Question Quotes: Thought-Provoking Reflections on Inquiry and Curiosity

"Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are"

"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing"

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question"

Charles Babbage, Mathematician

"The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?""

Jeremy Bentham, Philosopher

"Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness"

George Bernard Shaw, Dramatist

"Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself"

Patrick McGoohan, Actor

"Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth"

Natalie Clifford Barney, Author

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

Francis Bacon, Philosopher

"Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise"

John Tukey, Scientist

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

Albert Einstein, Physicist

"The power to question is the basis of all human progress"

Indira Gandhi, Statesman

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?"

Thomas Jefferson, President

"There are no right answers to wrong questions"

Ursula K. Le Guin, Writer

"The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions"

Susan Sontag, Author

"The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions"

Claude Levi-Strauss, Scientist

"Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything"

Ernest Gaines, Writer

"A prudent question is one-half of wisdom"

Francis Bacon, Philosopher

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question"

Eugene Ionesco, Dramatist

"We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it"

Rick Wright, Musician

"Don't tell your friends about your indigestion. "How are you" is a greeting, not a question"

Arthur Guiterman, Comedian

"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion"

Voltaire, Writer

"In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us"

Dag Hammarskjold, Diplomat

"The question isn't at what age I want to retire, it's at what income"

George Foreman, Athlete

"Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new"

Og Mandino, Author

"The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man"

David Hilbert, Mathematician

"Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us"

Angela Carter, Novelist

"You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer 'yes' without having asked any clear question"

Albert Camus, Philosopher

"A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve"

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Poet

"The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best"

Thomas Sowell, Economist

"Non-technical questions sometimes don't have an answer at all"

Linus Torvalds, Businessman

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim"

Edsger Dijkstra, Scientist

"A wise man's question contains half the answer"

Solomon Ibn Gabriol, Poet

"Never answer a question from a farmer"

Hubert H. Humphrey, Politician

"There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one"

Alexis de Tocqueville, Historian

"You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else"

Bono, Musician

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it"

George W. Bush, President

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers"

James Thurber, Comedian

"With the question of the effect of a poem, the topic of investigation shifts from that of textual autonomy to textual reception - to the issue of what we actually look for or find in reading a poem"

Thomas Harrison

"On the one hand, the financial projection is on the agenda - we will see if this problem can be resolved or not. I think it is a right idea to stage a special summit, which would deal with the question of priorities of European politics"

Angela Merkel, Statesman

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