Understanding Context Quotes

The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.

A healthy vision of the future is not possible without an accurate knowledge of the past.

Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.

Maybe because I'm a child of the '80s, but for me, a sequel is a story that follows the previous one, and sometimes if you haven't seen the original, then you don't understand the second one. Like 'Back to the Future 2.' If you haven't seen the first one, you're not going to get anything out of 'Back to the Future 2.'

The sentences in the book of providence are sometimes long, and you must read a great way before you understand their meaning.

'Why' is a question no animal can ask, because both the question and answers require speech. Have you ever seen an animal shrug?

There's only one interview technique that matters... Do your homework so you can listen to the answers and react to them and ask follow-ups. Do your homework, prepare.

Oftentimes, if you're talking to a seasoned interviewer who asks you a question, they may do a follow-up if they didn't quite get it. It's rare that they'll do a third or fourth or fifth or sixth follow-up, because there's an implicit, agreed-upon decorum that they move on. Kids don't necessarily move on if they don't get it.

Criticism is fine and conversation is fine, but the person who's criticizing should know what they're saying and whom they're criticizing.

Once you know the background of an individual, you can connect better with his or her music.

When you read comic material and people aren't laughing how do you know they're listening.

Max Weber was right in subscribing to the view that one need not be Caesar in order to understand Caesar. But there is a temptation for us theoretical sociologists to act sometimes as though it is not necessary even to study Caesar in order to understand him. Yet we know that the interplay of theory and research makes both for understanding of the specific case and expansion of the general rule.

It's good to know how to read, but it's dangerous to know how to read and not how to interpret what you're reading.

At first glance, you read something on the page and it can seem one way, and you can have your decisions before you wind up on set about what that set is supposed to mean, but until you're actually there doing them, there's really no way to understand it.

History will show you not all the answers, but it’ll tell you a lot of the questions to ask.

The work of rehearsal is looking for meaning and then making it meaningful.

I come from a part of Nigeria where a lot of value is placed on implicit communication. The 'well brought up' child is the one who can pick up nonverbal cues from adults and interpret them correctly.

If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you do not already possess.

Everything is not black-and-white. I'm really interested in the gray area - not justifying it, not glorifying it, not condoning it, but at least having people see there's a genesis for every event in our lives. There's some divine order to it, whether it's ugly or beautiful.

I'm surely not the only one to notice we employ metaphors to make sense of the news. I always like to take note of who hides their origins and who shows them off.

I don't think it's the job of theatre at the moment to provide political propaganda; that would be simplistic. We have to explore our situation further before we will understand it.

We're very good at telling what happens and showing people while it happens... But sometimes television fails to take the time to say 'Why did it happen? What does it mean?' - To step back a little bit.