Quotes About Questions

I gravitate toward the larger worldview questions such as, Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing? What does it mean to know another person? To love someone? Of course, those questions are sort of in the background as I'm playing with language in the foreground, but those are the informing questions.

So when I say that I think we would have a different ethical level, particularly in corporate America, if there were more women involved, I mean that what women are best at is asking questions. Women ask questions over and over again. It drives men nuts. Women tend to ask the detailed questions; they want to know the answers.

I don't like the way most people think. It's imprecise. I find that when parents ask me questions, they ask very imprecise questions. They say, "My kid has behavioral problems at school." Well, I have to say, "What kind of problems? Is he hitting? Is he rude? Does he rock in class?" I need to narrow questions to specifics. I am very pragmatic and intellectual, not emotional. I do get great satisfaction when a parent says, "I read your book, and it really helped me."

Who am I?” “What is the purpose of my life?” These questions arise spontaneously throughout our lives, either unbidden or through conscious intent. Anyone who wishes to live an authentic life must answer these questions, regardless of whether they believe in the existence of the soul or practice a religion. If these queries remain unanswered, life will more than likely remain superficial and empty, in spite of any material abundance. If you wish to make the soul's journey, then I suggest you ask yourself these questions relentlessly and ruthlessly, and listen carefully.

Being human means asking the questions of one's own being and living under the impact of the answers given to this question. And, conversely, being human means receiving answers to the questions of one's own being and asking questions under the impact of the answers.

There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power.

There can be only two questions that are asked with regard to human relationships: Where am I going? Who is going with me? Do not invert the order of the questions. Do not - under any circumstances - invert the order of the questions. Is that clear?

Systematic theology will ask questions like "What are the attributes of God? What is sin? What does the cross achieve?" Biblical theology tends to ask questions such as "What is the theology of the prophecy of Isaiah? What do we learn from John's Gospel? How does the theme of the temple work itself out across the entire Bible?" Both approaches are legitimate; both are important. They are mutually complementary.

America cannot be America in the new century until it deals with these new questions of gender, including the trans issues, and the questions around faith and Islam.

You have to begin by posing questions to your unconscious mind, and then listening very carefully for the answers. If you pose the right kinds of questions, and listen well, you can begin to tap into the power of your unconscious mind.

I think a lot of people do have questions about life, 'What's the purpose of my life?', 'What's the meaning of my life?', 'Why am I here?' ... It's hard to find a place where you can discuss those issues. You can't go down to the pub and say, 'What do you think the meaning of life is?' But actually, most people have those questions, somewhere in the back of their minds. And if you can find a place where you can discuss it with a group of people who, like you, are outside of the Church, and it's a non-threatening, relaxed environment, quite a lot of people want to do that.

I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.

Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.

Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make possible life on this planet? Can we afford life itself? Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of our nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to restore and renew them. These questions answer themselves.

In this box are all the words I know… Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places.

I do think questions have been raised and questions have to be answered.And there is no way to predict what comes in the door of that White House from day to day that can pose a threat to the United States or one of our friends and allies, and I think this is a big part of the job interview that we are all conducting with the voters here.

The traditional practice is that the justices don't ask the attorney general any questions, so as not to embarrass him. But Bobby Kennedy had let them know that he didn't mind if they asked him questions and they did.

The earliest language was body language and, since this language is the language of questions, if we limit the questions, and if we only pay attention to or place values on spoken or written language, then we are ruling out a large area of human language.

Over the last few years, I've been focusing on questions having to do with the self, and questions having to do with morality. I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.

I remember coming on my first set and it being a playground of things I wanted to ask questions about: cameras and lenses and what the lenses do, what's the focus puller doing and how does that work? Why is there less margin for error when there's less light? I was always asking questions and watching directors closely.

I'm always asking questions - not to find 'answers,' but to see where the questions lead. Dead ends sometimes? That's fine. New directions? Interesting. Great insights? Over-ambitious. A glimpse here and there? Perfect.

I'm not sure that I 'am' a philosopher - but I do engage with questions that are generally recognized as philosophical questions, such as the character of human existence and what makes for a good human life.

I do know dumb-ass questions when I see dumb-ass questions.

The "brightness" of the 15 percent might or might not indicate a profound feeling for the causes of things; it is largely verbal and symbol-manipulating, and is almost certainly partly an obsessional device not to know and touch risky matter, just as Freud long ago pointed out that the nagging questions of small children are a substitute for asking the forbidden questions.

We shouldn't get hung up on the questions we can't answer because life, by definition, is confusing. We're never going to have all the answers. Never. We should focus on the questions we can answer and make peace with the ones we can't.

So Socrates was a kind of gadfly. He was a sort of philosophical urban gorilla hanging around in the middle of Athens, asking these peculiar questions of everybody - important people, young men, slaves - questions that had to do with ultimately what's the life that's worth living. And Plato was one of the young men who hung around him, a very aristocratic young man, came from a very old, important family.

The official keepers of the Holocaust wage an international campaign to silence the disturbing questions. Most people never even hear the revisionist position because Jewish forces dominate the media and block mainstream access to material that questions Holocaust orthodoxy.

I don't write books because I have answers. I write books because I have questions. What we are is the questions that we ask, not the answers that we provide. It's all about the process of self-examination. I think that's what the best writing always contains.

Asking the proper questions is the central action of transformation. Questions are the key that causes the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.

[In geology,] As in history, the material in hand remains silent if no questions are asked. The nature of these questions depends on the "school" to which the geologist belongs and on the objectivity of his investigations. Hans Cloos called this way of interrogation "the dialogue with the earth," "das Gesprach mit der Erde."

Our job is not to answer questions, its to ask the right questions...that get us to the right answer.

Before writing, I start with a series of questions, specific things I need to know before I can write the book... That list grows and changes as I do more and more research. But when I've answered the bulk of the questions, I begin to write.

I'm not going to lie, there are more interesting ways to spend your time than answering questions about yourself. But if there were no questions to ask me, I might have a beef with that.

Every time I ask questions about sex, I always end up asking questions about death.

As does every young man studying philosophy, I naturally asked myself questions about the truth of all this, and about the meaning of freedom, predestination, and liberty of choice and so on. But to have asked questions of yourself about it, I think is not too important. Let's say - I remain - I remained a believer.

I am as non-accepting of medical quackery and unscientific approaches as anybody else. I've grown up as a card-carrying scientist, and I know the power of science to answer questions, and for many questions I don't know of anything better than scientific approaches to answer them.

My basic approach to interviewing is to ask the basic questions that might even sound naive, or not intellectual. Sometimes when you ask the simple questions like 'Who are you?' or 'What do you do?' you learn the most.

A well-trained man knows how to answer questions; an educated man knows what questions are worth asking.

Long time no see. I only pray the caliber of your questions has improved.

I can't make wine simple. But I can make it fun and beautiful, instead of esoteric and intimidating. The minute you realize it's OK to stumble along like the rest of us, asking questions and paying attention to your own reactions, then you'll begin what I hope will be a lifelong love affair with wine.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, I am not afraid to answer questions about my track record or my accomplishments or my principles.

There had been questions raised about whether we could ever really unite to work together on an issue, whether we could do it with equal passion and fervor. And it happened during my nomination and I think I forever will be grateful for that love, for that support and for proving those naysayers wrong.

I can be a fairly hands-on editor, and when I'm editing someone I feel intensely invested in that writer and her work. I love helping to shape a book, and I feel very privileged to get to do that with writers I'm excited about. I think doing that work for the past six years has changed me, and it better prepared me for the questions and suggestions.

Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal.

His [Ben Okri's] work poses very serious questions for the twenty-first century. Among them: To what extent will we allow the indefinable dynamics of something called "destiny" to maintain grief and horror in the world? How hard are human beings willing to fight to achieve and sustain justice, equanimity, or joy? And should progress be called such when it devours what is best within the human spirit?

Adult life is dealing with an enormous amount of questions that don't have answers. So I let the mystery settle into my music. I don't deny anything, I don't advocate anything, I just live with it.

I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions.

Lately I've been going to all these high schools talking to the students, answering their questions, listening to what they have to say. It has been an incredible journey to be around them and try to give them what my mother gave me.