Philosophic Questions Quotes

Philosophic questions are attempts to understand the root nature of reality, existence, and knowledge. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Questions inspire Curiosity ~ Manu

Human reason has the peculiar fate ... that it is burdened with questions that it cannot dismiss ... but which it also cannot answer. ~ Immanuel Kant

There is a misconception of those who explore; it is not answers they seek, but the longing for another question. ~ Brian S. Woods

There are times when a data set is so robust that if you set up your analysis right, you don't need to ask it questions--it just tells you everything anyway. ~ Christian Rudder

Time spent researching varies from book to book. Some novels require months, even years of research, others very little. I try to do most of my research before I begin but inevitably questions emerge during the writing. ~ Jonathan Kellerman

The truth with reveal itself when man frees his mind, begins to ask questions, and learns to doubt. Especially the doubt in his religious beliefs, intuitions, and the things that he believes in and that are sacred. Virtue and right belief do not exist unless the mind examines itself. ~ Amany Al-Hallaq

This day,
I want you to question yourself,
"How can the one
Who never understood
The meaning of your words
Can understand
The power of your silence?"

This day,
I want you to question yourself,
"How can the one
Who never stood for you
Can stand with you
In the future?"

This day,
I want you to question yourself,
"How can the one
Who left you in the silence
The one,
Who never calmed you down
The one,
Who said you are not strong
The one,
Who heard your trembling voice,
Saw your crying face
And still left you always…
Will he keep you happy? ~ Jyoti Patel

One of the biggest questions to me was whether or not Gypsy the person was capable of loving anyone or anything beyond Gypsy Rose Lee the creation, and even that was a conflicted, tortured relationship. ~ Karen Abbott

During our religious instruction in school, we always asked: How can one prove the existence of God? And I have learned that the Catholic Church, which is never at a loss for an answer when it comes to existential questions, responds as follows: This question simply does not arise. ~ Jean-Claude Juncker

If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves. ~ Jonathan Sacks

If you fall into the category of people who want to make a great use of their existence, you need to ask yourself these two questions; "what am I doing now"?; "Where is it taking me to? ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Our primary function is speech: questions, and responses selected from memory according to a formula. We speak, but there is little evidence of real comprehension. ~ Louisa Hall

You have to tell your children about the world they live in, about the discrepancies, about the things that don't work ... So you have to bring it up with a scientific orientation so they learn to ask questions, and learn how to say the most difficult thing in the world: 'I don't know'. ~ Jacque Fresco

I think it's really important for your mental health to think about the big questions, to discuss them and open your mind, in order to prepare you for both life and death. ~ Freddie Stroma

I pretty much know that directing means that you have to answer about a thousand questions every day and you have to answer them quick. ~ Colin Hanks

Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers. ~ Paul Tillich

Cynics know the answers without having penetrated deeply enough to know the questions. When challenged by mysterious truths, they marshall 'facts. ~ Marilyn Ferguson

As we were talking, a social worker came in with a questionnaire. Did Mary (I thought it was odd that they always called her Mary even though her name was Mary Anne, and odder that Mom refused to correct them) have time for some questions? They were doing a study and wanted to see if she might be a fit. ~ Will Schwalbe

First of all I will confess quite simply - I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, "pondering them in our heart," so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible. . . . ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are people, at the moment, who feel that all the important questions have been answered; all the important moral and ethical dilemmas have an answer; and that, at this point in history, everything's been worked out – and anyone who's exploring different ideas, or is doutbtful about these moral issues, is...evil.

...So I come from a different approach where, like, 'I don't know what's going on. I'm trying to work it out with other people, and I want the freedom to be able to explore. ~ Claire Lehmann

He who knows all the answers, but none of the questions is like a large gobbling bird on Thanksgiving. ~ Jayce O'Neal

You're asking me how not to doubt. Good question.My answer is, you can't. This is life ~ Tariq Ramadan

Let's talk about me!" Generally speaking, that's not a great idea for handling yourself in social situations. A better plan is to listen and ask questions. Being interested in others is the way to make friends and influence people. In bonding readers to characters on the page, however, the reverse is true. We open our hearts to those whose hearts are first open to us. For ~ Donald Maass

Modern science hasn't managed to come up with answers to any of the most basic questions. How did life first appear on earth? How does evolution work? Is it a series of random events, or does it have a set teleological direction? There are all kinds of theories, but we haven't been able to prove one of them. The structure of the atom is not a miniature of the solar system, it's something much more difficult to grasp, full of what you might call latent power. And when we try to observe the subatomic world, we find that the mind of the observer comes into play in subtle ways. The mind, my friend! The very same mind which, ever since Descartes, proponents of the mechanistic view of the universe considered subordinate to the body-machine. And now we find that the mind influences observed results. So I give up. Nothing surprises me. I'm prepared to accept anything that happens in this world. I actually kind of envy people who can still believe in the omnipotence of modern science. ~ Koji Suzuki

Innermost suffering makes the mind noble. Only that deepest, slow and extended pain that burns inside of us as firewood forces us to go down into our depths ... I doubt that such a pain could ever make us feel better, but I know that it makes us deeper beings. It makes us ask more rigorous and deeper questions to ourselves ... Trust in life has disappeared. Life itself has become a problem. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

My truth she'd said to him. What the hell is truth anyway
Two separate questions yes. But not wholly unrelated. For truth no matter the modifier is always intrinsically modified. ~ Deborah Copaken Kogan

Again, after his fall, God gave him an occasion to repent and to receive mercy but he kept his stiff-neck held high. He came to him and said "Adam, Where are you?" instead of saying "What glory you have left and what dishonor you have arrived at?" After that, He asked him "Why did you sin? Why did you transgress the commandment?" By asking these questions, He wanted to give him the opportunity to say, "Forgive me." However, he did not ask for forgiveness. There was no humility, there was no repentance, but indeed the opposite. ~ Dorotheus Of Gaza

Those institutes can develop research-based teaching initiatives in which they work with colleagues across the university to tackle problems. They might focus on why certain groups of students (defined by whatever demography) do not achieve the kind of learning expected, or about how to help all students achieve a new level of development. The initiative would refine the questions; explore the existing literature; and fashion a hypothesis about what might work, a program to implement that hypothesis, and a systematic assessment of the result, ultimately contributing to a growing body of literature on university learning. ~ Ken Bain

though the Western tradition and particularly the Protestant and evangelical traditions have claimed to be based on the Bible and rooted in scripture, they have by and large developed long-lasting and subtle strategies for not listening to what the Bible is in fact saying. We must stop giving nineteenth-century answers to sixteenth-century questions and try to give twenty-first-century answers to first-century questions. ~ N. T. Wright

Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side and light on scepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'.
But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder, and gained very little scepticism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they're willing to accept inadequate answers; they don't pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. ~ Carl Sagan

When you really want to find the answers to the great questions of your life, you need to look for them deep in yourself. ~ Frank M. Wanderer

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers. ~ Will Durant

At the end of the 1970s, I was a young researcher at the Weizmann Institute with an ambitious plan to shed light on one of the major outstanding questions concerning living cells: the process of protein biosynthesis. ~ Ada Yonath

Air and earth form an anthill traversed, level upon level, by roads live with traffic. Air trains, ground trains, underground trains, people mailed through tubes special-delivery, and chains of cars race along horizontally, while express elevators pump masses of people vertically from one traffic level to another; at the junctions, people leap from one vehicle to the next, instantly sucked in and snatched away by the rhythm of it, which makes a syncope, a pause, a little gap of twenty seconds during which a word might be hastily exchanged with someone else. Questions and answers synchronize like meshing gears; everyone has only certain fixed tasks. ~ Robert Musil

There's no question about freedom of speech when everyone thinks exactly the same and no one says anything out of the accepted norms. In this kind of climate, even the mildest questions sound like heresy, and the outcome is intolerance of other people's beliefs, ideas, actions and freedoms. ~ Keith Harmon

Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions. ~ Primo Levi

I applied for a job at Starbucks. One of the questions was, 'Why do you want to work at Starbucks?' Uh, because my life is in shambles. ~ Hannibal Buress

On some level, now, we are joining the larger world and realizing that we are connected with people in these very scary ways, sometimes. What happened recently in Spain affects us here and brings questions up. It is too bad that people have to be shaken up in that way. ~ Edwidge Danticat

Never ask, "Who is my real friend?" Ask, "Am I a real friend to somebody?" That is the right question. Always be concerned with yourself. ~ Rajneesh

High-class people have this concept called space, which means you cannot ask them questions or give them opinions about certain aspects of their life. ~ Chetan Bhagat

Instead of a book, what if we're actually writing (or not writing) in the margins of our lives? What if our lives are books? What is the sign of our presence? Are we pressing into the margins our interpretations and questions? Are we circling offending verbs and drawing furious arrows to the margin where we scrawl "irony," "frustration," "voiceless," "unfair!" Or do we simply turn the pages, passively receiving what's given, furiously disagreeing but remaining silent about it? ~ Patti Digh