It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment.
Misunderstanding
The word ‘Christianity’ is already a misunderstanding – in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
The effort to blur the lines between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib reflects a deep misunderstanding about the different legal regimes that apply to Iraq and the war against al Qaeda.
The Gospel of Judas really has been a surprise in many ways. For one thing, there’s no other text that suggests that Judas Iscariot was an intimate, trusted disciple, one to whom Jesus revealed the secrets of the kingdom, and that conversely, the other disciples were misunderstanding what he meant by the gospel.
As the Persians wrote very little about how they ran their affairs, the Greek propaganda of the 5th century B.C. has for centuries gone virtually unchallenged – indeed, for Edward Said, it was the beginning of Europe’s long habit of misunderstanding and ill-informed contempt of the Middle East.
Descriptions of inner, spiritual processes are much more liable to misunderstanding than descriptions of events in the physical world. Such misunderstandings arise easily because the life of the soul is in constant movement and because we fail to bear in mind that the life of the soul is very different from life in the physical world.
There’s a misunderstanding about what nonsensical things are – the idea that they’re just funny, and that’s the beginning and the end of it. Nonsense is not ‘not sense’ – it operates at the edge of sense. It teems with sense – at the same time, it resists any kind of universal understanding.
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
The world only goes round by misunderstanding.
Not only the entire ability to think rests on language… but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.