The thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions, as seeking explanations of something: to him, success and failure are primarily answers.
[Der Denker sieht in seinen eigenen Handlungen Versuche und Fragen, irgend worüber Aufschluss zu erhalten: Erfolg und Misserfolg sind ihm zu allererst Antworten.]Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
The Gay Science [Die fröhliche Wissenschaft], Book 1, § 41 (1882) [tr. Nauckhoff (2001)]
(Source)
Also known as La Gaya Scienza, The Joyful Wisdom, or The Joyous Science.
(Source (German)). Alternate translations:The thinker sees in his own actions attempts and questionings to obtain information about something or other; success and failure are answers to him first and foremost.
[tr. Common (1911)]A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions -- as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
[tr. Kaufmann (1974)]In his own actions, the thinker sees experiments and enquiries from which he seeks to obtain insight: to him, success and failure are, first of all, answers.
[tr. Hill (2018)]
Quotations about:
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Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Children ask better questions than do adults. “May I have a cookie?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What does a cow say?” are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than “Where is your manuscript?” “Why haven’t you called?” and “Who’s your lawyer?”
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
“Children: Pro or Con,” Metropolitan Life (1978)
(Source)
Questions about the reproductive system should be answered as naturally as ones about the railroad system.
Marcelene Cox (1900-1998) American writer, columnist, aphorist
“Ask Any Woman” column, Ladies’ Home Journal (1946-02)
(Source)
The key to any progress is to ask the question Why? All the time. Why is that child poor? Why was there a war? Why was he killed? Why is he in power? And of course questions can get you into a lot of trouble, because society is trained by those who run it to accept what goes on. Without questions we won’t make any progress at all.
Tony Benn (1925-2014) British politician, writer, diarist
Interview in Raoul Martinez, Creating Freedom: The Lottery of Birth (2013)
The man who will not investigate both sides of a question is dishonest.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.
Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham (b. 1949) American computer scientist
“Cunningham’s Law”
(Source)
Cunningham himself denies having said this. It was attributed to him (and so named) by Steven McGeady in the early 1980s.
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place, but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed, toward the hope of greening the landscape of an idea. The difference between a seed and an inert speck can be hard to see, but only one of them will grow and return itself in kind and be multiplied.
John Ciardi (1916-1986) American poet, writer, critic
Manner of Speaking (1972)
Better ask twice than lose your way once.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Danish Proverb
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)
Frequently attributed to Nietzsche, starting in the late 1950s, but never cited and not found in any of his writings. More discussion here.
An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
The Log from the Sea of Cortez, ch. 16, March 25 (1951)
(Source)
To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.
Anne Rice (b. 1941) American author [b. Howard Allen Frances O'Brien]
The Vampire Lestat, Part 5, ch. 3 (1992)
(Source)
“You ever fuck Susan here?” she said, her face almost touching mine.
“I’m impressed,” I said. “The question is intrusive, annoying, coarse, and voyeuristic. That’s quite a lot to get into a simple question.”
No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Circles,” Essays: First Series (1841)
(Source)
Value of a Journal. A sentence now; a sentence last year; a sentence yesterday. Tomorrow a question comes that for the first time brings together these three and shows them to be the three fractions of Unit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1837-1862)
"Notebook Delta"
There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) Scottish-American scientist, inventor, engineer
(Attributed)
Comment to a reporter a few months before he died, as quoted in the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress.
“Would you like me to arrest you?” I asked. That’s an old police trick: If you just warn people they often just ignore you, but if you ask them a question then they have to think about it. Once they start to think about the consequences they almost always calm down, unless they’re drunk of course, or stoned, or aged between fourteen and twenty-one, or Glaswegian.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)
To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (1934) [tr. Hull (1959)]
I am driven to express my faith by a series of skepticisms.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1845)
That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
The Ascent of Man ch. 4 (1973)
To spell out the obvious is often to call it into question.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 220 (1955)
(Source)
NORTON I: I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear.
DEATH: Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 6. Fables and Reflections, # 31 “Three Septembers and a January” (1991-10)
(Source)
“Eeyore, what are you doing there?” said Rabbit.
“I’ll give you three guesses, Rabbit. Digging holes in the ground? Wrong. Leaping from branch to branch of a young oak-tree? Wrong. Waiting for somebody to help me out of the river? Right. Give Rabbit time, and he’ll always get the answer.”A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
House at Pooh Corner, ch. 6 “Eeyore Joins the Game” (1928)
(Source)
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 322 (1820)
(Source)
CALVIN: Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom?
HOBBES: Did you ask your Mom if you could jump off the roof?
CALVIN: Questions I know the answers to I don’t need to ask, right?
Ask a question and you’re a fool for three minutes; do not ask a question and you’re a fool for the rest of your life.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Chinese proverb
Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (10 Aug 1787)
(Source)
