Quotes About Inquiry

My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.

Some people consider facts to be dangerous things that must be locked away and carefully guarded. But I consider mysteries a far greater threat. We should seek answers wherever possible, regardless of the consequences. —GILBERTUS ALBANS, secret Erasmus dialogues

The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge.

am not a consultant; I am an insurant. I don't tell people what to do. I just ask them the hard questions that they need to answer to decide what to do for themselves.

You're either attaching to your thoughts or inquiring. There's no other choice.

Inquiry doesn't have a motive. It doesn't teach a philosophy. It's just investigation.

That's what inquiry is for, to break through stressful mythology. These

A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It's not our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it's true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we've been attaching to, often for years.

Your story is your identity, and you'd do almost anything to prove that it's true. Inquiry into self is the only thing that has the power to penetrate such ancient concepts. Even

Is it true?        2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?        3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?        4. Who would you be without the thought?

Why in the world are you a Republican?

From the bow of the canoe she asked, Do you know a rain dance? First I need a virgin.

we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers

But I could be wrong.

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic.

There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.

There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.

We can't help it. Life looks for life.

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

We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.

There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever. We are constantly stumbling on new surprises

All inquiries carry with them some element of risk.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.