Quotes About Inquiry

What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.

We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal.

People and nations wither away without the freedom to question what is presented to them as the truth.

You should not ask questions without knowledge.

Well, our statute provides us with authority to conduct a very broad inquiry basically to provide an investigation of 9/11 that's thorough, complete and will withstand the scrutiny of history.

Answerest thou nothing? Behold how many things they witness against thee.

Because of the womb being a central phenomenon in the feminine body, the whole psychology of woman differs: she is non-aggressive, non-inquiring, non-questioning, non-doubting, because all of those things are part of aggression. She will not take the initiative; she simply waits - and she can wait infinitely.

When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.

Seriously, who really cares how long the Nile river is, or who was the first to discover cheese? How is memorizing that ever going to help anyone? Instead, we need to give kids projects that allow them to exercise their minds and discover things for themselves.

Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything.

I didn't study theology out of piety. I studied it because I wanted to know.

I think it's normal that for a part of your life you have a lot of questions, and you're interested in all possible theories.

Theory not only formulates what we know but also tells us what we want to know, that is, the questions to which an answer is needed.

I believe that nothing should be taboo - no theory or prejudice should close one's mind to a discovery.

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.

If you ask almost any of them, 'Do you stand behind your theory? Is this the answer?' I think almost everyone would say, 'No, no, no. I'm just trying to expand the range of possibilities.' We really don't know what's going on.

If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again.

Answers are not obtained by putting the wrong question and thereby begging the real one.

My father is someone who asks doubts, thereby triggering new thoughts.

Education is far less about a set of facts than a way of thinking, than learning how to critically think. And therefore, what I always think should be the basis of education is not answers but questions.

I think of myself as a positive agnostic. I don't know, therefore I'm open. I don't know, therefore I'm interested.

I think fondly of the rabbit holes I disappeared down when I researched papers for history and English because I couldn't find quite what I was looking for, or because I had to go through so much material to find examples for my thesis.

It's my approach as a filmmaker always to go in, not with a thesis or preconceived notion, but with curiosity and questions and inquiry. So in some way, I'm always surprised. I'm always finding paths of engagement.

They say Einstein died while he was still trying to figure out gravity. I think I'm going to die still trying to figure out some of the things about Blink.