Quotes About Inquiry

but everyone tries; trying is the human condition. All anyone can do is ask.

History is the art of making an argument about the past by telling a story accountable to evidence. In the writing of history, a story without an argument fades into antiquarianism; an argument without a story risks pedantry. Writing history requires empathy, inquiry, and debate. It requires forswearing condescension, cant, and nostalgia. The past isn't quaint. Much of it, in fact, is bleak.

The United States rests on a dedication to equality, which is chiefly a moral idea, rooted in Christianity, but it rests, too, on a dedication to inquiry, fearless and unflinching. Its founders agreed with the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, who wrote, in 1748, that "Records of Wars, Intrigues, Factions, and Revolutions are so many Collections of Experiments."9 They believed that truth is to be found in ideas about morality but also in the study of history.

The turn from reverence to inquiry, from mystery to history, was crucial to the founding of the United States.

understanding history as a form of inquiry—not as something easy or comforting but as something demanding and exhausting—was central to the nation's founding.

It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

By thinking about what we don't yet know, we can think about how we can best find out. It is the many questions we have asked over the course of our human history that have given us an ever-more-accurate picture of the world we know and love.

There are four categories of questions Emmily asks: 1. Can I please go to the bathroom? 2. Where is the bathroom? 3. Is it okay if I raise my hand and ask a question? 4. I don't understand anything you've said in the last thirty minutes. Could you explain it again? Also the last six weeks.

The man on the other end of the wire was a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He asked if Mr. Olds knew whether the civil rights of Oswald had been protected. Olds said he knew nothing about the case.

Answers are easy. What's the question?

It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested?" Collin's advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.

Beware of anyone who calls you bad names merely for asking honest questions.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically. —Marcus Aurelius

Sarah Jane, do you always have to be the teacher?" she asked and then immediately added, "I already know the answer so you don't have to answer that.

The first step of wisdom is to question everything.

To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself First, what could I do Second, what could I read And third, who could I ask

Miz Hetta? Inquiring minds wanna know." "You really want

Robert Heinlein says in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel that the only things worth studying are history, languages, and science. Actually, he adds maths, but honestly they left out the mathematical part of my brain.

As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.

Hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers.

Are you some kind of foot fetish?

The only thing that we can know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.

She wanted to know about them, not to know them.

What do you want?" Debbie whispered. And a voice whispered back, "Where are my eyes?" Debbie let out a yelp and began shouting, "How should we know? We didn't take your eyes! What do you think you're doing anyway, going around scaring people? You rotten, mean, whatever-you-are!