Quotes About Inquiry

playing at the entrance of the hut. "Whose children are these?" he asked.

It is always worth asking yourself: "how could I be wrong?

I think one thing that's really important is to not be afraid of your ignorance. If you don't understand how something works, ask someone who does. A lot of people are skittish about that. And that doesn't help anybody. Not knowing something doesn't mean you're dumb – it just means you don't know it yet.

You can tell a man is clever by his answers – you can tell a man is wise by his questions.

Another aspect of that legacy was the buoyant optimism in the schools. All the masters shared the view that man, even in his fallen state, was 'capable of the fullest intellectual and spiritual enlargement', that the universe was ordered and therefore accessible to rational inquiry, and that man's mastery of his environment through his intellect, cumulative knowledge and experience was possible.22 Outside

even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, "It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae.

Richard wanted to write a letter to Ted Bundy, on Florida's death row, and he asked Doreen to get Bundy's prison number and address. He had, he said, some things he wanted to ask Ted about.

What qualifies as a good question? It's one that gets us thinking about something worth thinking about. So one way to identify a good question is what I call the smack-the-forehead test: when you read the question after time has passed, you smack your forehead and say, "If only I had thought of that before!

After the fiasco, Kennedy ordered an inquiry to figure out how his people could have botched it so badly. It identified cozy unanimity as the key problem and recommended changes to the decision-making process to ensure it could never develop again.

I really am going to meet Forster: I thought I shouldn't, but apparently the old boy E.M.F. is saying with remembered my name & I am bid to John Hewitt's at 8 tomorrow. Shall I ask him if he's a homo? It's the only thing I really want to know about him, you see. I don't even care why he packed up writing.

Who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught?

Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.

Para intentar comprender a la gente, hay que excavar hasta las raíces. No basta con darle un empujón al tiempo con el hombro para darle mejor aspecto; hay que arañar entre sus fisuras y obligarlo a dar el máximo. Ensuciarse las manos. A mí no me da asco.

Upon the one thing every writer absolutely must have, and that is intellectual curiosity.

What if?" points in both directions.

The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.

Parece necessário interrogar-se sobre essa ausência de interrogação.

Parce que moi, je vais toujours aux rendez-vous. De toute ma vie, je n'en ai pas raté un seul. J'aime découvrir la personne qui m'attend ou que j'attends. Sa légère inquiétude qui s'évapore à la seconde où je parais. Pour rien au monde je ne manquerais l'évaporation d'une inquiétude.

I've been visiting community centres and schools for 20-plus years and what I've seen is that kids are kids, they want to learn. They learn from experiences, they ask questions when they don't know something.

And when you take something like the changing colour of autumn leaves and start to ask why, you're starting off on an intellectual journey which will take you beyond that moment of visual satisfaction, while robbing nothing from that experience.

Science and policy-making thrive on challenge and questioning; they are vital to the health of inquiry and democracy.

There needs to be a place in the church or just outside - there needs to be a place where people feel free to ask questions without being put upon, where they feel free to ask difficult, challenging questions to voice their skepticism.

I'd like to put in a vote for the intrinsic fascination of science.