Quotes & Sayings About Giving Answers

An expert is not someone who gives you the answer, it is someone who asks you the right question. — Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Savings give you a lot of strength, flexibility and control. They are what give you the most powerful Answer In The World. — Patrick Bet-David

Tomorrow you and them will set out for the end of your lives and I'll be here. The one who gave and would keep on giving if you'd let me. But you don't want to let me. You and them are going to walk through the valley but you'll have no shepherd. You'll have no answers. And you'll kill the babies. And you'll die. You ain't no healer, no more than I am, but I can give more than you. — Michael Farris Smith

Jesus offered a single incentive to follow him; it was woven into all he said and did. Here is how I would after twenty-four years of following summarize his selling point: Follow me, and you might be happy
or you might not. Follow me, and might be empowered
or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends
or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers
or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off
or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well. — Samir Selmanovic

"You laid it on a little thick out there."
Morpheus clucks his tongue. "I performed masterfully," he answers, at last managing to claim his hat from Chessie.
"Right," Jeb scoffs. "Pretty sure my mistreatment wouldn't have sent you into hysterics, drama queen."
Morpheus smirks. "Fair enough. On the other hand, your portrayal of a brainless wind-up numbskull was spot on."
Jeb's lips quiver, as if he's fighting a smile himself. "You know, I still have enough paint to make that flyswatter."
"Tut. No need for violence." Morpheus taps the dust from his hat and places it on his head. "I'm simply giving credit where it's due." — A.G. Howard

If you don't ask the right questions, I can't give you the answers, and if you don't know the right question to ask, you're not ready for the answers — Ed Parker

Give no answer to contentious arguments or irresponsible accusations. Let such things "fly out open windows" until they spend themselves. — Stephen Covey

God does not answer our desperate questionings; he simply gives us himself. — Francois Mauriac

Sometimes it takes asking others for input to find out you have to ultimately look within yourself for the answers to the questions only you know the truth about ... we choose the information we share. So, the person giving feedback is limited in view and their perspective will only keep your view of the situation distorted. — C. Nzingha Smith

I'm pretty much an open book. I've pretty much talked about anything I'm going through onstage. Between interviews and curious fans, I've been asked everything. And I always give answers. I don't shy away from anything. — Kevin Hart

Joe once told me he felt a little sorry for women, who only got husbands. Husbands tried to help by giving answers, being logical, stubbornly applying force as though it were a glue gun. Or else they didn't try to help at all, for they were somewhere else entirely, out walking in the world by themselves. But wives, oh wives, when they weren't being bitter or melancholy or counting the beads on their abacus of disappointment, they could take care of you with delicate and effortless ease. — Meg Wolitzer

Whenever someone asks me craft questions like that I feel like I can give one of two answers. I can give the academy answer and say that it was very deliberate and I had a plan in mind and I executed that plan exactly to the letter. But this isn't the case. — Ron Currie Jr.

It is not only blessed to give thanks; it is also of vital importance to our prayer life in general. If we have noted the Lord's answers to our prayers and thanked Him for what we have received of Him, then it becomes easier for us, and we get more courage, to pray for more. — Ole Hallesby

It is the function of a liberal university not to give right answers, but to ask right questions. — Cynthia Ozick

I have a respect for Elvis and my friendship. It ain't my business what he did in private. The only thing I want to know is, 'Was he my friend?', 'Did I enjoy him as a performer?', 'Did he give the world of entertainment something?' - and the answer is YES on all accounts. The other jazz just don't matter. — Sammy Davis Jr.

When other people ask me, 'What gives you the right to suggest standards for others?', my answer is, 'If I don't, someone else, perhaps less qualified, will. — Anton Szandor LaVey

And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98) — Yann Martel

I believe, that empirically informed approaches to the question have issued in more illuminating answers than the old armchair approaches. But I think that it would be a terrible mistake to give up on addressing normative questions in epistemology. — Hilary Kornblith

What God gives in answer to our prayers will always be the thing we most urgently need, and it will always be sufficient. — Elisabeth Elliot

You know that thing where you repeat a word over and over until it just sounds like utter gibberish? That's what doing a day of press on a film is like. Ten interviews in a row, all asking pretty much the same questions until you find yourself giving pretty much the same answers. — John Niven

I think pastors are the worst listeners. We're so used to speaking, teaching, giving answers. We must learn to be quiet, quit being so verbal, learn to pay attention to what's going on, and listen. — Eugene H. Peterson

Stop giving Doctor Who answers! Tell me the truth! — Charlie Jane Anders

You lose nothing by being polite. The answer is 'No', but please say it politely and give the reasons ... Explain to me why 'No'. Don't change 'No' to 'Yes'. Don't be a fool. If there was a good reason why it is 'No', it must remain 'No', but the man must be told politely. — Mr. Lee

Delayed answers to prayer are not only trials of faith; they also give us opportunities to honor God through our steadfast confidence in Him, even when facing the apparent denial of our request. — Charles Spurgeon

The thing I loved, particularly, was the mystery of science and the idea that science doesn't know all the answers, but it is a process of finding out. It's not like science will give you the right answer and science knows everything. I love the mysteries of it. — Dallas Campbell

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

Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question! — Hans Christian Andersen

You'll never make sense of his notes. You just have to listen to his lecture," Graham whispered
confidentially. "It's a challenge, but the good news is that he's been giving the same tests for forty years. The
answers are carved right into the tops of the desks. See? — G. Norman Lippert

We're supposed to show people how the world is, to give them the tools they need to make good decisions as citizens or consumers. Depending on what your values are - the environment, your health, animal welfare - the answers are going to be different for every person. — Michael Pollan

I believe that God hears our prayers, and cherishes them. I believe He answers by sending us His spirit, giving us strenght, and peace, and insight. I don't think He responds by turning away bullets and curing cancer. Though sometimes that does happen."
Harlene frowned. "In other words, sometimes, the answer is no?"
"No. Sometimes the answer is "This is life, in all its variety. Make your way through it with grace, and never forget that I love you. — Julia Spencer-Fleming

Three things give the student the possibility of surpassing his teacher: ask a lot of questions, remember the answers, teach. — John Amos Comenius

I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character. — Nicolas Cage

Never give up praying until the answer comes. — George Muller

I have been proposed to four times. Twice at the beginning of a relationship and twice at the end of a relationship. I've never said no. I just didn't give an answer! — Juliette Binoche

Investigate the faeries. Great. That was absolutely guaranteed to get complicated before I got any useful answers. If there was one thing faeries hated doing, it was giving you a straight answer, about anything. Getting plain speech out out of one is like pulling out teeth. Your own teeth. Through your nose. — Jim Butcher

Every single problem I ever have is healable by Taylor Swift. If I ever I have an issue, Taylor has gone through it - she gives the most thought-out answers. And what I love about Taylor is that she does believe in the whole love story and Prince Charming and soul mates. Because of her, I haven't lost faith. — Selena Gomez

The problem with any ideology is that it gives you the answer before you examine the evidence. — William J. Clinton

Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency: a man may very well say a good thing, give a good answer, cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one or the other. — Michel De Montaigne

If you don't ask me questions, I can't give you an untrue answer. — Oliver Goldsmith

My problem with the Emergent Church is not the questions they are bringing up, but the answers they are giving. They are making Christianity milky. They are making it so you can no longer define anything. There is no sound judgment allowed. — Eric Ludy

The truth is, some of these comments, when you actually ask 'well, this is based on what? This notion that Obama's a socialist, for example?' Nobody can really give you a good answer. — Barack Obama

I see my poems as interlinked. No poem gives an answer. It may offer other questions, it may instigate other questions that then become poems. — Pattiann Rogers

I may not read tea leaves or palms, my lady, but it is easy enough to read faces. Yours is a questioning face, always looking for answers, always seeking the truth, for yourself and for others." I smiled at her. "I think that is a very polite way of saying I am curious as a cat. And we all know what happened to the cat - curiosity killed her." Rosalie took the last slice of cake onto her plate. "Yes, but you forget the most important thing about the little cat," she said, giving me a wise nod. "She had eight lives left to live. — Deanna Raybourn

There are situations when all answers and explanations fade. When you fully accept that you do not know, you give up struggling to find answers with the limited thinking mind. That is when the greater intelligence can operate though you. Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing. — Eckhart Tolle

I have a reputation for giving unpopular answers at Democratic debates. I never used marijuana. Sorry! — Joe Lieberman

No one can give you any answers. There aren't any. You have to discover for yourself-you must learn to navigate the mystery. — Bill Hicks

While Roberts wanted to give the impression he respected the right to privacy and the precedent of Roe vs. Wade, his answers look dangerously similar to the responses (Associate Justice) Clarence Thomas gave senators during his confirmation hearings 14 years ago. — Nancy Keenan

Before long, everyone was giving him answers, and feeling a little superior, because it was really remarkable the number of things Chrestomanci seemed not to know. He had heard of Hitler, though he asked Brian to refresh his memory about him, but he had only the haziest notion about Gandhi or Einstein, and he had never heard of Walt Disney or reggae. — Diana Wynne Jones

The problem with ideology is if you got an ideology, you already got your mind made up, you know all the answers, and that makes evidence irrelevant and argument a waste of time, so you tend to govern by assertion and attack. The problem with that is that discourages thinking and gives you bad results. — William J. Clinton

In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables. They are all so related. However, there is a need for me to work in clay. It is so gratifying and I get so much joy from it, and it gives me many answers in my life. — Toshiko Takaezu

You don't actually need to know anything, you can find out at the point when you need to know it. It's the teachers job to point young minds towards the right kind of question, a teacher doesn't need to give any answers because answers are everywhere. — Sugata Mitra

I've been saying all along that my biggest fear is that someone would program a machine to give a wrong answer. If that were to happen, the machine would still work fine - we just wouldn't know it. — Avi Rubin

Carli Fiorina is really annoying. Hell, they're all annoying. But Fiorina doesn't even pretend to offer up policy answers. She just gives mini stump speeches about how bad everything is. — Kevin Drum

I do love the prose poem because it's such a perverse and provocative little box - always asking to be questioned, never giving a straight or definitive answer. — Matthea Harvey

We may not know when or how the Lord's answers will be given, but in His time and His way, I testify, His answers will come. For some answers we may have to wait until the hereafter. This may be true for some promises in our patriarchal blessings and for some blessings for family members. Let us not give up on the Lord. His blessings are eternal, not temporary. — Robert D. Hales

Give yourself the gift of time in coming to answers for your life ... It takes time, and a lot of introspection and soul-searching, to get clear about what you really want to manifest in your life. — David Emerald Womeldorff

Every time that a man who is not an absolute fool presents you with a
question he considers very problematic after giving it careful thought,
distrust those quick answers that come to the mind of someone who has
considered it only briefly or not at all. These answers are usually
simplistic views lacking in consistency, which explain nothing, or which do
not bear examination. — Joseph De Maistre

I never give answers. I lead on from one question to another. That is my leadership. — Rabindranath Tagore

There are no dumb questions, but there are plenty of people who give dumb answers. — George W. Buck

Thinking should be like musical meditation. Has any philosopher pursued a thought to its limits the way Bach or Beethoven develop and exhaust a musical theme? Even after having read the most profound thinkers, one still feels the need to begin anew. Only music gives definitive answers. — Emile M. Cioran

Hey, baby." His voice is low and sensual and now I'm even more angry - this time at myself for letting the caress of his voice shift me from my mission. I rally and speak very firmly and clearly. "Would you please tell Edward that he doesn't have to take me straight home? He seems to be under the impression that you were giving orders and not just telling him a destination." The pause before he answers is ominous. "You need to be ready at six. It's already past two. You need to rest." "What the fuck?" I snap. "Are you my mother?" "It's been a long day, baby. — J. Kenner

There's nothing quite so stultifying as having someone around who has all the answers-and gives them to you. — John W. Campbell

Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers. — Robert Half

It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask. — Voltaire

Sometimes you have to learn how to give the right answer to the wrong question. — Warren Christopher

The minute you supply a person with the answers, by that very action you block them, once and for all, from the opportunity of inventing those same answers for themselves. If you want to go on an ego trip, to show how smart you are, give the answers. But if what you want is action to be taken, then you must refrain from giving the answers. — Eliyahu M. Goldratt

When faith simplifies things that need to remain complex, instead of giving us strength to live with complexity, when it gives us answers where none exist, instead of helping us appreciate the sacredness of living with questions, when it offers certainty when there needs to be doubt, and when it tells us that we have arrived when we should be searching-then there is a problem with that faith. — Brad Hirschfield

I've found that all it usually takes to draw out an engineer is to ask a couple of technical questions and then remain calm while listening to the answers. Most people tend to take on a blank, frightened look as soon as they realize that a technical explanation is under way; if you can resist giving this reaction and simply listen, your engineer will open up and tell you everything you ever wanted to know. — Margaret Lazarus Dean

If a manager asks an academic consultant what to do and that consultant answers, then the consultant should be fired. No academic has the experience to know the context of a managerial problem well enough to give specific advice about a specific situation. — James G. March

Someday, as an exercise, you might ask a writer to give himself the questions he wants to answer. If you really want a writer's opinions, you have to ask for them. What you read might surprise you. — John Fante

You propound a complicated arithmetical problem: say cubing a number containing four digits. Give me a slate and half an hour's time, and I can produce a wrong answer. — George Bernard Shaw

I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers. — Jostein Gaarder

The environmental assessment should give us the answers to all the issues that have been raised: potential lead migration, endangered species, noise abatement and proper disposal of shot, shells and things. — Steven Hall

Giving governors more leeway in administering health care could represent a small, positive development in the ongoing saga of Obamacare. Unfortunately, instead of choosing flexibility, President Obama and his left-leaning advisers always default to rigid 'Washington knows best' answers. — Fred Upton

Care about understanding and before you know it, in just a few decades, you'll have a system of thinking that gives you answers whenever you ask. — Richard Bach

There are things which are without answers, and there is nobody who can explain them. Either we feel them and sense them, or not. Sometimes we just give up and carry on. — Andrey Zvyagintsev

Biblical social scientists have an advantage because they know truths about human nature. Those who dismiss the Bible and create surveys that don't measure crucial factors are the ones who have closed minds. Sometimes the Bible gives us clear answers and sometimes it doesn't, but it always helps us to ask the right questions. — Marvin Olasky

Silence is consent. And silence where life and liberty is at stake, where by a timely protest we could stay the destoyer's hand, and do not do so, is as criminal as giving actual aid to the oppressor, for it answers his purpose ... — Ernestine Rose

We fail when we try to give simple answers to complicated problems. — Tariq Ramadan

God's people need to unashamedly and uncompromisingly stand on the Bible. We need to unashamedly proclaim a Christian worldview and the gospel, all the while giving answers for the hope we have. — Ken Ham

I know chances are if I don't give an interview or make a public appearance or statement from time to time, they'll invent one. Every so often, I suppose people ask, 'Whatever happened to that other Beatle, George Harrison?' And someone comes around with a ready answer, no matter how preposterous it seems. It's possibly the worst price one has to pay for what they call stardom. — George Harrison

I'm tenacious and no is not a good answer to give me. — Jeff Tremaine

Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we're offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the 'all-about Eva' manuals, but there is no such thing. Don't expect to get answers by someone. Don't expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers. — Hideaki Anno

The germs of all truth lie in the soul, and when the ripe moment comes, the truth within answers to the fact without as the flower responds to the sun, giving it form for heat and color for light. — Hamilton Wright Mabie

Derek Bok asks the right question, 'What policies would produce the greatest happiness?' and he gives great and often startling answers, combining his deep knowledge of politics with the new findings of happiness research. — Richard Layard, Baron Layard

The flashbacks are a great way to give answers to the story. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

Management teams aren't good at asking questions. In business school, we train them to be good at giving answers. — Clayton Christensen

Drawing prayer circles isn't about proving yourself to God; it's about giving God an opportunity to prove Himself to you. Just in case you have forgotten - and to ensure that you always remember - God is for you. I can't promise that God will always give you the answer you want. I can't promise that He'll answer on your timeline. But I can promise this: He answers every prayer, and He keeps every promise. That is who He is. That is what He does. — Mark Batterson

I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers ... It is an invitation to think
not to believe. — Robert A. Heinlein

Remember what I said at the very beginning? Now, I'm giving you a choice: You can put the book down now - but you'll just have some of the story. Look other places for more of it. Dig even deeper, and you could become part of it. The web of answers is out there. If you can find the portal. Be careful. And don't say I didn't warn you. Max — James Patterson

To be a deep listener, one of the first things we have to do is give up the need and the desire to give advice. Knowing answers does not require stating them; there are times when offering answers is not helpful, as when a person is in the middle of their own learning process. — John Earle

Don't let us take doubts with exaggerated seriousness nor let them grow out of proportion, or become black-and-white or fanatical about them. What we need to learn is how slowly to change our culturally conditioned and passionate involvement with doubt into a free, humorous, and compassionate one. This means giving doubts time, and giving ourselves time to find answers to our questions that are not merely intellectual or "philosophical," but living and real and genuine and workable. Doubts cannot resolve themselves immediately; but if we are patient a space can be created within us, in which doubts can be carefully and objectively examined, unraveled, dissolved, and healed. What we lack, especially in this culture, is the right undistracted and richly spacious environment of the mind, which can only be created through sustained meditation practice, and in which insights can be given the change slowly to mature and ripen. 129-130 — Sogyal Rinpoche

I try to make art which celebrates doubt and uncertainty. Which provokes answers but doesn't give them. Which withholds absolute meaning by incorporating parasite meanings. Which suspends meaning while perpetually dispatching you toward interpretation, urging you beyond dogmatism, beyond doctrine, beyond ideology, beyond authority. — Sherrie Levine

ON HER DEATHBED, Gertrude Stein is said to have asked, 'What is the answer?' Then, after a long silence, 'What is the question?' Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks. — Frederick Buechner

When Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was before us in 1993, she said that her standard was to give no hints, no forecasts, no previews, and declined to answer dozens of questions. — Orrin Hatch

Stories don't give answers, but they do offer perspective. — Dan B. Allender

I'm giving you my Bible answers. I'm not well educated. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

I just became fascinated with how complex and unlikely the universe is and life is and Catholicism gives me an answer to that. — Dean Koontz

Questing is hard. Fortunately, Thomas is here to spoon-feed them answers. We're one step away from him giving them an instruction sheet by Ikea, with cartoonish diagrams and a little goddess-slaying allen wrench. — Jim C. Hines

Life has a funny way of giving us answers when we haven't even asked the questions. — Jennifer Olds