Literary notes about understand (AI summary)
The term "understand" takes on a multifaceted role in literature, ranging from clear intellectual comprehension to expressions of emotional and existential bewilderment. In some passages it denotes a precise grasp of abstract or logical relationships, as when a character asserts an exact equality or a firm connection to a broader idea ([1], [2], [3]). In other instances, it reveals a profound internal conflict or a resigned inability to grasp life's complexities, highlighting human vulnerability and confusion ([4], [5], [6]). The word is also employed to indicate a shared, almost intuitive communication between individuals, be it in matters of duty, personal connection, or subtle, unspoken arrangements ([7], [8], [9]). Thus, across literary works, "understand" emerges not merely as a cognitive achievement but as a dynamic concept involving the interplay of intellect, emotion, and the ineffable.
- When it is affirmed that two and three are equal to the half of ten, this relation of equality I understand perfectly.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume - When, therefore, he addressed himself to me in the language of Horace, we at once came to understand one another.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - We can understand, on these views, the very important distinction between real affinities and analogical or adaptive resemblances.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - It's awful how I seem growing unable to understand anything.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I can’t for the life of me understand it.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - But if so, it is a mystery and we cannot understand it.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - “And let everyone understand that; and after I am dead let there be no jealousy and no surprise.”
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - Once or twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, “Is it what I think?” “I understand,” she said, flushing a little.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - Lady Robert is delighted with P. and P., [21] and really was so, as I understand, before she knew who wrote it, for of course she knows now.
— from The Letters of Jane Austen by Jane Austen
