Quotes About Questions

The great philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries did not think that epistemological questions floated free of questions about how the mind works. Those philosophers took a stand on all sorts of questions which nowadays we would classify as questions of psychology, and their views about psychological questions shaped their views about epistemology, as well they should have.

The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you "come to terms with" only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.

Beware of anyone who calls you bad names merely for asking honest questions. Beware of anyone who insists on reframing your sincere curiosity as a character defect. Beware of anyone who questions your motives while ignoring your facts. When someone calls you bad names merely for asking questions, it suggests they know the answer but are terrified to admit it.

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

I wrote the song "Show Me" as a prayer to God asking simple, honest questions about life and death and why there is so much suffering in the world. As I grew with the song I realized I shouldn't limit these questions solely to God; I should ask those questions of others and of myself.

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?

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.

I realized how little I knew about my own country. I had grown up in the suburbs and, after college, I moved out of the country, so I didn't really know the place well. When I started following soldiers and their families back home, it provoked a lot of the questions about who we are as a nation, questions I realized couldn't be explored through the more limited framework of looking at the military at war and at home.

In general, the questions that are on our mind are the same questions that have been driving our work over the past decade. How do we bring order to this messy, unpredictable world of innovation? How can we dramatically improve the chances of creating a successful new-growth business? How can we do this again and again? More specifically, it has become very clear that the fundamental paradigms of market segmentation and branding are badly broken - and we're working on developing more useful theories for these dimensions of innovation.

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.

For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.

I have been hired by Allah to get a wage, which if the space between the Earth and sky is filled up with pearls, still (the wage) would be more than it, for each of the questions I may answer you. Therefore, I deserve it that I must not feel tired or exhausted (in answering your questions).

Science goes from question to question; big questions, and little, tentative answers. The questions as they age grow ever broader, the answers are seen to be more limited.

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.

One dictionary defines denouement as "a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain." By that definition, it is exactly the wrong word to describe this chapter. This chapter will make nothing clear; it will raise many questions; and it may even contain a surprise or two. But I say we call it the denouement anyway because the words sounds so sophisticated and French.

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions.

In fact, now I come to think of it, do we decide questions, at all? We decide answers, no doubt: but surely the questions decide us? It is the dog, you know, that wags the tail--not the tail that wags the dog.

In science we see progress. In art there is no progress. In art the questions have always been the same. From the beginning of time till now, we are always asking the same questions. There are very few. We are looking for God, we are asking why we die, we are contemplating sex and the beauty of nature. The only thing that changes is that, in each period of questioning, we speak with the language of our time.

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.

You see, the problem in life isn't in receiving answers. The problem is in identifying your current questions. Once you get the questions right, the answers always come.

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.

Now, you'll have to answer my questions." "Oh, very well," Set said. "I like Brazil for the World Cup. I'd advise investing in platinum and small-cap funds. And your lucky numbers this week are 2, 13--" "Not those questions!" Menshikov snapped.

But now it's kind of a given that a 15-year-old would have a record deal and sell a quarter of a million records. No one's expecting her to answer any deep theological questions. And I'll tell you, I was asked some deep theological questions from the git-go.

The real questions refuse to be placated. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.

I think many people in the church are probably concerned that they can't answer all the questions that might come up. I am sure this affects people by playing on their doubts - especially if they have their own questions that they are wrestling with.

There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. 'How much do you love me?' And, 'Who's in charge?' Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief, and suffering.

The two critical questions to ask are: "Who is my customer?" and "What value am I adding?" Unfortunately, many workers cannot answer these questions. They tend to blindly do things, and develop bad habits of doing things over and over for no good reasons.

There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.

We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up questions.

Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.

I have always been really picky about the films that I make, because I think that there's such an incredible opportunity to bring up questions when you're making movies, and some of my favorite films bring up big questions. They are movies that, when you walk away from it, it hits you as something deeper, and it's a great, fun way to be able to bounce around some of these harder concepts in our heads.

What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn't it because you're young, because you haven't had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn't it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me.

No space, no time, no gravity, no electromagnetism, no particles. Nothing. We are back where Plato, Aristotle and Parmenides struggled with the great questions: How Come the Universe, How Come Us, How Come Anything? But happily also we have around the answer to these questions. That's us.

Sometimes questions are more important than answers.

Normally my process is to sit in a room and read a script and talk about it and ask questions and just create a dialogue. That goes all the way through shooting. All kinds of thoughts and ideas can find their way in there. As long as you're all on - We're just all trying to tell the story so my job as a director is just to find out what this film wants to be based on, it's just words on a page at some point but then it just needs to go to some level of believable storytelling. I'm discovering the film as I make it, to some degree.

He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.

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.

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn't disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.

The questions of today's average young person, who is the product of America's intellectual bastions, have been virtually unaddressed by the church.

I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more.

Many of us knock on the door but remain outside, because knocking and entering are entirely different actions. Knocking is necessary, consisting of reading books, attending meetings, asking questions. But entrance requires much bolder action. It requires one to enter into himself, to uncover hidden motives, to see contradictions, and to realize his actual power for self-change.

Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent," said Miss Susan. "But answers do.

I believe, that empirically informed approaches to the question have issued in more illuminating answers than the old armchair approaches. But I think that it would be a terrible mistake to give up on addressing normative questions in epistemology.

Barely awake and already starting in with the questions.You were alot easier to take when you were sleeping." - Rio to Dylan

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.

Write down your barrier thoughts, and then consider ways to reinterpret the situation. In the process, ask yourself questions like... What else could this situation or experience mean? Can anything good come from it? Does it present any opportunities for me? What lessons can I learn and apply to the future? Did I develop any strengths as a result?

It is one thing for the institution to offer space for serious engagement, in thought and action, and to encourage free and independent use of such opportunities; it is something else for the university to become engaged as an institution, beyond a fairly narrow range where true consensus exists, and even that raises questions.