questioning quotes

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

The next time someone tells you we can trim the budget by cutting aid, I hope you will ask whether it will come at the cost of more people dying.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

If you are giving a graduate course you don’t try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

It’s a very good question, very direct, and I’m not going to answer it.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act.

With tech companies, whoever’s the leader is always questioned, you know. They say, ‚Is this the end of them?‘ And – there’s more – more times people think that’s the case than it really is the case.

When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

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.

To the dumb question, ‚Why me?‘ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, ‚Why not?‘

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

I’m honest enough to say I don’t know everything. You know, I don’t. I don’t understand all of God. I don’t understand, you know, some kind of why bad things happen.

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‚Why?‘ ceaselessly.

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

When I was younger, I was testing myself and questioning everything, but now it’s less about that and more about these are the years of my life with my family.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‚Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.‘ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‚Why god? Why me?‘ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‚There’s just something about you that pisses me off.‘

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‚how‘ and ‚why‘ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.