Best Questioning Quotes & Sayings

For a Christian to say, "I will not have anything to do with the great and worthy works of artists whose lives were not good" is to fall into the impiety of questioning the wisdom of God in bestowing gifts of grace where He wills. — Frank E. Gaebelein

Although we amplify our cognitive degree of awareness and enhance our appreciation for life experiences by maturing, it also brings us death. Facing a certain death forces a person to examine the worthiness of continuing to live. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one's beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged. — Rachel Held Evans

One of the greatest tragedies I can think of is for a person to die having never fully questioned the life he was born into. — Dan Pearce

Hegel believed that progress is ultimately furthered by the person who is out of step with the majority. Only this person, the genuine nonconformist, really experiences the constraints on freedom. Only this person is in the position of questioning the prevailing understandings of happiness. For — Stephen Eric Bronner

The object of the new school is to teach reasonable doubt. Not the unreasonable doubt of the wild-eyed heckler, but the evidence-based doubt of the questioning scientist and the reason-based doubt of the skilled debater. — Seth Godin

Like squirrels, the best in every business do what they have learned to do without questioning their abilities - they flat out trust their skills, which is why we call this high-performance state of mind the "Trusting Mindset." — John Eliot

I'm a crybaby, which means I barricade myself in my house and scream for awhile, and when it subsides enough that I can leave, I go for a run. Tears make great fuel. Night runs, or rainy days, are best for this as you don't get as many questioning looks. — Allison McAtee

The intelligent employer encourages challenge, questioning
not blind acceptance and "our Leader knows best" acclaim. — Mary Barnett Gilson

If we don't have a vigorous questioning, aggressive journalistic community and mythology, democracy itself is in great jeopardy. — Milton Glaser

The faithful witness, like ... Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent ... He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet. — John Ralston Saul

The way everyone pretends to be on the same wavelength without questioning or talking about things - it doesn't get anyone anywhere. — Haruki Murakami

Questioning what we believe and want is difficult at the best of times, — Daniel Kahneman

I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself. — Elon Musk

I shouldn't be jealous because it's not real
she's like a math problem, the kind where you got the right answer but didn't show any of your work. She is the right answer, but she didn't get there by going through anything difficult, by questioning, by doubting. She landed there by playing a part, but she's never done the work.
I'm still jealous. — Jackson Pearce

I didn't get raped, right?" and he shouted, "You were never in danger of getting raped," but I think he just said that to hurt my feelings, and so I retorted, "Oh, I am ALWAYS in danger of being raped, thankyouverymuch," and he was all, "I'm not questioning your rapability. I'M JUST SAYING I CAN'T GO AWAY FOR TWO DAYS WITHOUT YOU OD'ING ON LAXATIVES. — Jenny Lawson

I went through a lot of occupations. I was questioning my contribution to the world. — Cory Michael Smith

But when we make choices that are different than what our friends are doing, it might seem to them that we are questioning their choices - even if it has nothing to do with them ... And what is the sense in feeling guilty about making different choices than our mothers and the other women before us? Our mothers did the best they could with what they had available to them. Our choices, if different from theirs, are not a denouncement of theirs. — Jennetta Billhimer

Questioning authority doesn't make you resistant; who should follow blindly without knowing the destination — LDarnell

What if ... all the rules and ways we lay down in our heads, don't even exist at all? What if we only believe that they're there, because we want to think that they're there? All the formalities of morality and the decisions that we see ourselves making in order to be better (or the best) ... what if we think we've got it all under control - but we don't? What if the path for you, is one that you would never dare take because you never saw yourself going that way? And then what if you realized that one day - would you take the path for you? Or would you choose to believe in your rules and your reasons? Your moralities and your hopes? What if your own hope, and your own morality - are going the other way? — C. JoyBell C.

Sometimes the best answer to a question is another question. Is it not by asking questions that we stimulate each other to reach more deeply into our own source and, thereby, approach the Source, both together and in our different ways? (7) — Jean-Yves Leloup

People have explored these questions ['Why am I here?', 'What is life about?'] in poems, not that they found their answers, but in reading [poems], I think, you find a certain beauty in the questioning, and that is then poetry. — Gwee Li Sui

Find comfort in questioning yourself. — Bryant McGill

Most students have to do some work to resuscitate their childlike curiosity. The best way to do that is to start asking questions again - lots of them. — Hal B. Gregersen

Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns. — Sarah Dessen

In Europe, where climate change absolutism is at its strongest, the quasi-religion of greenery in general and the climate change issue in particular have filled the vacuum of organised religion, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as a form of blasphemy. — Nigel Lawson

He watched as I slipped one of the shoes on. "You have a guardian angel."
"I don't believe in angels," I told him. "I believe in what I can do for myself."
Well then, you have an amazing body." I glanced up at him with a questioning look. "For healing, I mean. I heard about the accident ... — Richelle Mead

By doubting we come to the question, and by questioning we may come upon the truth. — Pierre Abelard

Alec decided to go first this time, stepping through the doorway and onto the landing. He reached back and pulled his flashlight out of his pack, clicked it on and shined it down the steps. Mark leaned in to see dust motes dancing in the bright beam. Alec was just putting his foot forward to start down when a voice rang out from below. "C-c-come any closer and I'll l-l-light the match." It was a man's voice, weak and shaky. Alec glanced back at Mark with a questioning look. — James Dashner

Her bond with the couple who raised her is fierce and beyond questioning. She cannot name the sensation of losing them as grief. She has no word for longing or despair. — M.L. Stedman

There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism. — Bruce Springsteen

My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers - even the answers they themselves believed. I don't know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being "politically conscious" - as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Any school for free citizens must begin by teaching distrust, not trust. It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers. — Brian Herbert

Unfortunately, religions have become a part of the problem instead of part of the solution. We have fought our wars in the name of God, questioning whose God is the best God and whose exploration of this deeper reality is the best explanation. That defies everything that this deeper reality teaches. — Edgar Mitchell

In the past, most of us were content to have a job that simply paid the bills. But now, we crave so much more in our work. We want fulfillment, creative challenge, growth, joy and a sense that we are living for something more than ourselves. In a word, we seek meaning. One of the best ways to find the higher meaning in the work you do is to use the technique of creative questioning to become aware of the impact your work has on the world around you. Ask yourself questions like, Who ultimately benefits from the products and services my company offers? or What difference do my daily efforts make? Once you do so, you will start noticing the connection between the work you do and the lives you touch. This will inspire you. — Robin S. Sharma

Every man has within him only one life and one nature ... It behooves a man to look within himself and turn to the best dedication possible those endowments he has from his Maker. You do no wrong in questioning what once you held to be right for you, if now it has come to seem wrong. Put away all thought of being bound. We do not want you bound. No one who is not free can give freely. — Ellis Peters

People who are in distress end up questioning the existence and credibility of God. They ask "Why me?" or "If God loves me why is He not helping me out? — Tom Norman

Many life-affirming questions lead to an endless spool of disconcerting propositions and contradictory conclusions, and even more troubling, some queries prove unanswerable. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Sometimes jn your life you make a decision and you find yourself questioning it. A lot. You don't regret it, exactly.you know that you probably made the best choice and that you're probably better off for it. But you do spend a lot of time wondering what the hell you were thinking — K.A. Tucker

Are you mad?" I ask.
"I was." He glances at the ceiling then back at me. "Or confused, anyway. The whole thing threw me through for a loop. I thought I'd finally met a guy at Underwood I could relate to, and it turns out he wasn't a guy at all."
I swallow. "I can see how that would be weird."
"In a way though, I was relieved."
"Relieved?" I echo. "Why?"
He looks around embarrased. "Let's just say you had me questioning my sexual orientation. — Jody Gehrman

If we analyse the supernova data by assuming the Copernican principle is correct and get out something unphysical, I think we should start questioning the Copernican principle ... . Whatever our theoretical predilections, they will in the end have to give way to the observational evidence. — George F. R. Ellis

At first, being with Sebastian was like being in the middle of the best dream I'd ever had - but now it mostly feels exhausting. I'm up one minute and down the next; questioning what I say and do. Even questioning my sanity. — Candace Bushnell

The university is well structured, well tooled, to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn off, the well-rounded person. The university is well equipped to produce that sort of person, and this means that the best among the people who enter must for four years wander aimlessly much of the time questioning why they are on campus at all, doubting whether there is any point in what they are doing, and looking toward a very bleak existence afterward in a game in which all of the rules have been made up, which one cannot really amend. — Mario Savio

Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable. Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith or, for that matter, my citizenship. — Barack Obama

You play the hand you're dealt. You play it without false hope or despair, without comparing other people's hand, or questioning why you've got this hand, you just play it, as best you can, today, and the next day, and the day after that. — Lindsey O'Connor

We are consumed by safety. Obsessed with it, actually. Now, I'm not saying it is wrong to pray for God's protection, but I am questioning how we've made safety our highest priority. We've elevated safety to the neglect of whatever God's best is, whatever would bring God the most glory, or whatever would accomplish His purposes in our lives and in the world. — Francis Chan

Art is the questioning of culture — Gerard Mortier

Drugs are about dulling perception, about addiction and about behavioral repetition ... What *psychedelics* are about is pattern- dissolving experiences of an extraordinarily high or different awareness. They are the exact opposite of drugs. They promote questioning , they promote consciousness, they promote value examinations, they promote the reconstruction of behavioral patterns. — Terence McKenna

Great Love has many attributes, and shrines For varied worshippers, but his force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixed
Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought
Resists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer. — George Eliot

You need to stop questioning me. I'm the one with the dick, and the sooner you realize that, the easier this will be. Trust me, baby, you'll start to like it that way. — Sarah Brianne

Our show is less about a girl who is doing miracles and more about the domino effect of this girl's life, and how everyone else is affected. Our show seems to be a questioning show as opposed to an action sort of fairy tale. — Amber Tamblyn

Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man's onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason. — Albert Pike

A hundred years after his death, a statue of Lavoisier was erected in Paris and much admired until someone pointed out that it looked nothing like him. Under questioning the sculptor admitted that he had used the head of the mathematician and philosopher the Marquis de Condorcet - apparently he had a spare - in the hope that no one would notice or, having noticed, would care. In the second regard he was correct. The statue of Lavoisier-cum- Condorcet was allowed to remain in place for another half century until the Second World War when, one morning, it was taken away and melted down for scrap. — Bill Bryson

Creativity comes from the part of the brain that is veritable soup of experiences, memories and influences. We really don't like to start questioning exactly where it comes from, in case it stops coming. — Rhianna Pratchett

After a long time spent learning how to write as a woman instead of as an honorary man, I was able to come back to Earthsea and write the next three books in another and newer tradition: that of questioning, rather than accepting, the gendering of power as male. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I've often quoted the enigmatic writer Virginia Woolf whenever any of my eight children appear to be questioning what direction to take in their lives: "Arrange whatever pieces come your way." Such great advice. Take the pieces that show up for you, and arrange them in such a way so that you live fearlessly, and the one universal Divine mind will handle all of the details for you. — Wayne W. Dyer

Our conscience is our salvation. Our questioning of everything, of right and wrong, of action and consequence, is what defines our purpose. — R.A. Salvatore

We have an education and business culture that tends to reward quick factual answers over imaginative inquiry. Questioning isn't encouraged - it is barely tolerated. — Warren Berger

We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of forgone conclusions. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge from him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe convictions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture. — Thomas Merton

You fight with Niles?" Max asked suddenly.
"No."
"Never?"
"No! And stop asking about Niles," I demanded.
He ignored my demand and kept questioning. "Didn't care enough to fight, didn't match you in fire, or was so lazy he just put up with your shit? — Kristen Ashley

Narian scrutinised both me and the Queen, with eyes so deeply blue I could not break away from them. I was glad he was no longer questioning me, for those eyes made me want to tell him everything. At the same time, those eyes revealed something to me. Was he in love with Alera? — Cayla Kluver

You should have disagreements with your leaders and your colleagues, but if it becomes immediately a question of questioning people's motives, and if immediately you decide that somebody who sees a whole new situation differently than you must be a bad person and somehow twisted inside, we are not going to get very far in forming a more perfect union. — William J. Clinton

What we men share is the experience of having been raised by women in a culture that stopped our fathers from being close enough to teach us how to be men, in a world in which men were discouraged from talking about our masculinity and questioning its roots and its mystique, in a world that glorified masculinity and gave us impossibly unachievable myths of masculine heroics, but no domestic models to teach us how to do it. — Frank Pittman

Dream young. Don't settle for old - for to be old is to be superstitious and without curiosity and always questioning your faith. And be ferocious in your dreaming - run like a sun's explosion, and skip across bluing waves, and dance upon tips of swan feathers. — Carew Papritz

Always questioning what the mirror shows us (for there is no duality of you/me in higher consciousness). — Jay Woodman

Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind. — Mahatma Gandhi

Once one had seen her eyes, the rest of the face grew vague, and when one tried to recall her image afterwards, only the piercing, questioning violence of the wide eyes remained. — Paul Bowles

Perhaps being an actress means that in a situation like this people will constantly be questioning whether the emotions you display are genuine. — Dorothy Simpson

Always questioning your motivations is a healthy thing, but fearing your capacity for doing the wrong thing so that you retreat from many aspects of life is a terrible error in itself. — Dean Koontz

Our mind, by virtue of a certain finite, limited capability, is by no means capable of putting a question to Nature that permits a continuous series of answers. The observations, the individual results of measurements, are the answers of Nature to our discontinuous questioning. — Erwin Schrodinger

Did you mean what you said? You will pursue this?'
Brisbane sipped at his tea. 'I suppose. I have a few other matters that I must bring to conclusion, but nothing that cannot wait. And I have no other clients questioning either my integrity or my courage at present. — Deanna Raybourn

The Air Loom, if Matthews revealed its existence under questioning, would now be recognised immediately as a classic paranoid delusion. But in 1797 it was something that had never been encountered before, and would emerge as the baffling leitmotif of a case that was unprecedented in almost every imaginable way. — Mike Jay