Quotes About Inquiry

Skepticism, not cleanliness, is next to godliness. Skepticism is the father of freedom. It is like the pry that holds open the door for truth to slip in.

The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my neighbors, to grab them by the shoulders and look into their eyes and ask, "Are we free?" I have thought that if we are free, the answer cannot hurt us. And if we are not free, must we not hear the answer?

Henry and Jessie did not say any more about the Indian boy, but they did not forget him. Once in awhile they both wondered where he came from and why he was there. They also wondered why he did not want to be seen.

Wake a question. Eat an instant, answer

There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

Just before she Gertrude Stein died she asked, `What is the answer?' No answer came. She laughed and said, `In that case, what is the question?

There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer

You cannot tell me me.

Freedom is the first step to curiosity and knowledge. - V6-P427

I was interested in telescopes and the way they worked because I had an intense desire to see what things looked like, so I learned how to use telescopes and find things in the sky.

Having worked on 'The Hour,' I now feel like I spend my whole time interrogating history.

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

It is my idea that the public needs to be better educated about the nature of scientific inquiry and how the scientific process works. I firmly believe that this is the only effective way forward to combat the widespread distrust in facts and science.

There's something really beautiful about science, that human beings can ask these questions and can answer them. You can make models of nature and understand how it works.

Chefs think about what it's like to make food. Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works.

I've always loved science, as far back as I can remember. I was very, very curious about how everything worked: the world, the physical universe, chemistry, law. So it was only natural to be curious about how our mind works.

I think most people are inherently interested in how their brain works, in what makes them tick.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.

I like to engage the public because when I was in high school, I had all these questions about anti-matter, higher dimensions and time travel. Every time I went to the library, every time I asked people these questions, I would get some strange looks. Nobody could answer any of these questions.

It's very questionable, and we will pursue every factor, every element, every second of the timeline, of the final hours of Maurice's life. We will pursue that relentlessly. That will be our quest from now on.

Everybody, as soon as they do a good experiment, their first thought in this lab is, 'That can't be right. I must have screwed it up. What did I do wrong?' And that's the best kind of scientist because they're filled with this self-doubt. And if I'm going to be honest, that's who I am. And it's what drives me.

And today more than ever, knowing about that society involves first of all choosing what approach the inquiry will take, and that necessarily means choosing how society can answer.