Understanding vs. Mastery

Some quotes on the important distinction between understanding and mastery.

Quotes on Understanding vs. Mastery

“People tend to mistake understanding for mastery. Mastery is the ability to execute under pressure.”
Ford Harding

“The secret for discovering the ability to focus all of our mental and physical energy on a single task is no secret at all: recall the concentration of a child at play.”
Edward Niam

“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.”
Roger von Oech

“Innovation isn’t what innovators do….it’s what customers and clients adopt.”
Michael Schrage

“Most managements tend to define ‘market’ too narrowly. They tend to see it as ‘the market for what we make’ rather than as ‘the value the customer pays for.’ But many managements tend to define ‘technology’ much too broadly. They think it means ‘what we  can intellectually grasp.’ What is really means is ‘what we can do with great skill and high distinction.'”
Peter Drucker from Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices

“Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.”
Thomas Mann

“I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.
Cornel West

“The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer’s understanding of his subject and mastery of his process.”
Edward Weston

“It’s an old idea. It’s arguably the first way that people learn, that, hey, if you need to learn something, if you’re having trouble with it, keep working on it until you master it and then you go to a more advanced concept. But in the education systems that all of us grew up in, we all learned at a fixed pace.”
Sal Khan

“Data isn’t information. […] Information, unlike data, is useful. While there’s a gulf between data and information, there’s a wide ocean between information and knowledge. What turns the gears in our brains isn’t information, but ideas, inventions, and inspiration. Knowledge—not information—implies understanding. And beyond knowledge lies what we should be seeking: wisdom.
Clifford Stoll in “In High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian” (2000), 185-186

“Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.”
Albert Einstein in “The Evolution of Physics” (1938)

“Consciousness of error is, to a certain extent, a consciousness of understanding; and correction of error is the plainest proof of energy and mastery.”
Walter Savage Landor

Skill in the digital age is confused with mastery of digital tools, masking the importance of understanding materials and mastering the elements of form.
John Madea

Related Blog Posts

• Wynton Marsalis on Humility, Self-Mastery, and Learning
• Perfectionism vs. Mastery
• Self-Mastery, Expertise, Connections, and Perseverance
• Recognizing and Developing Expertise