Quotes About Inquiry

her? I wonder. "Tom?" I say, taking advantage of

and doesn't know quite what to do with it. I dig in.

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. —ANAÏS NIN

But then, why did the mechs have no religion?

It's funny, everyone seems to ask me that in the last few days.

Asking you...it was just a way of closing a door on it. It's just something I had to ask.

I asked, pushing a canoe of thought out into the uncharted water of his ideas.

We need both Socrates and Aristotle in the search for knowledge, but in education today there is too much Aristotle and too little Socrates.

The real thing about evil, said the Witch at the doorway, isn't any of what you said. You figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. It's like the old saw: What does a dragon in its shell look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.

The real thing about evil… you figure out one side of it - the human side, say - and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.

My father was a world-class scientist and my mother was a prolific painter. I could see that my parents had completely different ways of knowing and understanding the world, and relating to it. My father approached things through scientific inquiry and exploration, while my mother experienced things through her emotions and senses.

It's fun to peek into other people's worlds and see how they go about doing things.

I don't separate my books into historical novels and the rest. To me, they're all made-up worlds, and both kinds are borne out of curiosity, some investigation into the past.

I've always been curious about the other worlds we can shift into in our imaginations.

I study things like the life cycle of the worm.

I have worn myself thin trying to find out about this comet, and I know very little now in the matter.

I've never worried about life's big questions.

I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith.

How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah, is found, at so early a period of his history, a worshiper of baser objects, it is foreign to our present purpose to inquire.

I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

We think the way we do partly because Socrates thought the way he did. His basic idea - that the unexamined life is not worth living - is what it means to live in the modern world, to develop ideas and ask questions.

Most of the time I've worked in labs if I didn't encounter something in a week entirely unexpected and surprising I'd consider it a lost week. Lots of that is due to mistakes and stupidity, but it could open a new line of inquiry. Something really good turns up once in a hundred times, but it makes the whole day worthwhile.

When you do a Tom Cruise movie, you don't do a Tom Cruise movie and ask a lot of questions.

You have to be brave and ask the questions on the tip of your tongue.