quotations about questions
Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.
MILAN KUNDERA
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
Suppose that you decide to have the entire "curriculum" consist of questions. These questions would have to be worth seeking answers to not only from your point of view but, more importantly, from the point of view of the students. In order to get still closer to reality, add the requirement that the questions must help the students to develop and internalize concepts that will help them to survive in the rapidly changing world of the present and future.
NEIL POSTMAN & CHARLES WEINGARTNER
Teaching as a Subversive Activity
The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.
NEIL POSTMAN & CHARLES WEINGARTNER
Teaching as a Subversive Activity
One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.
ORSON SCOTT CARD
Ender's Shadow
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?
SCOTT ADAMS
attributed, Laugh Off: The Comedy Showdown Between Real Life and the Pros
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
ANONYMOUS
A man becomes learned by asking questions.
AHMED VESIK
attributed, Day's Collacon
Fools may ask questions, but it takes wise men to answer them.
GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE
Prenticeana
Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.
SUSANNE LANGER
Feeling and Form
As human beings, don't we need questions without answers as well as questions with answers, questions that we might someday answer and questions that we can never answer?
ALAN LIGHTMAN
"Does God exist?", Salon, October 2, 2011
Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer -- except faith.
CHARLES SHEFFIELD
Brother to Dragons
Questions are often more effective than statements in moving others. Or to put it more appropriately, since the research shows that when the facts are on your side, questions are more persuasive than statements, don't you think you should be pitching with questions?
DANIEL H. PINK
attributed, The Future of Strategy
To stand in the midst of ... this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity in existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning ... that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody. Some folly keeps persuading me that every human has this feeling just because he is human.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
attributed, The Gay Science
Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
"The Garden of Paradise"
The ignorant start questions which have been already answered thousands of years ago by the wise.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A civil question deserves a civil answer.
MARTIN H. MANSER
The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs
The only stupid question is the one that is not asked.
SAM HO
Operations and Quality Management
Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
attributed, 101 Best Ways to Get Ahead
The answer is a mirror of the question.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Butlerian Jihad