The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted.
Interpretation
Understanding is important but can be misleading and requires cautious interpretation.
In this quote, Thomas De Quincey suggests that while understanding is a crucial element of human cognition, it can also be superficial and inadequate. He warns that over-reliance on mere understanding can lead to misinterpretations and errors, indicating that deeper insight and critical thinking are necessary for true wisdom.
In practice
In a discussion on education, you might use this quote to highlight the importance of critical thinking over rote learning.
But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.
Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.
Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.
I stood checked for a moment - awe, not fear, fell upon me - and whist I stood, a solemn wind began to blow, the most mournful that ever ear heard. Mournful! That is saying nothing. It was a wind that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.
Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!
Flowers that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their coloring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children - honored as the jewelry of God.
The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions. You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you're not going to change each other's minds. It's a waste of your time and my time.
The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.
After all, the wrong is done. It is past and cannot be changed. We have only the present and the future upon which to move forward.
As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.
Some habits of ineffectiveness are rooted in our social conditioning toward quick-fix, short-term thinking.
The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.
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