Top 100 Quotes About Inquiry
#1. The length of life takes the leading place among inquiries about events following birth.
Ptolemy
#2. And today more than ever, knowing about that society involves first of all choosing what approach the inquiry will take, and that necessarily means choosing how society can answer.
Jean-Francois Lyotard
#3. Make knowledge of the Scripture your love ... Live with them, meditate on them, make them the sole object of your knowledge and inquiries.
St. Jerome
#4. When inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learned without experiencing it.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#5. My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.
Horace
#6. Out-of-whack emotions are always a good beginning point for identifying beliefs that aren't really true, an easy red flag for our inquiry. Exaggerated emotions of anxiety or discouragement invite us to trace them back to the thoughts that are creating them.
Virginia H. Pearce
#7. Asking the questions - that's what changes lives. Every cell in your body is awake with inquiry. And you cannot believe the old thoughts again.
Byron Katie
#8. Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not landscape painting be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but the experiments?
John Constable
#9. To put an end to the spirit of inquiry that has characterized the West it is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is to leave them unread for a few generations.
Robert Maynard Hutchins
#10. Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#12. To deny the existence of a God and more specifically the Creator God of Christianity is not based upon a philosophical issue, but rather a moral one.
R. Alan Woods
#13. Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.
Michael Shermer
#14. Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce ...
David Ricardo
#15. The words "question" and "quest" are cognates. Only through inquiry can we discover truth.
Carl Sagan
#16. In an honest effort to gain understanding, asking questions do not, necessarily, imply a conclusion has been determined. They can be used to avoid making the wrong judgement. If building trust is the ultimate goal - there is no need to be defensive, or feel threatened by any inquiry.
T.F. Hodge
#17. Seeking is a necessary preliminary to finding, and one who cannot endure the hardship of inquiry cannot expect to harvest the fruit of knowledge.
John Of Salisbury
#18. Every single phenomenon in the world, has a physical explanation underneath it. Finding the explanation depends on how far you are willing to go.
Abhijit Naskar
#19. How did we let an ideological resistance to inquiry become such a prominent part of our society?
Bill Nye
#20. Scientific objectivity is not the absence of initial bias. It is attained by frank confession of it.
Mortimer J. Adler
#21. In questions of law or of fact conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man; they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry.
Samuel Johnson
#22. Over the meeting of the lovers I draw a veil. The burst of rapture with which they clasped each other in a wild embrace
the many inquiries
the fond regrets and thrilling hopes
it is out of my power to convey. Let me, therefore, leave them to their happiness.
George Henry Lewes
#23. If all with doubts about the factual basis of their religion will but commit to their resolution through direct and unfettered inquiry, our country - and with it the world - will see a rebirth of Liberty,
Thomas Paine
#24. The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#25. You asked me questions nobody ever asked me before. You knew that I was a murderer two times over, but you treated me like a man ...
Richard Wright
#26. I use the word inquiry as synonymous with The Work ... Inquiry is a way to end confusion and to experience internal peace, even in a world of apparent chaos. Above all else, inquiry is about realizing that all the answers we ever need are always available inside us.
Byron Katie
#27. College campuses have become fascist colonies of anti-American hate speech, hypersensitivity, speech codes, banded words and prohibited scientific inquiry.
Ann Coulter
#28. . . . the abandonment of metaphysics involves more than the redefinition of the nature of rational inquiry in accordance with the tenets of modern scientific methodology; this redefinition itself makes matters of value and validity mere matters of opinion.
Alan White
#29. In 1995, the Paul Keating Labor government commissioned an inquiry into the forcible removal of Aboriginal children.
Richard Flanagan
#30. A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives - "NOBODY TO BLAME.
Mark Twain
#32. It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires.
Ruth Ozeki
#33. Time and again, we have found the 'idle' truths arrived at through the process of inquiry to be of the greatest moment for practical human affairs.
Herbert A. Simon
#34. I appear as a skeptic, who believes that doubt is the great engine, the great fuel of all inquiry, all discovery and all innovation.
Christopher Hitchens
#35. It is essential to the pure and peaceful administration of justice that all its officers keep carefully within the boundaries of their constitutional powers. Auxiliary to this, but not secondary in importance, is a due knowledge of the leading subjects for their inquiry and decision.
Levi Woodbury
#36. Supernatural explanations always mean the end of inquiry: that's the way God wants it, end of story. Science, on the other hand, is never satisfied: our studies of the universe will continue until humans go extinct.
Jerry A. Coyne
#37. Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry?
Noam Chomsky
#38. In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.
Marcus Aurelius
#39. If the student truly absorbs the concept of free inquiry in the field of music, unimpeded by blind adherence to doctrine and tradition, he will bring something of this approach not only to other fields of knowledge but to the conduct of his daily life,
William Howard Schuman
#40. Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.
Herodotus
#41. A quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought.
Karl Barth
#43. Memorizing and regurgitating are not science. Real science is a constant investigation of the unknown.
Abhijit Naskar
#45. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody's religious beliefs -including my own- on nonbelievers.
Barack Obama
#46. The whole thrust of yogic philosophical and scientific inquiry has therefore been to examine the nature of being, with a view to learning to respond to the stresses of life without so many tremors and troubles.
B.K.S. Iyengar
#47. Who now would thrust enquiry on / Beyond necessity of desire?
Geoffrey Hill
#48. As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#49. Sister," he murmured, not as an inquiry, but a statement of fact. "Brother mine," she groaned ... before her consciousness slipped from her grasp and she drifted away. But she would come back to him. One way or the other, she would not leave her twin ever again.
J.R. Ward
#50. There is no permanence in doubt; it incites the mind to closer inquiry and experiment, from which, if rightly managed, certainty proceeds, and in this alone can man find thorough satisfaction.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#51. Free scientific inquiry? The first adjective is redundant.
Ayn Rand
#52. There is no way to help a learner to be disciplined, active, and thoroughly engaged unless he perceives a problem to be a problem or whatever is to-be-learned as worth learning, and unless he plays an active role in determining the process of solution.
Neil Postman
#53. The investigation of consciousness has come to be regarded suspiciously by most smart people and by most scientists. That's a legacy that began with the Inquisition, which considered non-Christian spiritual inquiry as blasphemous.
David O. Russell
#54. If you get in a battle with someone, you don't get their power if you win. Power is something that you have to acquire yourself, through self-inquiry and the practice of meditation.
Frederick Lenz
#55. The idea of death robs inquiry of its passionate vitality and empties our efforts of their purpose by coming to one predestined conclusion, death. Why inquire if you already know the answer?
James Hillman
#56. Faith is a personal matter, and should never be a cudgel to stifle inquiry. We tried that approach about 1,200 years ago. The experiment was called the Dark Ages.
Seth Shostak
#57. An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive.
John Barton
#58. When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings. You may even experience them as friends coming to show you what you have not yet investigated thoroughly enough.
Byron Katie
#59. Science and policy-making thrive on challenge and questioning; they are vital to the health of inquiry and democracy.
Nicholas Stern
#60. Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
Haruki Murakami
#61. By doubting we come to inquiry. By inquiry we come to Truth.
Peter Abelard
#62. The best defense to inquiry was semi-coherent rants and accusations.
Sam Sykes
#63. As a writer of philosophy, it's good to ask oneself, 'Will I still believe this a week from now, or months, or even years?
Criss Jami
#64. Effective Peer Coaches emphasize inquiry over advocacy. Too much advocacy can produce learned helplessness. Inquiry builds capacity to improve teaching and learning by helping teachers to be more effective at designing and implementing learning activities that meet the needs of their students.
Lester Joseph Foltos
#65. Communication and Connection Skillful Self-Expression What Do We Want? The Culture of Disparagement Appreciative Inquiry Gossip Paying Attention The Realm of Email Teamwork The Ripple Effect
Sharon Salzberg
#66. Liberal education intertwines the philosophical and rhetorical so that we learn how to learn, so that we continue both inquiry and cultural participation throughout our lives because learning has become part of who we are.
Michael S. Roth
#67. When we can step back even briefly from our hurt, sorrow, and anger, when we put our faith in the possibility of change, we create the possibility for non-judgmental inquiry that aims for healing rather than victory.
Sharon Salzberg
#68. For a very long time science and philosophy were considered part of the same continuum and it was only within the last few hundred years they've been considered different areas of inquiry, and now we're starting to go back to the idea that maybe they aren't two separate realms of inquiry.
Brad Warner
#69. If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt, if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius; and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated.
Walter Savage Landor
#70. They have shrunk from inquiry, though they have strained after punishment. I have in every shape dared the one, that I might, so far as lay in my power, be able to secure the other.
Joseph Howe
#71. The practice of deep listening is the practice of open inquiry, without assumption or judgement.
Sharon Weil
#72. Through my own observations. I am convinced that an absolutely honest and direct inquiry into oneself will lead to understanding.
Bruce Lee
#73. I thought of muses as inventions to protect one's insight, to avoid questions like "Where do your ideas come from?" Or to escape inquiry into the fuzzy area between autobiography and fiction.
Toni Morrison
#74. A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
Isaac Asimov
#75. The Mode of circular reasoning is the form used when the proof itself which ought to establish the matter of inquiry requires confirmation derived from the matter; in this case, being unable to assume either in order to establish the other, we suspend judgement about both.
Sextus Empiricus
#76. I am a plain person. I have merely spoken out my mind. I do not say you should believe what I have said because it alone is certain. Accept such ideas as can be accepted, with the help of your reason, after a sound inquiry. Reject the rest.
Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
#77. So, it comes to pass that, when we pursue an inquiry beyond a certain depth, we step out of the field of psychological categories and enter the sphere of the ultimate mysteries of life. The floorboards of the soul, to which we try to penetrate, fan open and reveal the starry firmament.
Bruno Schulz
#78. When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection.
Peter Hans Kolvenbach
#79. Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them ...
Benjamin Rush
#80. That is a pathetic inquiry among travelers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they think it is.When a thing is decayed and gone, how indistinct must be the place it occupied!
Henry David Thoreau
#81. It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of teaching have not yet entirely strangled that sacred spirit of curiosity and inquiry, for this delicate plant needs freedom no less than stimulation.
Albert Einstein
#82. The world still awaits a proper inquiry into climategate: one that is not stacked with global warming advocates and one that is prepared to cross-examine evidence, interview critics as well as supporters of the CRU and other IPCC players, and follow the evidence where it clearly leads.
Ross McKitrick
#83. Skepticism literally means a thoughtful inquiry, the looking at a problem in a disinterested spirit, the surveying of a question from many sides. In this sense it is the very essence of philosophy and science.
Joseph Alexander Leighton
#84. The faults of a brilliant writer are never dangerous on the long run; a thousand people read his work who would read no other; inquiry is directed to each of his doctrines; it is soon discovered what is sound and what is false; the sound become maxims, and the false beacons.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#85. We might begin by scanning our body ... and then asking, "What is happening?" We might also ask, "What wants my attention right now?" or, "What is asking for acceptance?
Tara Brach
#86. The greatest inventions are those inquiries which tend to increase the power of man over matter.
Benjamin Franklin
#87. Literature is an inquiry into the deepest yearnings of the human spirit.
Ernest L. Boyer
#88. The questions that are beyond the reach of economics-the beauty, dignity, pleasure and durability of life-may be inconvenient but they are important.
John Kenneth Galbraith
#89. From the physician, as emphatically the student of Nature, is expected not only an inquiry into cause, but an investigation of the whole empire of Nature and a determination of the applicability of every species of knowledge to the improvement of his art.
John Gorrie
#91. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.
Carl Sagan
#92. If you tell somebody something, you've forever robbed them of the opportunity to discover it for themselves.
Curt Gabrielson
#93. I shall endeavour still further to prosecute this inquiry, an inquiry I trust not merely speculative, but of sufficient moment to inspire the pleasing hope of its becoming essentially beneficial to mankind.
Edward Jenner
#94. Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.
Paul Kurtz
#95. By our pontifical assertions, our superior impatience, and our casual brushing aside of their curiosity, we do not encourage their inquiry, for we are rather apprehensive of what may be asked of us; we do not foster their discontent, for we ourselves have ceased to question.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#96. Ethical inquiry has always been motivated by the aim of improving human conduct. It doesn't follow from that that the goal is to produce a complete rule book that would be applicable to all cases.
Philip Kitcher
#97. David Corbett's The Art of Character offers a deep inquiry into the creation of character for the novice writer, with valuable nuggets of wisdom for the seasoned storyteller. If you are a writer, it should be on your desk.
Jacqueline Winspear
#98. Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellow-men.
Plato
#99. That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.
Joseph Glanvill
#100. Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth
C.S. Lewis
