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Quotations about question
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
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
“Notebook Delta” (1837-1862)
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)
Shake off all the fears of 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 God; because, if there be one, He must more approve of 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)
In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
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
