comprehensible to be perceived at all.

To see, to hear, means nothing. To recognize (or not to recognize) means everything.

The nature of our intelligence is such that it is stimulated far less by the will to know than by the will to understand.

It might be good to open our eyes and see.

Observing and understanding are two different things.

You should know better.ʺ ʺIʹve never known better,ʺ he countered. ʺYou should know that.

What one doesn't understand one doesn't possess.

Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos, they [men] are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep.

What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.