Word: comprehend
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Anne Frank's final words in the play that bears her name seem to belie her fate. She died at 15 in the Bergen-Belsen death camp. Was she merely expressing the naive wishes of a child? What could such an adolescent comprehend of the world...
...imagine himself in the ludicrously unpredictable and hazard-filled position of a woman, and if he can comprehend the enormous psychological implications of having one's peace (not to mention one's personal safety) in constant danger of being shattered, he will have come a long way towards understanding female aloofness. My friend's real fears only began that evening after her bus ride, for the man who had menaced her turned out to be a neighbor who jogged past her house each morning...
...martial-law government of Poland so fears the Pope's influence in that country is that he reaches feelings in the people no government can come close to. For all the stark, monstrous visible evidence of our times, the mind still retains a shrine for invisibilities. One can never comprehend a place like Iran without acknowledging as much, although Iran has also proved that faith unleashed may act no more gently than other executioners...
...have to be a historian to comprehend that the Soviet state has never regarded its subjects as full-fledged rational beings. This applies equally to street-cleaners and to internationally recognized scholars. The state is all-powerful and permits itself to do anything to its subjects...
...Quartermaine is concerned, these are like whispers in the anteroom of his mind. The thunderclap comes when he gets the sack after two decades at the school. "O Lord," he says like a last gasp of wind escaping from a toy balloon. He cannot comprehend it, and such is Ramsay's control of the nuances of his part that the playgoer is as stricken...