To understand everything is to forgive everything.

 

To understand everything is to forgive everything.
--
This is generally reported as a French proverb, and one familiar as such in Russia as well, in many 19th and 20th century works; it seems to have first become attributed to Gautama Buddha without citation of sources in Farm Journal, Vol. 34 (1910), p. 417

 

Gautama Buddha

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Nor is there any embarrassment in the fact that we're ridiculous, isn't it true? For it's actually so, we are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, you, and I, and they! Now, you're not offended when I tell you to your face that you're ridiculous? And if so, aren't you material? You know, in my opinion it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we cant start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well. This I tell you, you, who have already been able to understand. .. and not understand ... so much. I'm not afraid for you now;

 

Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

As she stumbled forward she cried out in her mind, which was as dark, as shaken as the subterranean vault, “Forgive me. O my Masters, O unnamed ones, most ancient ones, forgive me, forgive me!”
There was no answer. There had never been an answer.

 

Ursula K. Le Guin

 

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

 

Gautama Buddha

 

‘I cannot forgive, but I understand.’

 

Christopher Paolini

 

"For Christians, the rules are clear. They are under order to forgive. We must follow those orders, no matter how difficult they appear. If we do not forgive, God will not forgive us. That is the beginning and the end of it."

 

Laisenia Qarase