John Searle Quotes

There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.

In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

Knowledge, may it be said, is higher than magic and is more to be sought. It is quite possible to see what is happening and yet not know what is forward, for while seeing is believing, it does not follow that either seeing or believing is knowing.

Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.

It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.

Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.

To understand is to perceive patterns.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

To make a discovery is not necessarily the same as to understand a discovery.

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

No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.

Only when one is able to grasp wideness can one possess it.

If I'm going to talk about an issue, I better know what it's about viscerally.

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

To have real knowledge, one must understand the essence of things and not only their manifestations.

I don't take a scene or word for granted.

Our understanding is correlative to our perception.

If you don't know about it, you can't get it.

If you would judge, understand.

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice.

Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.

The ultimate aim of the human mind, in all its efforts, is to become acquainted with Truth.

Understanding reduces the greatest to simplicity, and lack of its causes the least to take on the magnitude.