Quotes About Inquiry

Thinking is no more or no less than asking questions. To improve your thinking, improve the quality of the questions you ask.

It is far more difficult to ask the right question than it is to find the correct answer.

It is the spur of ignorance the consciousness of not understanding and the curiosity about that which lies beyond that are essential to our progress.

Isn't corn like a meat or something?

So often we focus on finding answers to life's mysteries...when in reality, a wiser approach is to start asking better questions, and more of them.

To question is to grow.

If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked.

Curiosity is a sickness of want to understanding.

I believe there's somebody like him in every pew—asking a simple question, needing a simple answer.

Why are you

Ask questions. Stay curious. It's much more important to stay interested than to be interesting.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

Spock stared hard at his tricorder, as if by sheer will he might force it to tell him the answer to his questions.

I can't believe you just did that! Are you crazy?" I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Why do people keep asking me that?" He turned to stare at me, his eyes worried. "Who else keeps asking you that? Are any of them doctors?

Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers.

If you believe everything you read, you better not read.

He didn't care about the answers so much as the questions. He enjoyed science because it was an interesting way of being alive.

I'm not Michael Moore. I think Michael Moore wants to tell you how to think. He wants to give you answers. I make movies to raise my own personal questions and not to give answers.

In addition to the stance of curiosity, there are three primary skills that good listeners employ: inquiry, paraphrasing, and acknowledgment.

The heading says it all: inquire to learn. And only to learn. You can tell whether a question will help the conversation or hurt it by thinking about why you asked it. The only good answer is "To learn.

This illustrates an important rule about inquiry: If you don't have a question, don't ask a question. Never dress up an assertion as a question. Doing so creates confusion and resentment, because such questions are inevitably heard as sarcastic and sometimes mean-spirited.

Listen! Paradoxically, there is also considerable persuasion power in inquiry and listening. As we say in Chapter 9, listening is not just about taking in information. Listening well has an impact on the other person – it quiets their internal voice. When they feel heard and acknowledged, it is easier for them to hear you. And it also lets you know what they care about, which lays the foundation for creative problem solving.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

Sixth graders had stopped asking Now what? and had started asking So what? She had not been sorry to retire when she did.