It is not the answer that enlightens but the question.

- Eugene Ionesco

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the surface of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.

- Annie Dillard

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.

- Noam Chomsky

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.

- John Ruskin

There is no area of the world that should not be investigated by scientists. There will always remain some questions that have not been answered. In general, these are the questions that have not yet been posed.

- Linus Pauling

The hard questions always have more than one right answer. The easy questions have no answers at all. That's the universe's way of keeping things balanced.

- Solomon Short

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

- Naguib Mahfouz

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.

- Francis Bacon

Judge others by their questions rather than by their answers.

- Voltaire

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

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

Arctic Dreams

- Barry Lopez

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

- Thomas Jefferson

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"

paraphrase of Shaw, often attributed to Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy, who used it in a speech which his brother, Edward F. (Teddy) Kennedy quoted at RFK's funeral.

- George Bernard Shaw

One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.

- Chinese proverb

To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.

- Sam Keen

Where am I? Who am I?
How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director?
I want to see him.

- Soren Kierkegaard



Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Letters to a Young Poet

- Rainer Maria Rilke



My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy.

The Skin of Our Teeth, 1942

- Thornton Wilder



Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

Saturday Evening Post, June 14, 1958

- Paul Tillich



Despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I have not been able to answer... the great question that has never been answered: what does a woman want?

- Sigmund Freud



Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

- Pablo Picasso



New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.

- George Bernard Shaw



You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.

- John J. Plomp



Some children's answers to church school questions - from the Church of England:

- Unknown