Quotes About Inquiry

If the school sends out children with a desire for knowledge and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done its work.

I suppose no matter what I'm drawing, there will always be some sort of question in my mind about it. A work of art (even cartoon art) is never really finished; it is abandoned.

Einstein was a man who could ask immensely simple questions. And what his work showed is that when the answers are simple too, then you can hear God thinking.

Camus himself described this work as 'an attempt to understand the time I live in'.

Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.

The fundamental essence of science, which I think we've lost in our education system, is poking something with a stick and seeing what happens. Embrace that process of inquiry.

Faith is a personal matter, and should never be a cudgel to stifle inquiry. We tried that approach about 1,200 years ago. The experiment was called the Dark Ages.

Everything I do is storytelling; storytelling is about curiosity.

I never knew my father. He'd disappeared from the scene before I was born, and I still have no idea who he is. Perhaps strangely, it's never bothered me; I certainly don't believe it's really affected me.

Is it not truly extraordinary to realise that ever since men have walked, no-one has ever asked why they walk, how they walk, whether they walk, whether they might walk better, what they achieve by walking, whether they might not have the means to regulate, change or analyse their walk: questions that bear on all the systems of philosophy, psychology and politics with which the world is preoccupied? Honoré de Balzac (1938 [1833]:

Reading is a source of potency, I said, so manage it like an asset. Become a walking encyclopedia of answers for anyone who has questions.

I don't know what you mean." "Come now, Matthew, it's a simple enough question. How do you feel about being a zombie?

The FBI was not incompetent or indifferent. It did not know what it did not know.

What those inheritances meant, and still mean, is the subject of this inquiry, especially the last of these: What does it mean to be white in a nation created for the benefit of people like you? We don't often ask this question, mostly because we don't have to.

We see a seventeenth-century goblet and think: That is what a seventeenth-century goblet looks like, and isn't it remarkably like/unlike (choose one) goblets today? We tend not to think: What is a goblet doing there? Who made it? Where did it come from? Why did the artist choose to include it instead of something else, a teacup, say, or a glass jar?

Often, all that stands between you and what you want is a better set of questions.

Losing makes you think in ways victories can't. You begin asking questions instead of feeling like you have the answers. Questions open up the doors to so many possibilities.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything." Substitute "master learner" for "novel," and you have my philosophy of life. Often, all that stands between you and what you want is a better set of questions.

When they're told that some people or ideas are wrong, hateful, or offensive, a light bulb should go off in their heads. That is the moment their curiosity should be piqued to find out for themselves whether it is indeed a "bad" thing.

Live the questions so that, one day, you will live yourself into the answers.

I do what I always do: find a personal e-mail if possible, often through their little-known personal blogs, send a two- to three-paragraph e-mail which explains that I am familiar with their work, and ask one simple-to-answer but thought-provoking question in that e-mail related to their work or life philosophies. The goal is to start a dialogue so they take the time to answer future e-mails—not to ask for help. That can only come after at least three or four genuine e-mail exchanges.

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Ricardo Semler, CEO and majority owner of the Brazil-based Semco Partners, practices asking "Why?" three times. This is true when questioning his own motives, or when tackling big projects. The rationale is identical to Derek's.

Often, there's a very basic, very dumb question at the center of a story that no one's asking. One of the biggest stories I ever did, 'The Giant Pool of Money,' was predicated on just such a dumb question: 'Why are the banks loaning money to people who can't possibly pay it back?' Asking the right dumb question is often the smartest thing you can do.