Inquiring Quotes

Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes - love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust. ~ Leo Tolstoy

You're either attaching to your thoughts or inquiring. There's no other choice. ~ Byron Katie

Hey, Lou?" he hums, casual as anything.

"Hm?"

"Wanna hear my poem?"

Oh dear god. Seriously?

Gritting his teeth to keep from laughing or grinning or falling over his own two feet, Louis arches an inquiring eyebrow, turning to meet Harry's stare. Of course, the bastard is grinning, proud and loud and pleased.

Harry blinks, slow enough that Louis briefly wonders if the planet's begun to rotate slower, has maybe begun to rotate backwards, even. "It goes, 'He likes me, too. ~ Velvetoscar

Love was not pleased at first sight.
In fact, she only pointed at her shattered pieces
scattered upon the floor.
Inquiring, would I be willing to fight,
once for evermore! ~ Delano Johnson

The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,
artoosoq',
and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena, he said that his "folks" sometimes saw fires passing along at various heights, even as high as the trees, and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena, witnessed by "his folks"; they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us. ~ Henry David Thoreau

As became a young sinner, Sam [Mark Twain] had a special interest in Satan. He asked his Sunday school teacher questions about Eve in the garden, wondering "if he had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpent, would not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber." Twain recalled, "He did not answer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my age and comprehension. ~ Fred Kaplan

Said by Maltcassion the Dragon:
"Humans," he scoffed. "Always so inquiring about stuff. Never satisfied with the status quo. It will be your downfall, but oddly enough, it´s also one of your more endearing features."
"Do we have any otheres?"
"Oy yes, plenty. ~ Jasper Fforde

Is God really real?"This is a perennial question for the philosophy of religion. Fortunately, the Pythons have answers to it. Perhaps too many answers. If we asked Arthur, King of the Britons, he would certainly testify that God exists, speaks English, and can't stand people groveling, averting their eyes, ceaselessly apologizing, and deeming themselves unworthy. Yet when we begin inquiring into Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, "there is some doubt" about whether God is really real, or, to put it more philosophically, there is doubt over whether God's existence can be established through a valid argument. There is a long philosophical tradition of constructing rational arguments for the existence and attributes of God, and an equally long skeptical tradition of deconstructing those same arguments. The Pythons have been exemplary participants in the latter tradition, either through parody, or by echoing in a funnier and more succinct way the skeptical arguments of such philosophical predecessors as Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). ~ George A. Reisch

A PRAYER FOR SUCCESS "Then he prayed, 'O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.'" GENESIS 24:12 HEAVENLY FATHER, I pray for success in all I do. Guide me in everything. Show me where I have proceeded with something without first inquiring of You. Enable me to understand Your measure of success and not try to impose my own. My goal is to serve You, knowing that any success I have will be achieved only by walking perfectly in Your will. Only if success comes from You can it be enjoyed. ~ Stormie O'martian

He slept once again in the small tent by his side, even though he thought Temeraire was well over his distress, and was rewarded in the morning by being woken early, Temeraire peering into the tent with one great eye and inquiring if perhaps Laurence would like to go to Dover and arrange for the concert today.
"I would like to sleep until a civilized hour, but as that is evidently not to be, perhaps I will ask leave of Lenton to go," Laurence said, yawning as he crawled from the tent. "May I have my breakfast first?"
"Oh, certainly," Temeraire said, with an air of generosity. ~ Naomi Novik

Of course God went after Jonah, inquiring gently, "Do you do well to be angry?"10 However, insane from isolation, Jonah answers remarkably, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die."11 Wow! ~ James MacDonald

But the real cause was, that the people, in electing their representatives to the grand council, were particular in choosing them for their talents at talking, without inquiring whether they possessed the more rare, difficult, and oft-times important talent of holding their tongues. The consequence was, that this deliberative body was composed of the most loquacious men in the community. As they considered themselves placed there to talk, every man concluded that his duty to his constituents, and, what is more, his popularity with them, required that he should harangue on every subject, whether he understood it or not. There was an ancient mode of burying a chieftain, by every soldier throwing his shield full of earth on the corpse, until a mighty mound was formed; so, whenever a question was brought forward in this assembly, every member pressing forward to throw on his quantum of wisdom, the subject was quickly buried under a mountain of words. ~ Washington Irving

No generality has any weight whatever. It is like saying "how do you do?" When you have no intention of inquiring about ones health. But specific claims when made in print are taken at their value ~ Claude C. Hopkins

And from that time on the boys were no longer called Elder and Younger, but they were given school names by the old teacher, and this old man, after inquiring into the occupation of their father, erected two names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Of course, [Miss Climpson,] you mustn't appear to be inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the neighborhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must pretend to be gossipy yourself – it's not in your nature, I know, but I'm sure you can make a little pretence about it – and find out all you can. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The king sent word, at odd intervals, inquiring as to Meralda's progress. She would scrawl hasty replies in return, often suppressing the impulse to add notes such as "Abandoning spellwork to continue this fascinating correspondence," or "Slept late, long breakfast, taking the day off for a stroll in the park. ~ Frank Tuttle

Affairs which look small or absurd to a full-grown man may loom up as big as a
mountain to a child; and you shouldn't allow a fact that you saw a thing 'so much that I am sick of it,' to turn you away from an inquiring child. You wasn't sick of it, on that far-past day on which you first saw it. ~ Ernest Vincent Wright

Morandi gave an intimate view of his deepest thoughts. We watched him inquiring after the devilish questions of essences and substances. ~ Wayne Thiebaud

More and more, as I think about history, I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. ~ Sinclair Lewis

The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery. ~ William Kingdon Clifford

Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them, "Either I am much deceived,
or by your cheerful and pleasant countenances, you are engaged in no very deep discourse." To which one of them, Heracleon the Megarean, replied: " 'Tis for such as are puzzled about inquiring whether the future tense of the verb Ballo be spelt with a
double L, or that hunt after the derivation of the comparatives Cheirou and Beltiou, and the superlatives Cheiriotou and Beliotou, to knit their brows whilst discoursing of their science; but as to philosophical discourses, they always divert and cheer up those that entertain them, and never deject them or make them sad. ~ Michel De Montaigne

If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there. ~ Henry David Thoreau

But it so happens that everything on this planet is, ultimately, irrational; there is not, and cannot be, any reason for the causal connexion of things, if only because our use of the word "reason" already implies the idea of causal connexion. But, even if we avoid this fundamental difficulty, Hume said that causal connexion was not merely unprovable, but unthinkable; and, in shallower waters still, one cannot assign a true reason why water should flow down hill, or sugar taste sweet in the mouth. Attempts to explain these simple matters always progress into a learned lucidity, and on further analysis retire to a remote stronghold where every thing is irrational and unthinkable.

If you cut off a man's head, he dies. Why? Because it kills him. That is really the whole answer. Learned excursions into anatomy and physiology only beg the question; it does not explain why the heart is necessary to life to say that it is a vital organ. Yet that is exactly what is done, the trick that is played on every inquiring mind. Why cannot I see in the dark? Because light is necessary to sight. No confusion of that issue by talk of rods and cones, and optical centres, and foci, and lenses, and vibrations is very different to Edwin Arthwait's treatment of the long-suffering English language.

Knowledge is really confined to experience. The laws of Nature are, as Kant said, the laws of our minds, and, as Huxley said, the generalization of observed facts.

It is, t ~ Aleister Crowley

One's longing is not so much there for sense-gratification, profit and self-preservation, instead one's karma is there for no other purpose than inquiring after the Absolute Truth. ~ Ramesh Menon

If all our political and intellectual elite offers by way of a national culture is "pop music, gambling, fashionable clothes or television," then we can neither mount a convincing intellectual defense against our enemies, nor hope to integrate intelligent, inquiring, and unfulfilled Muslim youths young men principally, of course to our way of life. ~ Anthony Daniels

Not to worry, Phillip," Father O'Toole said. "I was just inquiring as to what authority they - " He stopped abruptly, jumping forward as the wall phone came unhinged behind him, dangling by a corner screw.
"Huh," Gil pondered. "Look at that."
"What happened?" Father O'Toole asked.
"The phone fell," Gil answered.
"Well, naturally! I'm not blind, young man. I'm asking how the phone fell!"
"I blame gravity," Gil offered. (Excerpt from Whisper of Light) ~ Jennifer DeLucy

Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

As long as man remains an inquiring animal, there can never be a complete unanimity in our fundamental beliefs. The more diverse our paths, the greater is likely to be the divergence of beliefs. ~ Arthur Keith

The police have enough work to keep them busy regulating automobile traffic, preventing robberies and crimes of violence and helping lost children and little old ladies find their way home. As long as the police confine themselves to such activities they are respected friends of the public. But as soon as they begin inquiring into people's private morals, they become nothing more than armed clergymen. ~ Alan Watts

A curious mind enjoys inquiring, experimenting and discovering. ~ Pearl Zhu

You're quite right," said MacMaster. "You're putting your finger on the thing that matters. If you think it over, you know, that's always the interesting part of any murder. What the person was like who was murdered. Everybody's always so busy inquiring into the mind of the murderer. You've been thinking, probably, that Mrs. Argyle was the sort of woman who shouldn't have been murdered." "I should imagine that everyone felt that." "Ethically," said MacMaster, "you're quite right. But you know" - he rubbed his nose - "isn't it the Chinese who held that beneficence is to be accounted a sin rather than a virtue? They've got something there, you know. Beneficence does things to people. Ties 'em up in knots. We all know what human nature's like. Do a chap a good turn and you feel kindly towards him. You like him. But the chap who's had the good turn done to him, does he feel so kindly to ~ Agatha Christie

Certainly, the poverty, the discrimination, the episodic unemployment could not but strike an inquiring youngster: why did these exist, and what could we do about them. ~ Joseph Stiglitz

For we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use ~ Aristotle.

Make no man your friend before inquiring how he has used his former friends; for you must expect him to treat you as he has treated them. Be slow to give your friendship, but when you have given it, strive to make it lasting; for it is as reprehensible to make many changes in one's associates as to have no friends at all. Neither test your friends to your own injury nor be willing to forego a test of your companions. ~ Isocrates

There is no place in the world, I imagine, for a philosopher with a sense of humor, a new leisure, and an inquiring turn of mind! ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart

Doubt wisely; in strange way
To stand inquiring right, is not to stray;
To sleep, or run wrong, is. ~ John Donne

The suspect nature of these stories can be seen in the anecdote Jefferson told of Hamilton visiting his lodging in 1792 and inquiring about three portraits on the wall. "They are my trinity of the three greatest men the world has ever produced," Jefferson replied: "Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and John Locke." Hamilton supposedly replied, "The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Casar. ~ Ron Chernow

Religion is a valid inquiry; whether society accepts it or rejects it, it doesn't matter. Man is a religious animal and is going to remain that way. Religion is something natural. To ask from where you come is relevant; to ask, 'Who am I?' is going to remain relevant always. But the modern mind has created a climate of atheism so you cannot ask such questions. If you ask, people laugh. If you talk about such things, people feel bored If you start inquiring in these ways, people think you are slipping out of your sanity. Religion is no longer a welcome inquiry. ~ Rajneesh

Beth pulled herself away from Ian and walked forward, sticking out her hand. "I'm very well, thank you so much for inquiring. The journey was tiring but uneventful, no problems on the lines, and no Fenian bombs at any of the stations."
Hart shot Ian a scowl.
"She is fond of jokes," Ian said.
"Is she?" Hart answered, his voice cool.
"I am also fond of chocolate, and of raspberry fool." Beth curled her ignored hand at her side. "At the moment I'd be fond of a cool drink of water and a soft bed."
Hart spoke directly to her for a change. "I don't recall sending for you, Mrs. Ackerley. You'd even now be reclining on a soft bed if you'd gone upstairs with the maid."
Beth's heart hammered. "The only person I ever allowed to send for me, Your Grace, was Mrs. Barrington, and that was because she paid me wages."
Hart's brows drew fiercely together, and Ian said, "Leave her be, Hart. ~ Jennifer Ashley

Mrs Cake? What is a Mrs Cake?"
"You have ... ghastly Things from the Dungeon Dimensions and things, yes? Terrible hazards of your ungodly profession?" said the Chief Priest.
"Yes."
"We have someone called Mrs Cake."
Ridcully gave him an inquiring look.
"Don't ask," said the priest, shuddering. "Just be grateful you'll never have to find out. ~ Terry Pratchett

Science is always inquiring. ~ Thabo Mbeki

We should not go to the [poor countries] and say: 'We come to ... teach you our science, to show you your errors.' ... We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn [from] these people. ~ Che Guevara

Because of the womb being a central phenomenon in the feminine body, the whole psychology of woman differs: she is non-aggressive, non-inquiring, non-questioning, non-doubting, because all of those things are part of aggression. She will not take the initiative; she simply waits - and she can wait infinitely. ~ Rajneesh

I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever. ~ Sinclair Lewis

It had not occurred to anybody in the crowd - that simple trick of inquiring about somebody who wasn't ten thousand miles away. The magician was hit hard; it was an emergency that had never happened in his experience before, and it corked him; he didn't know how to meet it. ~ Mark Twain

A little-recognized value of listening and inquiring relates to the realization that in human relationships, it is frequently not what the I've learned ... that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation. ~ Andy Rooney

I examined every detail under a magnifying glass without once finding the slightest clue. And in doing so I always felt the piercing inquiring gaze of the page boy who had come to demand his dues, who was waiting in the gray light of dawn on the empty field for me to accept the challenge and avert the misfortune lying ahead of him. ~ W.G. Sebald

I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college. ~ Maajid Nawaz

He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!'
'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.'
'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain. ~ Emily Bronte

But I don't know how to capture what takes place except by living each thing that now and at the instant happens to me and it's not important what. I let the horse gallop free, fiery from pure, noble joy. I, who run nervously and only reality delimits me. And when the day comes to an end I hear the crickets and I become full of thousands of tiny, clamouring birds. And each thing that happens to me I live here, taking note of it. Because I want to feel in my inquiring hands the living and trembling of what is today. ~ Clarice Lispector

Children share with geniuses an open, inquiring, uninhibited quality of mind. ~ Chauncey Guy Suits

The most important thing I think teachers can do for young people is to make them inquiring, is to ensure that they know how to gather information, that they check information and they take their information from a multiplicity of sources. ~ David Puttnam

Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start. Inquiring about a difference is like asking to borrow string when you've got a good strong rope. Every Dharma is known in the heart. ~ Hsu Yun

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident and removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long. ~ Edward Gibbon

The proper management of one's feelings clearly lies along a complex (and therefore not simple or easy) balanced middle path, requiring constant judgment and continuing adjustment. Here the owner treats his feelings (slaves) with respect, nurturing them with good food, shelter and medical care, listening and responding to their voices, encouraging them, inquiring as to their health, yet also organizing them, limiting them, deciding clearly between them, redirecting them and teaching them, all the while leaving no doubt as to who is the boss. This is the path of healthy self-discipline. ~ M. Scott Peck

For if "Free-will" cannot of itself will good, but wills good by grace alone, (for we are speaking of "Free-will" apart from grace and inquiring into the power which properly belongs to each) who does not see, that that good will, merit, and reward, belong to grace alone. ~ Martin Luther

There were twenty-three females on the Keltar estate--not counting Gwen, Chloe, herself, or the cat--Gabby knew, because shortly after Adam had become visible last night, she'd met each and every one, from tiniest tot to tottering ancient.
It had begun with a plump, thirtyish maid popping in to pull the drapes for the evening and inquire if the MacKeltars "were wishing aught else?" The moment her bespectacled gaze had fallen on Adam, she'd begun stammering and tripping over her own feet. It had taken her a few moments to regain a semblance of coordination, but she'd managed to stumble from the library, nearly upsetting a lamp and a small end table in her haste.
Apparently it had been haste to alert the forces, for a veritable parade had ensued: a blushing curvaceous maid had come offering a warm-up of tear (they'd not been having any), followed by a giggling maid seeking a forgotten dust cloth (which--was anyone surprised?--was nowhere to be found), then a third one looking for a waylaid broom (yeah, right--they swept castles at midnight in Scotland--who believed that?), then a fourth, fifth, and sixth inquiring if the Crystal Chamber would do for Mr. Black (no one seemed to care what chamber might do for her; she half-expected to end up in an outbuilding somewhere). A seventh, eighth, and ninth had come to announce that his chamber was ready would he like an escort? A bath drawn? Help undressing? (Well, okay, maybe they hadn't actually asked the last, but their e ~ Karen Marie Moning

A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. ~ John Stuart Mill

I knew that the languages which one learns there are necessary to understand the works of the ancients; and that the delicacy of fiction enlivens the mind; that famous deeds of history ennoble it and, if read with understanding, aid in maturing one's judgment; that the reading of all the great books is like conversing with the best people of earlier times; it is even studied conversation in which the authors show us only the best of their thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable powers and beauties; that poetry has enchanting delicacy and sweetness; that mathematics has very subtle processes which can serve as much to satisfy the inquiring mind as to aid all the arts and diminish man's labor; that treatises on morals contain very useful teachings and exhortations to virtue; that theology teaches us how to go to heaven; that philosophy teaches us to talk with appearance of truth about things, and to make ourselves admired by the less learned; that law, medicine, and the other sciences bring honors and wealth to those who pursue them; and finally, that it is desirable to have examined all of them, even to the most superstitious and false in order to recognize their real worth and avoid being deceived thereby ~ Rene Descartes

Why is there this everlasting craving to be loved?
Listen carefully. You want to be loved because you
do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring wether or not somebody loves you. As long as you demand to be loved, there is no love in you; and if you feel no love you are ugly, brutish, so why should you be loved? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

At dinner one night at Osborne House, the Queen entertained a famous admiral whose hearing was impaired. Politely, Victoria had asked about his fleet and its activities; then, shifting the subject, she asked about the admiral's sister, an elderly dowager of awesome dignity. The admiral thought she was inquiring about his flagship, which was in need of overhaul. "Well, ma'am," he said, "as soon as I get back I'm going to have her hauled out, roll her on her side and have the barnacles scraped off her bottom." Victoria stared at him for a second and then, for minutes afterward, the dining room shook with her unstoppable peals of laughter. ~ Robert K. Massie

If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know; and this is very difficult to do. You listen to something, and your mind immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its past memories. It listens, inquiring for a future understanding.

Just observe yourself, how you are listening, and you will see that this is what is taking place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer, and you are impatient. You want to know what it is all about, what life is all about, the extraordinary complexity of life. You are not actually listening at all.

You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn't react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then, in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding.

If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said, in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely, for a long period or for a few seconds - in that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. It is the interval that is the new brain. The immediate reaction is the old brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional, accepted, reactionary, animalistic sense.

When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is suspended, when there ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Assiduous and frequent questioning is indeed the first key to wisdom ... for by doubting we come to inquiry; through inquiring we perceive the truth ... ~ Pierre Abelard

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. ~ Bruce Lee

He wrote as a young man that God's noblest gift was the gift of an inquiring mind. ~ John Adams

The new and most powerful union of all will be a union of one one man, one woman, one worker with special skills, an inquiring mind, and an independent attitude, his creativity intact, his love of life blooming. The union of one will be peopled by one man or one woman who is alive . Such a person is always sought by the intelligent manager. ~ Gerry Spence

Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mate and their pack. Yet both have been hounded, harassed and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The great trouble with most men is that those who have been educated become uneducated just as soon as they stop inquiring and investigating life and its problems for themselves. ~ Newton D. Baker

Nisargadatta: You can have for the asking all the peace you want.

Questioner: I am asking.

Nisargadatta: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated life.

Questioner: How?

Nisargadatta: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.

Questioner: Surely everybody deserves peace

Nisargadatta: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.

Questioner: In what way do I disturb peace?

Nisargadatta: By being a slave to your desires and fears.

Questioner: Even when they are justified?

Nisargadatta: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are never justified.

Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace. ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

It is a glorious occupation, vivifying and self-sustaining in its nature, to struggle with ignorance, and discover to the inquiring minds of the masses the clear cerulean blue of heavenly truth. ~ Hosea Ballou

I wish you will tell me some of the things *you* have done!'

He looked up quickly from the dish he was serving, his eyes hardening. She met that searching stare with a little inquiring lift to her brows, and saw his lips curl into the sneer which had made her liken him to the *Corsair*. 'I think not,' he said dryly.

'I said *some* of the things you have done!' she exclaimed indignantly. 'You can't have spent your whole life getting into idiots scrapes!'

The ugly look vanished as he burst out laughing. 'Most of it, I assure you! ~ Georgette Heyer

According to the law of karma, souls reincarnate in environments befitting their spiritual attainments. Good people (even those who have veered from the spiritual path) go, when they die, to the heaven of those who do good deeds. They dwell there for a number of years and then take birth again, this time into a home that is pure and prosperous. A few of them will be born into a family that is spiritually advanced, but such births are difficult to obtain. When this happens, the good environment draws out their latent spirituality and leads them rapidly toward liberation.
The ones born into the pure and prosperous houses have the opportunity at first to enjoy the relatively tame desires they held in their former bodies. But as soon as those pleasures are done they feel irresistibly drawn to spirituality by the force of the good habits they strove for in the previous life.
Even those who showed only a faint interest, merely inquiring about spiritual matters, progress further than the ones who merely follow the rites and ceremonies of their belief systems unthinkingly, and thus stall their true spiritual advancement. ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Looking out the window of a large women's monastery after Divine Liturgy, my friend saw a few nuns walking toward the woods with satchels on their backs. Inquiring who they were, she was told they were ascetics who lived in the wilderness and had come to the monastery to attend Liturgy and to receive some food. Although we are much weaker in our times and far less ascetical than the early desert fathers and mothers, let it never be said that extreme Christian asceticism is extinct. Who knows how many St. Mary of Egypts are hidden in the wilderness? ~ Constantina R. Palmer

How was lunch?" she asked, watching, me bound up the stairs.
"The soup was excellent." I called over my shoulder, knowing she wasn't inquiring about the food. ~ Cayla Kluver

The Lord can only teach an inquiring mind. ~ Russell M. Nelson

A great literature is chiefly the product of inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation ~ H.L. Mencken

Again his dead wife came back to his imagination, but not as he had known her for many years, not as the good domestic housewife, but as a young girl with a slim figure, innocently inquiring eyes, and a tight twist of hair on her childish neck. He remembered how he had seen her for the first time. He was still a student then. He had met her on the staircase of his lodgings, and, jostling by accident against her, he tried to apologise, and could only mutter, 'Pardon, monsieur,' while she bowed, smiled, and suddenly seemed frightened, and ran away, though at the bend of the staircase she had glanced rapidly at him, assumed a serious air, and blushed. Afterwards, the first timid visits, the half-words, the half-smiles, and embarrassment; and melancholy, and yearnings, and at last that breathing rapture.... Where had it all vanished? She had been his wife, he had been happy as few on earth are happy.... 'But,' he mused, 'these sweet first moments, why could one not live an eternal, undying life in them? ~ Ivan Turgenev

In inquiring concerning the benefits of the plan proposed, I shall proceed upon the supposition that female seminaries will be patronized throughout our country. ~ Emma Willard

Teaching is not the mere imparting of knowledge but the cultivation of an inquiring mind. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The name 'Seventh-day Adventist' carries the true features of our faith in front and will convict the inquiring mind. Like an arrow from the Lord's quiver, it will wound the transgressors of God's law, and will lead to repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Ellen G. White

When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation ... when I consider all this ... I am silent. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments. ~ Isaac Newton

As Plato, the dangerous beguiler, said: the best philosophers in the world are boys with their beards new on their chins; I am a boy again. ~ Thornton Wilder

Brought up a Presbyterian, indoctrinated from the Catechism, and being naturally of an inquiring mind, I fell a ready prey to the logic of infidelity, as soon as I began to think for myself. But that which at first threatened to be the utter shipwreck of faith in God and the Bible was, under God's providence, over-ruled for good, and merely wrecked my confidence in human creed and systems of Bible misinterpretations. ~ Charles Taze Russell

She handed him the blankets and the ground sheet and he shook them out, then put them down under the trees. Angie got down on her knees and spread the ground sheet over the leaves, then the blankets.
'You never forget do you? I mean about seeing things first.'
'Hope I never.'
He was oddly uncomfortable, hesitant. 'Good way to lose your hair, not noticing things.'
He sat down and pulled off his boots. The cottonwoods whispered more softly. The squirrel gave one short inquiring chatter, then was silent.
The lone coyote spoke to the sky and the stream rustled busily about the stones. A bit of mud fell into the stream with a faint plop.
It was night and there was no sound. Or anyway, not very much. (p 154) ~ Louis L'Amour

The rainbow is such a remarkable phenomenon of nature, and its cause has been so meticulously sought after by inquiring minds throughout the ages, that I could not choose a more appropriate subject for demonstrating how, with the method I am using, we can arrive at knowledge not possessed at all by those whose writings are available to us. ~ Rene Descartes

But science, dominated by the spirit of religion is the key to progress and the hope of the future. For example, evolution's beautiful theory of the creation of the world offers many perplexing problems to the inquiring mind. Inevitably, a teacher who denies divine agency in creation, who insists there is no intelligent purpose in it, will infest the student with the thought that all may be chance. I say, that no youth should be so led without a counter balancing though. Even the skeptic teacher should be fair enough to see that even Charles Darwin, when he faced this great question of annihilation, that the creation is dominated only by chance wrote: "It is an intolerable thought than man and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long, continued slow progress." And another good authority, Raymond West, said, "Why this vast [expenditure] of time and pain and blood?" Why should man come so far if he's destined to go no farther? A creature that travels such distances and fought such battles and won such victories deserves what we are compelled to say, "To conquer death and rob the grave of its victory. ~ David O McKay

If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the ABC of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems. ~ Edward Hodnett

Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion. Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I'll tell you that when an innocent person is killed, we never go about asking or inquiring whether they were Jewish or Christian or Muslim. That's not our way or creed. ~ Hassan Rouhani

There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power. ~ J. William Fulbright

Saddling another person with a book he did not ask for has always seemed to me like a huge psychological imposition, like forcing someone to eat a chicken biryani without so much as inquiring whether they like cilantro. ~ Joe Queenan

It's not up to the employer to decide or to figure out what religious problems you may have as an employee. In other words, if I'm inquiring about your religious peculiarities or whatever they may be, I'm invading your privacy about that. ~ Wayne Rogers

Imitation pleases, because it affords matter for inquiring into the truth or falsehood of imitation, by comparing its likeness or unlikeness with the original. ~ John Dryden

Just do your duty in silence. When in doubt, when flat on your back, you can look at the ceiling. Who knows what you may see, up there? Funeral wreaths and angels, constellations of dust, stellar or otherwise, the puzzles left by spiders. There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind. Is anything wrong, dear? the old joke went. No, why? You moved. Just don't move. What ~ Margaret Atwood

It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

In science, however, "God did it" is not a testable hypothesis. Inquiring minds want to know how God did it and what forces or mechanisms were at work. "God works in mysterious ways" will not pass peer review. Even such explanations as "belief in God" or "religiosity" must be broken down into their component parts to find possible causal mechanisms for the links between belief and behavior that lead to health, well-being, and longevity. ~ Michael Shermer

A scientist naturally and inevitably ... mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified. ~ Edwin Powell Hubble

Similarly the animal psychologist, Aristophanes, accidentally discovered the world's first joke while inquiring into the hitherto mysterious motivations of pathway-traversing fowl. ~ George Pendle