quotations about questions
Why are things beautiful? I don't know. That's a good question. Isn't it pleasing when you ask a question of a person, a teacher, or a speaker, and he or she says, That's a good question? Don't you feel good when that happens?
NICHOLSON BAKER
A Box of Matches
There are some questions that shouldn't be asked until a person is mature enough to appreciate the answers.
ANNE BISHOP
Daughter of the Blood
Where the question is a jest, the fittest answer is a scoff.
ARCHIMEDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Never surrender a good question for a mere answer.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Living by Questions", Oprah
Why ... did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions -- not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
The answer is a mirror of the question.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Butlerian Jihad
For a long time I was timid in the presence in learning, and I fancied that the insufficiency of the answers which I received was not its fault, but was owing to my own gross ignorance, but this thing was not a joke or a pastime with me, but the business of my life, and I was at last forced, willy-nilly, to the conclusion that these questions of mine were the only legitimate questions underlying all knowledge, and that it was not I that was in fault in putting them, but science in pretending to have an answer for them.
LEO TOLSTOY
A Confession
Everything in this world can volunteer some reply, what takes up time is posing the questions.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda
A man becomes learned by asking questions.
AHMED VESIK
attributed, Day's Collacon
No one has the answer: we are answer and question.
R. D. LAING
The Politics of Family and Other Essays
Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to whack you with a stick until delicious candy surprises fall out?
MOLLY HARPER
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
Questions are often more effective than statements in moving others. Or to put it more appropriately, since the research shows that when the facts are on your side, questions are more persuasive than statements, don't you think you should be pitching with questions?
DANIEL H. PINK
attributed, The Future of Strategy
An able man is not ashamed to put questions both to the humble and the wise.
TSHANG
attributed, Day's Collacon
The ignorant start questions which have been already answered thousands of years ago by the wise.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
attributed, Reader's Digest, Volume 37, 1940
To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.
ANNE RICE
The Vampire Lestat
To a man full of questions make no answer at all.
PLATO
attributed, Day's Collacon
When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it.
JOHN LOCKE
First Treatise of Government
The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
INDIRA GANDHI
attributed, Misbehave: Speak Truth to Power