Quotes About Inquiry

What are you thinking of discovering?" Moomintroll cleared his throat and felt very proud. "Oh, everything," he said. "Stars, for example!" Snufkin was deeply impressed. "Stars!" he exclaimed. "Then I must come with you. Stars are my favorite things. I always lie and look at them before I go to sleep, and wonder who is on them and how one could get there. The sky looks so friendly with all those little eyes twinkling in it.

When you were small you wanted to know. Now you want to become. I want to do.

Milligan! Come and tell us why you're so dreadfully glum!" ~ Constance, The Mysterious Benedict Society

Au contraire..." "What?" Constance demanded. Curtain blinked. ~ The Perilous Journey

Mr. Benedict, sir, have you read all the books in this house?" Mr. Benedict smiled, glancing fondly about at the many books in his study before looking at Reynie again. "My dear boy," he said, "what do you think?

Dr. Fanchon Quills.

My favorite random email I got was from some guy who wrote: "Mr. Max, with the hope of a six year old on the night before Christmas asking about Santa, I ask the same question: Do you really exist?

That's what I'd like to know," she said.

Oooom-yum?" Bumblebee inquired, reaching for it. "Eeee?" "No," Cricket said. "GROSS, Bumblebee!" "GWOSE!" Bumblebee cried, waking up an anaconda as thick as Sundew's tail in the next tree over.

Are we — um, does this mean —

What?" Kinkajou asked. "What? What? WHAT?

Hmmm,' she said. 'How long do you think it'll last?' 'How would I know?!

Why aren't they moving?" Cricket asked. She hesitated at a large tree root, inspected the shadows around it, then gingerly stepped over it. "Stupid question. We obviously don't know," Nettle muttered. "Never seen snakes act like this.

Aha," Rollan said. "I knew that boll weevil in my soup last night looked suspicious.

Who cares about all that ancient history?

Ask dumb questions.

Good questions outrank easy answers.

The principle of scientific inquiry should not be limited to merely the practical or the possible, explained Sighter. Only by investigating the unlikely and the unthought-of is the sum total of knowledge advanced.

If you don't know why you like a thing, it is usually worth your while to attempt to find out.

Why are there so many Jewish teachers here, but no Jewish students?" someone asked.

Serious circumstances remind us that the difficulty of finding the truth is no excuse for not looking.

End? You don't mean like, dead end?

She wanted to ask, How long? A year? Less more? Any time? But she had lived long enough to know that you did not ask questions to which there were no answers and which you didn't want answered.

She felt the curious flattening of inquiring spirit the traveller suffers from, knowing himself without occupation or investment in the fortunes of a strange city.