Quotes About Inquiry

We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically: the disagreement between Professor Stephen Jay Gould and Professor Richard Dawkins, concerning "punctuated evolution" and the unfilled gaps in post- Darwinian theory, is quite wide as well as quite deep, but we shall resolve it by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication.

Ignorance, to a scientist, is an itch that begs to be pleasurably scratched. Ignorance, if you are a theologian, is something to be washed away by shamelessly making something up.

It is a tragic and potentially lethal irony that those who most despise science and the method of free inquiry should have been able to pilfer from it and annex its sophisticated products to their sick dreams.

This need to know things at the level of basic experience, and the reluctance to be fobbed off by the official story or the popular rumor, was a part of the "infinite capacity for taking pains" that Thomas Carlyle once described as the constituent of genius.

A terrible thing has now happened to religion. Except in the places where it can still enforce itself by fear superimposed on ignorance, it has become one opinion among many. It is forced to compete in the free market of ideas and, even when it strives to retain the old advantage of inculcating its teachings into children (for reasons that are too obvious to need underlining), it has to stand up in open debate and submit to free inquiry.

If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone.

If one must have faith in order to believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished. The harder work of inquiry, proof, and demonstration is infinitely more rewarding and has confronted us with findings far more miraculous and transcendent than any theology.

Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience. There

In our world, surely the worst thing anyone can say is; 'No further inquiry is needed. You've already got all you need to know.' It is the most sinister and dangerous thing.

The bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about 'the west,' to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.

To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not? The

What is your name? asked Lear. Caius, said Kent. And whence do you hail? From Bonking, sire. Well, yes, lad, as do we all, said Lear, but from what town?

Mr. Fresh sat down on the stool behind the counter and stared into the eyes of the cardboard cutout of Cher, hoping to find answers there. But the bitch was holding out.

Whistler,' Manet called. 'How's your mother?

He didn't understand religion. It was like heroin or golf: He knew a lot of people did it, but he didn't understand why.

What do you want? Spain Fuck!

Cuando no tienes buenos argumentos, a veces es mejor darle la vuelta a la tortilla y ponerte a preguntar tú. Lo aprendí en la clase de Introducción a los medios de comunicación.

Who shit in your tuba?

A question asked in earnest, deserves an earnest answer.

Whistler, Manet called. How's your mother?

When someone refuses to tell me a certain piece of information, it only makes me that much more determined to find out the truth. I hate being ignorant. For me, a question unanswered is like a thorn in my side

Do I look dead to you?!

Eres, o te llamas Eragon? -Las dos.

What are those?" he asked.