Quotes About Inquiry

Adults discourage children from asking philosophical questions, first by being patronizing to them and then by directing their inquiring minds towards more "useful" questions. Most adults aren't themselves interested in philosophical questions. They may be threatened by some of them. Moreover, it doesn't occur to most adults that there are questions that a child can ask that they can't provide a definitive answer to and that aren't answered in a standard dictionary or encyclopedia either.

Unfettered inquisitiveness, it is clear, teaches better than do intimidating assignments.

Voltaire once wrote, "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." Sir Francis Bacon added, "A prudent question is one-half of wisdom." Indira Gandhi concluded that "the power to question is the basis of all human progress." Great questions are clearly the quickest path to great answers.

the power to question is the basis of all human progress.

It's really a simple process: You ask a great question, then you seek out a great answer.

you don't expect much, if you don't inquire in a way that respects the intelligence of the other person, you probably won't find many insights.

Curiosities provoke people to investigate further, just as coincidences do. The initial "What's going on here?" reaction doesn't contain the insight, but it starts the person on the road to gaining the insight.

All knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself.

Real scientist are delighted when they find out they are wrong. And to me that is one of the greatest gifts that a scientific education can bring.] There are too many people in this world who want to be right. And too few who just want to know.

Science is delighted frustration. It is about asking questions, to which the answers may be unavailable – now, or perhaps ever. It is about noticing regularities, asserting that these regularities must have natural explanations and searching for those explanations.

I don't need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find.

Science is the enemy of the certain

Curiosity is a terrible thing, he was thinking. How is it possible to stop oneself from needing to know?

But I opened up each pale eye within me and inquired until I found enough to tell me to rummage some more, and then I tried to close all the eyes again at once, to seal each back—for their own good, for their safety. Each was already crisscrossed with darkness and scars and damage, and awakening them seemed only to damage them worse, so better to keep them asleep.

The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.

Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.

Science is based not on faith but in skeptism

Independent inquiry is needed in your search for truth, not dependence on anyone else's view or a mere book

Independent inquiry is need in your search for truth, not dependence on anyone else's view or a mere book

Is there anybody alive out there?

Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.

One of the most important things one can do in life is to brutally question every single thing you are taught.

Abbott Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third. Costello That's what I want to find out.

At the moment I have very little evidence and lots of theories. I'm itching to reverse the proportions.