Question Everything Quotes

You cannot follow another's footsteps to the truth," Silette wrote. "A hand can point the way. But the hand is not the teaching. The finger that points the way is not the way. The mystery is a payless land, and each detective must cut her own trail through a cruel territory.
"Believe nothing. Question everything. Follow only the clues. ~ Sara Gran

To my babies,

Merry Christmas. I'm sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn't leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn't able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be.

-Don't stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna.

-Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you've found that Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point.

-Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for.

-I'm stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. "Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name."

-Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it.

-And Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once.

-Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life.

-Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers.

-Be accepting. Of everything. People's differences, their similarities, their ~ Colleen Hoover

I read Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Reader's Digest ... I read some responsible journalism, and from that, I form my own opinions. I also happen to be intelligent, and I question everything. ~ Gary Coleman

Question everything generally thought to be obvious. ~ Dieter Rams

In the age of information, ignorance is a choice. Question everything. Don't believe everything you hear. Come to your own conclusions. ~ Mark Patterson

In 1991, the latest year figures are available, most Americans, across all age groups, disapproved when asked the question: 'Everything considered, would you say that you approve or disapprove of wiretapping?' Some 67% of all 18-20 year olds gave the thumbs down, as did 68% of the Gen-X crowd ... Boomers disapproved of wiretapping almost 3-to-1 while 67% of those 50 and over disapproved. ~ Brock N. Meeks

Shut up" he says teasingly. "I know what you're thinking, and that's not why you're here with us"
We walk for a minute. "Why am I?"
Sabin shrugs. "Does there really have to be an answer to that? Sometimes it's just right. You fit. Jesus, kid, can't you feel it? Don't question everything."
I smile. I do feel it. Belonging. ~ Jessica Park

Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Second-guess [myself]? Yes, I do. I question everything I do every step of the way. Once I make the decision I'm almost blinded by believing in it, and then I usually hate everything I've done. ~ Tom Ford

I grew up in a very politically aware family. My mother always taught me to question everything, never believing anything simply at face value - especially the nicest, most adamant politicians. ~ Dave Matthews

As artists, it is our job to question the rules and ask if they are relevant or outdated, necessary or arbitrary, helpful or oppressive. ~ Teresa R. Funke, Bursts Of Brilliance For A Creative Life Blog

The new breed of reporter doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't have sex beyond reproducing, and most importantly - doesn't believe. They don't believe they are there to question everything. They are there to print whatever is told to them. The news is dead, my friend. Buried under a mountain of full color advertising, and six-digit deposit slips. ~ Greg Crites

You can ask many questions but you cannot question everything. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Question Everything ~ Josh Langley

Question everything. I am particularly fond of "stupid" questions. A stupid question asks about things so fundamental that everyone assumes the answer is obvious. ~ Donald A. Norman

Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passion. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers. ~ Colleen Hoover

New Ten Commandments' from today, which I happened to find on an atheist website.103 Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. In all things, strive to cause no harm. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder. Always seek to be learning something new. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others. Question everything. ~ Richard Dawkins

Everything I had learned or assimilated from my parents I now regarded as unreliable, and needing to be rethought from scratch. In fact, I probably went further-I felt that everything my parents believed was by definition wrong, and that if I ever felt myself in agreement with my parents I should immediately recant. Everything ... needed to be jettisoned. But in a way what they said wasn't the problem: what I was more worried about was the attitudes, prejudices, beliefs I might have picked up from them subconsciously or before I was old enough to even know what I was learning. Effectively, I had to question everything I believed, and never accept my own instincts. It required constant vigilance; it was intellectually exhausting. ~ Lynn Barber

Once I catch you in one lie, it makes me question everything you said. ~ Frank Ocean

Science is a method, not a religion, yet it can be just as close-minded. Open minds here Claire. Always open minds. Question everything, accept nothing as fact until you prove it for yourself. ~ Rachel Caine

Nothing has ever compared to how I feel about you. It's made me question everything that ever came before it. ~ Penelope Ward

Somewhere, sometime, somebody taught her to question everything - though it might have been a good thing if he'd also taught her to question the act of questioning. ~ Wallace Stegner

Many of us have bought into the idea that science, though practiced by humans, has managed to rid itself of human flaws. But if we intend to question everything, perhaps we should begin by questioning whether the human testing of human ideas can be so simple, considering how complicated humans are. ~ Douglas Axe

You know what I'd love to read? A Dialogue between Bron and Shevek and Socrates. Socrates would love it too. I bet he wanted people who argued. You can tell he did, you can tell that's what he loved really, at least in The Symposium. ~ Jo Walton

Even if the play is great, every day in theatre you have to question everything because the audience is new every day. I love that. ~ Clotilde Hesme

Listen to your beliefs, think about how you learned them, and realize that they are not genetic, nor are they the "only way." You are free to acquire new perspectives, to absorb new ideas, and to question everything you were taught to believe. As your mind opens to exploration and change, you'll feel a new lightness and more joy. ~ Charlotte Sophia Kasl

The first step of wisdom is to question everything. ~ Jim Palmer

Don't confuse scepticism as an attitude, or a method, with scepticism as a philosophy. Socrates was sceptical in temperament, and his method was to question everything. But he believed in absolute truth; he was no sceptic. ~ Peter Kreeft

To find your true self you need to question everything you encountered at birth. And lose some of it, too, because often it's only in pain that we discover what really belongs to us . . . It's in the breaches that we recognize ourselves. ~ Benedict Wells

Let what I here set down meet with correction or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me [...]And yet, always submitting to the authority of their
censure, which has an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Shortly after her older brother died, Chloe (who had just celebrated her eighth birthday) went through a deeply philosophical stage. "I began to question everything," she told me, "I had to figure out what death was, that's enough to turn anyone into a philosopher." Chloe would put her hand over her eyes and tell the family her brother was still alive because she could see him in her mind just as well as she could see them. ~ Alain De Botton

Questions open a space in your mind that allow better answers to breathe. ~ Richie Norton

Always listen to your conscience. If your conscience conflicts with your faith, question everything. You discover your true faith when you start flowing with your conscience. After lessons, visions, and theories validate themselves to you, you begin to build faith in that hypothesis/feeling/idea that originated from your own heart and mind -- not that of others. Before you submit to any one religion, create your own first and then find out which one out there resonates closest with the one already in your heart. ~ Suzy Kassem

Question everything and start from yourself. ~ Iisakki Totuudentalo

I am quite scandalous, you see. I come packaged with unpredictable moments, brutal honesty, calamitous outbursts, the ghastly need for love, a fiendish lack of filter, the horrific need to question everything, nauseating affection, offensive kindness, indecent spirituality, obscene beauty, monstrous creativity, barbaric embellishments, contemptuous passion, sinful childhood traumas, unscrupulous hobbies, vexatious caring, abominable sensitivity, reprehensible humor, hideous sarcasm, displeasing feelings, unpalatable confidence, offensive compassion, villainous inspiration and a devilish wit. I am quite grotesque in my imperfectness and I am not ashamed to admit it. ~ Shannon L. Alder

I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything. ~ Nelson Mandela

Gradually, I realized that the ideas I had embraced and defended blindly all my life represented a singular, and highly radical, point of view. I began to question everything. ~ Manal Al-Sharif

Be curious. Question everything. A present fact is just a future fiction. ~ Matt Haig

Ever felt tired? Like existentially tired? Where you lose the sense of identity, structures, language, reason, being and time. Where you can't see a destination and you can't find a return, where even when you return its not a return to yourself rather it is a turn to a realisation that you have lost yourself somewhere between 'the you' and 'the self' and this dichotomy of what you call 'you' cannot make you feel home anymore. You run and you keep running, not towards anything but away from everything; from people, from rules, from gods, from words, from love and from being you, for forever. So do you ever feel tired? ~ Huseyn Raza

To create, one must first question everything. ~ Eileen Gray

Expose every belief to the light of reason, discourse, facts, scientific observations; question everything, be sceptical because this is the only chance at life you will ever get. ~ James Randi

Question everything - ban nothing ~ Mick Hume

Revolution starts in the mind. Question Everything! ~ Bryant McGill

The business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty... not to reassure him, but to upset him. ~ Lev Shestov

The message of 'Zomb-B' is that you have to listen to your own heart and head and question everything. Question stereotypes and the way the world seems or is being presented. Some of the people we should be most concerned about, dangerous right-wing bigots, sound convincing and reasonable. ~ Darren Shan

Question everything, unless it's the answer ~ Benny Bellamacina

I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments. ~ Carl Sagan

The wonderful science behind taking the chastity pill is to preserve honor, respect, purity and worth. Again, the value of a woman's future is dependent on how well she blocks any advances, foul balls, interceptions or explorations.
It's no surprise I question everything. What does going to the movies have to do with my vagina? What does going to the grocery store at ten pm at night to pick up a package of brownie mix have to do with my vagina? Why is ok for me not to go to a high school football game? Does wearing a tank top instead of a short sleeve shirt compromise my vagina shield? Do I have an Anti-Vagina Defense security chip installed on me that I'm not aware of, one that only works with loose clothing? ~ Sadiqua Hamdan

Anybody who's ever been broken up with, or had their heart stepped on or ripped out of them; you question everything you've based your whole life on. It's like, is anything real? Cause nothing 's more real than that, and now it's gone. ~ Kristen Stewart

I think when I started doing stand-up, that's when I really tried to question everything in my belief system which is - I think a pretty important part of being a comedian is really questioning things. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing. ~ Euripides

In a complex universe, in a society undergoing unprecedented change, how can we find the truth if we are not willing to question everything and to give a fair hearing to everything? ~ Carl Sagan

Love is a terrible subject for those who question everything. ~ VakieChan

I can't tell which is the worse fate--to question everything, to be paralyzed by indecision, or to question nothing and move through the world blind to any other way of existing save for your own. ~ Laura Thalassa

Generally it appears the case that, when faced with all life's problems, the baby, he wants to cry about everything, the child wants to question everything, the teenager wants to rebel against everything, the young adult wants to solve everything, the middle-aged adult wants to protect everything, and the elder wants to accept everything. ~ Criss Jami

They say "doubt everything," but I disagree. Doubt is useful in small amounts, but too much of it leads to apathy and confusion. No, don't doubt everything. QUESTION everything. That's the real trick. Doubt is just a lack of certainty. If you doubt everything, you'll doubt evolution, science, faith, morality, even reality itself - and you'll end up with nothing, because doubt doesn't give anything back. But questions have answers, you see. If you question everything, you'll find that a lot of what we believe is untrue...but you might also discover that some things ARE true. You might discover what your own beliefs are. And then you'll question them again, and again, eliminating flaws, discovering lies, until you get as close to the truth as you can.

Questioning is a lifelong process. That's precisely what makes it so unlike doubt. Questioning engages with reality, interrogating all it sees. Questioning leads to a constant assault on the intellectual status quo, where doubt is far more likely to lead to resigned acceptance. After all, when the possibility of truth is doubtful (excuse the pun), why not simply play along with the most convenient lie?

Questioning is progress, but doubt is stagnation. ~ Tom Jubert / Jonas Kyratzes

I Only Believe What I See But I Question Everything I Hear ~ Charleston Parker

Once you've decided that something's absolutely true, you've closed your mind on it, and a closed mind doesn't go anywhere. Question everything. That's what education's all about. ~ David Eddings

I like that you challenge me. That's new. I like that you don't go easy on me. I like that you question everything. I want you to keep questioning everything. I like how you smell. I like seeing the fight in your eyes. I like seeing anger color your cheeks. I like hearing your breathing stop when I'm close to you and I like feeling your heart pick up its speed in your chest when were close like this. I like that a lot, actually, the sound of your heart beating. So alive, a frantic mess of beats. I like the feeling of you in my arms, the way our bodies align. I like watching your eyes close and knowing I'm the reason, the reason you're feeling this." -Everett ~ Whitney Barbetti

Killing someone is different in practice than it is in theory. There are factors you can't prepare for, feelings in the moment where you'll question everything you thought you knew about yourself, other feelings that might follow you long after the deed is done. ~ Paula Stokes

After all, if an idea could not stand up to a serious challenge, then it was never a very good idea in the first place. Question everything. ~ James J. Caterino

Small minds know everything. Average minds believe everything. Great minds question everything. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I learned from a tough Philly cop, Carmen Morales. She taught me the rules."
"What rules?"
"Rule #1: Trust no one. Rule #2: Miss nothing. Rule #3: Reveal nothing. Rule #4: Question everything. Rule #5: Eye on the clock. Rule #6: Get lucky. Rule #7: Trust your instincts.
"Good rules to live by. The army has rules too."
"I bet. ~ Dana Marton

That maxim of Descartes: "Question everything!" Question everything! ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Sorry to inform you...but as a fellow failed miner, the problem is there's nowhere left to dig.
We're real poets man.
And whatever. But it's the digging, it's the holes! Its these burrows to half nestle in just to pass the time, to chafe the inner thigh of boredom and that level of power-demanding pain is only in existence because you really, really know that there isn't anything else.
The holes.
And me missing a shovel, that has created the voids, the tears, the fucks, the sucks, the shame, the stares, the songs, the words, and in admittedly, even more holes. Not having one of my shovels has somehow overcompensated the digs in which I've dug.
The holes.
The holes are why you smoke aware of cancer, a disease to take over years of boring lives, and give us a bone to gnaw on, overcome, defeat, lick-dry, or die.
The holes are why you drink with your last dollars, when you know you're going to throw it up tonight anyway.
The holes are why you think you're in love, and that's a hole that you might not climb back from.
The holes, the holes the holes, making you question everything standing at a bus stop...smelling like cigarettes and perfume...signing up for classes you wont go to... hand covered in club stamps... face covered in guilt... Maybe go to a protest and just stand there...Or lay in bed when there's no way you can sleep... ~ Wesley Eisold

And so [my brother] Gilbert and I, brought up without a formal religion, remained throughout our lifetimes just what Father was, freethinkers. And, likewise, doubters and dissenters and perhaps Utopians. Father's rule had been 'Question everything, take nothing for granted,' and I never outlived it, and I would suggest it be made the motto of a world journalists' association. ~ George Seldes

Liberty is about the right to question everything. ~ Ai Weiwei

I was never aware of any other option but to question everything. ~ Noam Chomsky

Of everything we must first ask: is it real or not? ~ Mike Klepper

Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder. ~ Eric Hoffer

I knew I had been made to lead the party and that I was colder in temperament than the others, but I was not only deeply disturbed, I had lost respect for and trust in the Parents in some vital way. I did not entirely believe them when they said they would consider changing their plan. Their utter indifference to our personal fate was obvious. And not believing some of what they said, I came to question everything they said. I wanted really only one thing and that was to get away from them. ~ Anne Rice

The whole of our scholarship - the whole of our thought - we question everything except the centrality of sexuality. ~ A.S. Byatt

I also believe that when people are going through difficult situations in life ... it causes them to search a lot more. They search life and search their soul. When you're searching, you're suddenly a lot more open to the world around you, to the possibilities, to things you never thought about before. - When you're happy, you don't question the world so much. When you're lost, you question everything. The very reason why it is so essential to human self-discovery ~ Cecelia Ahern

It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour ~ Thomas Jefferson

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point
race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything. ~ Molly Ivins

My favourite all time quote is from Eileen Gray, the subject of my new book The Interview. She believed, 'to create one must first question everything'. A concept that applies to writing as to life ~ Eileen Gray

You made me weak. And every time I see you, I wonder, will it happen again? Because you, you're the game changer, the one who makes me question everything, the one who makes me want to be better, the one I almost lost - the one I am so damn terrified of losing again." A ~ Rachel Van Dyken

Whilst stay-at-home persons are searching for truth, the apple will stay on the tree. ~ Lev Shestov

You know, there are moments … people. There are people who change you. Who save you, really, from yourself, from a life that didn't feel right, kind of like you're wearing the wrong socks and just don't realize it. These people make you question everything, thoughts and feelings and ask yourself; do I want more? Yes. I do. You made me want more. ~ V. Theia

Always listen to the voice of your conscience. If your conscience conflicts with your faith, question everything. ~ Suzy Kassem

How many geniuses are we putting to sleep today and where would our world be now, if the age of pill popping, mind numbing control existed during the times of Da Vinci, Shakespeare, or Einstein? ~ L.M. Fields

In a recession, you must be able to call into question everything you've done before. ~ Francois-Henri Pinault

Make no mistake- you can change things. Question everything, take nothing for granted; argue with all received ideas, don't respect what does not deserve respect; speak your mind, don't censor yourself; use your imagination and express what it tells you to express. These are the weapons of the mind. ~ Salman Rushdie

Charles Kiss is a legendary James Bond-style British spy. And McGrath is the young idealist who is given the task of following in his footsteps. It's a mission that forces McGrath to question everything he thought he believed in. ~ Peter Milligan

Children should be taught to question everything ... everything they read and everything they hear. ~ George Carlin

Must you question everything?"
"Aye," I say. "It delights me to annoy you whenever possible. ~ Elizabeth May

Of all the questions we leave unanswered the one that comes back to haunt us the most is :"What if…" What if I'd married my college sweetheart? What if I had the good sense not to? What if I had been born in this job market? What if... What if I'd planned a little less? What if I'd lived a little more? What if I'd chucked it all and started my own company? 'What ifs' are never idle fantasy. These are our hopes, dreams and desires ~ Rashmi Bansal

I've made her relive, over and over, the last few days," I say softly, watching Ms. White's body. "I've had to fill in the blanks with my own feelings and experiences. She's spiraling around those last moments, those times when she went against me, and she's feeling it from my side, the pain, the betrayal."
She thinks she's awake. I'm doing to her just what she did to me. I'm making her feel what it was like to slowly go crazy, to question everything. To watch my mother die. To fight for my life against my best friend. To feel the man who loved me try to kill me.
To know that the woman I trusted as much as my own mother betrayed me.
That's what I'm making her feel.
I've turned her into me, and made her live the life she forced me to live.
Over and over and over again. ~ Beth Revis

The One

I don't want you to love me because I'm good for you, because I say and do all the right things. Because I am everything you have been looking for.

I want to be the one that you didn't see coming. The one who gets under your skin. Who makes you unsteady. Who makes you question everything you have ever believed about love. Who makes you feel reckless and out of control. The one you are infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to.

I don't want to be the one who tucks you into bed - I want to be the reason why you can't sleep at night. ~ Lang Leav

A book can become your best companion in times of crisis.
Not only do you learn in the journey of your pages, but rediscover yourself, with your virtues and defects ... often makes you question everything, even life itself.
The books are fantastic, as they not only transport you to other places and the awakening of sensations, curiosity, laughter, hilarity, sadness, etc. Other times, it can give you a quiet space in truculent moments, and lead you to a level of peace, acceptance, healthy optimism, that I will never tire of recommending it.
Never stop reading, there are no excuses ... there are always some minutes in any place, at any time and a huge universe for all tastes !!! ~ Elizabeth Hay

I don't believe in everything, I don't trust everyone, that's why I question everything and everyone. ~ Zybejta "Beta" Metani' Marashi

Inigo was in despair.
Hard to find on the map (this was after maps) not because cartographers didn't know of its existence, but because when they visited to measure its precise dimensions, they became so depressed they began to drink and question everything, most notably why anyone would want to be something as stupid as a cartographer. It required constant travel, no one ever knew your name, and, most of all, why bother? There grew up, then, a gentleman's agreement among mapmakers of the period to keep the place as secret as possible, lest tourists flock there and die. (Should you insist on paying a visit, it's closer to the Baltic States than most places.) ~ William Goldman

Liberty is about our rights to question everything. ~ Ai Weiwei

Alice's head locked into place as realization sank in. Meeting Takumi had challenged everything she thought she knew about herself, made her work to find out who she was on a fundamental level. He challenged her in the best way possible, wholly unaware of the effect he had on her, pushing her so far out of her comfort zone she had to question everything. She had discovered, no, was still discovering, who she was now, who she wanted to be, what she could and could not handle. He had given her a reason to reconnect with herself. ~ Claire Kann

It is a hard message to swallow at first blush because it brings into question everything that we think we are, which for the most part seems to come from what we identify with, our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our values, our work, our expectations of what is "supposed" to happen and how things are "supposed" to work out for me in order for me to be happy, our stories of where we came from and where we are going and of who we are. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Others of us are lost. We're forever seeking. We torture ourselves with philosophies and ache to see the world. We question everything, even our own existence. We ask a lifetime of questions and are never satisfied with the answers because we don't recognize anyone as an authority to give them. We see life and the world as an enormous puzzle that we might never understand, that our questions might go unanswered until the day we die, almost never occurs to us. And when it does, it fills us with dread. ~ Lisa Unger

I do question everything. But I want to have my questions. I want to have more thoughts than my mind can hold, so many that I have to write them in fragments like a madman. ~ Lauren DeStefano

You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art. ~ Maya Lin