quotations about questions
To stand in the midst of ... this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity in existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning ... that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody. Some folly keeps persuading me that every human has this feeling just because he is human.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
attributed, The Gay Science
A good question is, of course, the key by which infinite answers can be educed.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to whack you with a stick until delicious candy surprises fall out?
MOLLY HARPER
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Our Theatres in the Nineties
Whatever you eye falls on -- for it will fall on what you love -- will lead you to the questions of your life, the questions that are incumbent upon you to answer, because that is how the mind works in concert with the eye. The things of this world draw us where we need to go.
MARY ROSE O'REILLEY
The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of A Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd
Let a man be never ashamed to put a question to a teacher when something is not well understood.
RABBI ELIAZAR
attributed, Day's Collacon
A civil question deserves a civil answer.
MARTIN H. MANSER
The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs
A fundamental American question is, "What's the big idea?"
P. J. O'ROURKE
Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism
Broken words came first, then half-uttered questions and answers, followed by sighs, tears, and groans.
VOLTAIRE
Candide
Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.
KARL JASPERS
Way to Wisdom
A good question can send you on a long journey in rain and cold. It can terrify, bringing you straight into your own fears, whether of heights or of loss or of all the mysteries that never go away--our own vulnerability, the heart's utter exposure, the capriciousness and fragility of events, of relationships, of existence.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Living by Questions", Oprah
No man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.
CHARLES PROTEUS STEINMETZ
attributed, The American Magazine, Volume 95, 1923
Some questions cannot be answered.
They become familiar weights in the hand,
round stones pulled from the pocket,
unyielding and cool.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Woman in Red Coat"
The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.
JOHN FOWLES
The Magus
Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.
MIRIAM TOEWS
Swing Low
I wish that objections to questions as leading, might be a little better considered before they are made. It is necessary, to a certain extent, to lead the mind of the witness to the subject of inquiry. If questions are asked, to which the answer "Yes" or "No" would be conclusive, they would certainly be objectionable, but in general no objections are more frivolous than those which are made to questions as leading ones.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH
Nicholls v. Dowding and another, 1815
There are questions so indiscreet, that they deserve neither truth nor falsehood in reply.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand."
C. S. LEWIS
A Grief Observed
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
Animals are such agreeable friends -- they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
GEORGE ELIOT
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story