Quotes About Inquiry

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

Nothing that a Christian and a Muslim can say to each other will render their beliefs mutually vulnerable to discourse, because the very tenets of their faith have immunized them against the power of conversation. Believing strongly, without evidence, they have kicked themselves loose of the world. It is therefore in the very nature of faith to serve as an impediment to further inquiry.

Meaning, values, morality, and the good life must relate to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures—and, in our case, must lawfully depend upon events in the world and upon states of the human brain. Rational, open-ended, honest inquiry has always been the true source of insight into such processes. Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident.

With each passing year, do our religious beliefs conserve more and more of the data of human experience? If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become more useful, rather than less. Progress in religion, as in other fields, would have to be a matter of present inquiry, not the mere reiteration of past doctrine.

It is therefore in the very nature of faith to serve as an impediment to further inquiry.

It is time we recognized that the only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us. Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. This spirit of mutual inquiry is the very antithesis of religious faith.

With each passing year, do our religious beliefs conserve more and more of the data of human experience? If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become more useful, rather than less. Progress in religion, as in other fields, would have to be a matter of present inquiry, not the mere reiteration of past doctrine. Whatever

If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of having dispensed with the dogma of faith. If our tribalism is ever to give way to an extended moral identity, our religious beliefs can no longer be sheltered from the tides of genuine inquiry and genuine criticism. It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil.

The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind.

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.

The most important thing is to not stop questioning.

You've got to ask! Asking is, in my opinion, the world's most powerful - and neglected - secret to success and happiness.

The most successful scientists are not the most talented. But they are the ones who are impelled by curiosity. They've got to know what the answer is

that last word of human philosophy, "Perhaps!

Comment se trouve M. Bernajoux, le parent de votre écuyer?

Like any other tool for facilitating the completion of a questionable task, rewards offer a how answer to what is really a why question.

I have wondered all my life what I am made of, if there is straw inside of me, or a beating heart, or if I simply burned for all I did not have.

If the Wolfman had not disappeared from my life I would have made certain to question him further about

How can you get your finger on it, feel that life beating? It was more a torment than a comfort to think about this, because I couldn't get hold of it at all. I

Every day a question mark.

It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don't mean nothing if you don't ast why you here, period

Eu unu cred c? suntem aici ca s? ne mir?m. S? ne mir?m. S? întreb?m. Iar dac? te miri de lucrurile mari ÅŸi întrebi de lucrurile mari, atuncea 'nveÅ£i despre alea m?runte, aproape din întâmplare. Da despre lucrurile mari n-ai s? ÅŸtii niciodat? mai multe decât ÅŸtiai la început. Cu cât m? mir mai mult, cu atât iubesc mai mult, a spus el.

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.

Do you? Do you know what really went on in the Twin Towers? I don't.