Quotes About Curiosity

We come out of the womb questioning," noted the small-schools-movement pioneer Deborah Meier.

If you fear not having answers to the questions you might ask yourself, remember that one of the hallmarks of innovative problem solvers is that they are willing to raise questions without having any idea of what the answer might be. Part of being able to tackle complex and difficult questions is accepting that there is nothing wrong with not knowing. People who are good at questioning are comfortable with uncertainty.

to ask powerful Why questions. To do so, we must: •  Step back. •  Notice what others miss. •  Challenge assumptions (including our own). •  Gain a deeper understanding of the situation or problem at hand, through contextual inquiry. •  Question the questions we're asking. •  Take ownership of a particular question. While a fairly straightforward process, it begins by moving backward.

at least temporarily, it's necessary to stop doing and stop knowing in order to start asking.

So perhaps the first rule of asking why is that there must be a pause, a space, an interruption in the meeting, a halt of "progress," a quiet moment looking out the window on the bus. Often, these are the only times when there is time to question.

What do you want to say? Why does it need to be said

I position myself relentlessly as an idiot at IDEO," Bennett observes. "And that's not a negative, it's a positive. Because being comfortable with not knowing—that's the first part of being able to question.

or flashlights that, in the words of Dan Rothstein of the Right Question Institute (RQI), "shine a light on where you need6 to go.

A question can reside in the mind for a long time—maybe forever—without being spoken to anyone.

embrace ignorance

One good question can give rise to several layers of answers, can inspire decades-long searches for solutions, can generate whole new fields of inquiry, and can prompt changes in entrenched thinking," Firestein writes. "Answers, on the other hand, often end the process.

What Dan Meyer did in showing the video and then holding back as he waited for that question to form in students' heads was to transfer ownership: Instead of asking the question himself, he allowed students to think of it on their own—at which point it became their question.

Rothstein maintains. "Just asking or hearing a question phrased a certain way produces an almost palpable feeling of discovery and new understanding. Questions produce the lightbulb effect.

we all live in the world our questions create.

Fear is the enemy of curiosity

Through the years, companies from Polaroid (Why do we have to wait for the picture?) to Pixar (Can animation be cuddly?21) have started with questions. However, when it comes to questioning, companies are like people: They start out doing it, then gradually do it less and less. A hierarchy forms, a methodology is established, and rules are set; after that, what is there to question?

In studying "master questioners," Hal Gregersen inquired about their childhoods and found that most had "at least one adult in their lives who encouraged them to ask provocative questions." The Nobel laureate scientist Isidor Isaac Rabi was one such child; when he came home from school, "while other mothers asked their kids 'Did you learn anything today?' [my mother ] would say, 'Izzy, did you ask a good question today?

Great questioners "keep looking"—at a situation or a problem, at the ways people around them behave, at their own behaviors. They study the small details; and they look for not only what's there but what's missing. They step back, view things sideways, squint if necessary.

nonexperts or outsiders are often better at questioning than the experts. No one would argue that expert knowledge isn't valuable—but when it's time to question, it can get in the way.

It's one thing to see a problem and to question why the problem exists—and maybe even wonder whether there might be a better alternative. It's another to keep asking those questions even after experts have told you, in effect, "You can't change this situation; there are good reasons why things are the way they are.

But if we can't compete with technology when it comes to storing answers, questioning—that uniquely human capacity—is our ace in the hole. Until Watson acquires the equivalent of human curiosity, creativity, divergent thinking skills, imagination, and judgment, it will not be able to formulate the kind of original, counterintuitive, and unpredictable questions an innovative thinker—or even just your average four-year-old—can come up with.

Epiphanies often are characterized as "Aha! moments," but that suggests the problem has been solved in a flash. More often, insights arrive as What if moments—bright possibilities that are untested and open to question.)

Exploring What If possibilities is a wide-open, fun stage of questioning and should not be rushed.

Often the worst thing you can do with a difficult question is to try to answer it too quickly. When the mind is coming up with What If possibilities, these fresh, new ideas can take time to percolate and form. They often result from connecting existing ideas in unusual and interesting ways.