Raise Questions Quotes & Sayings

The cognitive abilities of chimpanzees force us, I think, to raise searching questions about the boundaries of the community of beings to which special ethical considerations are due. — Carl Sagan

Every single person, pretty much, is taught what they're supposed to do: go to school, get a job, find someone to love, get married, have kids, raise the kids, and then die. Nobody questions that. What if you want to do something different? — Aziz Ansari

Museums should be places where you raise questions, not just show stuff. — William Thorsell

The prosecution wants to make sure the process by which the evidence was obtained is not truthfully presented, because, as often as not, that process will raise questions. — Alan Dershowitz

Movies about space raise those questions of what we're doing here, and that inevitably introduces a spiritual dimension. — Danny Boyle

You don't want to raise a kid in a culture where the kid who asks the most questions is annoying. You want a culture where the kid who asks the most questions gets awards and gets another piece of cake. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Why we ask questions: Questions are the basis of human freedom. Our mind, as a part of our self experience, is curious and always challenging that part of us that can think about the essence of things. We interpret our lives all the time - with unconscious deep conceptualization - and these conceptualization raise questions.
Why did I feel the way I felt yesterday when I spoke with X? What is the meaning of my answer? Why I chose to spend time in X's company and not Y's? And how it changed my attitude toward Y?
(Interesting paragraph I translated from the Hebrew edition) — Christopher Bollas

I'm really sort of cautious about being too didactic. To me there are writers that can do that, but I think they drown in that after a while. I do think the job of a writer is to raise questions and nobody likes the questions being asked. — Adam Braver

When our children are old enough, and if we can afford to, we send them to college, where despite the recent proliferation of courses on 'happiness' and 'positive psychology,' the point is to acquire the skills not of positive thinking but of *critical* thinking, and critical thinking is inherently skeptical. The best students
and in good colleges, also the most successful
are the ones who raise sharp questions, even at the risk of making a professor momentarily uncomfortable. Whether the subject is literature or engineering, graduates should be capable of challenging authority figures, going against the views of their classmates, and defending novel points of view. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Nowadays nobody bothers, and it is considered in slightly bad taste to even raise the question of God's existence. Matters of religion are like matters of sexual preference: they are not discussed in public, and even the abstract questions are discussed only by bores. — John Rogers Searle

I'm not Michael Moore. I think Michael Moore wants to tell you how to think. He wants to give you answers. I make movies to raise my own personal questions and not to give answers. — Jason Reitman

The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. — Albert Einstein

One dictionary defines denouement as "a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain." By that definition, it is exactly the wrong word to describe this chapter. This chapter will make nothing clear; it will raise many questions; and it may even contain a surprise or two. But I say we call it the denouement anyway because the words sounds so sophisticated and French. — Pseudonymous Bosch

We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society ... What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed. — Martin Luther King Jr.

So wait, shooting someone seventeen times isn't okay, but shooting him seventeen times with a fifteen-round magazine doesn't raise questions? — Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson

- "Surely you have considered terrorist activity?"
There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite strong terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours."
The BBC interviews a nuclear spokesperson (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens) — Terry Pratchett

The mages' stories may be deceitful, but they raise the questions that the majority of people prefer to overlook. — Andrew Orange

That's the way of all good explanations. The better they are, the more questions they raise. — John Brockman

I love fiction. I like reading short stories. Cupcakes, pop songs, Polaroids, and short stories. They all raise and answer questions in a short space. I like Lorrie Moore. Amy Hempel. Tim O'Brien. Raymond Carver. All the heartbreakers. — Laurel Nakadate

For one thing, I think that there are questions which philosophers raise which, although science bears on them, are not typically the central focus of those who work in the sciences. At the same time, I don't have a view of philosophy which marks it out as different in kind from scientific work — Hilary Kornblith

The years move forward and everyone is attending to their life's priorities, focusing on how to be happy, make a living, raise a family. The years turn into decades and sooner or later, (hopefully later) sickness or accidents happen and all are again confronted with the big questions: Why? What's next? What has this life that I've lived been about? As one begins to consider their own eventual departure: What have I been able to do to make things a little better? What have I passed along to make others' lives more beautiful? — Gene O'Neil

One truth is that suffering raises profound questions with the universe. The other truth is that grace, gift and generosity also raise profound questions. — Rob Bell

Since when did books ever solve anything? They only raise more questions than they answer, otherwise they're just fucking entertainment, and I am not here to fucking entertain you. — Zia Haider Rahman

I think our challenge as parents is to rise above that preference for the child of least resistance and to think beyond short-term success as a criterion - particularly if success is defined by conventional and insipid standards. Don't we want our kids to be inspiring rather than spend their lives just collecting tokens (grades, money, approval)? Don't we want them to think in the plural rather than focusing only on what will benefit them personally? Don't we want them to appraise traditions with fresh eyes and raise questions about what seems silly or self-defeating or oppressive, rather than doing what has always been done just because it's always been done? — Alfie Kohn

It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been
and even then thereare surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are? — Mary Blakely

Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously problems about words and their meanings. What must be taken seriously are questions of fact, and assertions about facts: theories and hypotheses; the problems they solve; and the problems they raise. — Karl R. Popper

There is something particularly appealing about teaching a subject that seems to deal with the lowest kind of relationships-accidents, ambulance chasing-because you can show students that these raise the most fundamental questions about the structure of society. — Guido Calabresi

use questions to raise questions, — Os Guinness

Men at the top are often unaware of the benefits they enjoy simply because they're men, and this can make them blind to the disadvantages associated with being a woman. Women lower down also believe that men at the top are entitled to be there, so they try to play by the rules and work harder to advance rather than raise questions or voice concerns about the possibility of bias. As a result, everyone becomes complicit in perpetuating an unjust system. — Sheryl Sandberg

I am skeptical that distance education based on asynchronous Internet technologies (i.e., prerecorded video, online forums, and email) is a substitute for live classroom discussion and other on-campus interaction. Distance education students can't raise their hands to ask instructors questions or participate in discussions, and it's difficult or impossible for them to take advantage of faculty office hours. Teaching assistants don't always respond to email, and online class discussion boards can be neglected by students and faculty alike. In this sense, the "process of dialogue" is actually limited by technology. — Ian Lamont

At this point, all of the responsible adults in Lawrence's life seemed to arrive at a tacit agreement that the best way to raise him - certainly the easiest - was to leave him alone. On the rare occasions when Lawrence requested adult intervention in his life, he was usually asking questions that no one could answer. At the age of sixteen, having found nothing in the local school system to challenge him, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse went off to college. He matriculated at Iowa State College, which among other things was the site of a Naval ROTC installation in which he was forcibly enrolled. The — Neal Stephenson

I have so many themes I want to explore, so many questions I'd like to raise and develop, and hopefully, I'll get to do just that. — Catherine McCormack

I'm proud to be a crime novelist. What I've chosen is the best way to convey the questions I'm trying to raise. — George Pelecanos

We can all become activists and raise questions. — Soleil Moon Frye

All the creatures of folklore and popular culture raise unanswered questions about the bodies we inhabit. The walking corpse horrifies because our bodies will bear a real resemblance to them someday, sans the perambulation. Medical oddities are distburbing because they remind that the boundaries of the human body are inherently instable... Other members of the monstrous fraternity, even the sultry vampire, threaten to puncture, rend, and ultimately destroy our bodies. We fear the monster perhaps because we fear the death and dissolution of our temporal selves. — W. Scott Poole

Ultimately, our questions must emerge not from mental categories, but from deep within the heart. They must rise to the surface of our beings as we sit in silence, so that they are not just the old questions which we raise whenever we have nothing else to talk about or just for the sake of argument. They need to be the questions which make a difference in our lives. — Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

The key to maintaining your inspiration in the day-to-day work of meditation practice is to approach it as play - a happy opportunity to master practical skills, to raise questions, experiment, and explore. — Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Sometimes I find myself exploring very different and new fields but I have a very clear vision of what I would like to do and the questions I would like to raise. — Dror Benshetrit

There are four categories of questions Emmily asks:
1. Can I please go to the bathroom?
2. Where is the bathroom?
3. Is it okay if I raise my hand and ask a question?
4. I don't understand anything you've said in the last thirty minutes. Could you explain it again? Also the last six weeks. — Jim Benton

I try to write stories that are thrilling and full of mystery and funny all at the same time, stories that raise moral questions but come up with very few moral answers, stories that emotionally touch readers through the characters. — William Lashner

Expert tutors often do not help very much. They hang back letting the student manage as much as possible. And when things go awry, rather than help directly they raise questions: 'Could you explain this step again? How did you ... ? — Mark Lepper

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. — Albert Einstein

Only those are happy who never think or, rather, who only think about life's bare necessities, and to think about such things means not to think at all. True thinking resembles a demon who muddies the spring of life or a sickness which corrupts its roots. To think all the time, to raise questions, to doubt your own destiny, to feel the weariness of living, to be worn out to the point of exhaustion by thoughts and life, to leave behind you, as symbols of your life's drama, a trail of smoke and blood - all this means you are so unhappy that reflection and thinking appear as a curse causing a violent revulsion in you. — Emil Cioran

The best paradoxes raise questions about what kinds of contradictions can occur-what species of impossibilities are possible. — William Poundstone

We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things. — Earl C. Kelley

Of all the questions about the future of leadership that we can raise for ourselves, we can be certain in our answer to only one: 'Who will lead us?' The answer, of course, is that we will be lead by those we have taught, and they will lead us as we have shown them they should. — William C. Richardson

An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message. — Michael Haneke

The adult members of churches today rarely raise serious religious questions for fear of revealing their doubts or being thought of as strange. There is an implicit conspiracy of silence on religious matters in the churches. This conspiracy covers up the fact that the churches do not change lives or influence conduct to any appreciable degree. — Dallas Willard

We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It's always wise to raise questions about the most obvious and simple assumption — C. West Churchman

Over the years we seem to have become habituated, even addicted, to the notion of radical threat, threat of the kind that can make virtually anything seem expendable if it does not serve an immediate, desperate purpose of self-defense
as defined by people often in too high a state of alarm to make sound judgments about what real safety would be or how it might be achieved, and who feel that their duty to the rest of us is to be very certain we share their alarm. Putting to one side the opportunities offered by the coercive power of fear, charity obliges me to assume that their alarm is genuine, though i grant that in doing so I again raise questions about the soundness of their judgment. — Marilynne Robinson

What do you do,' said Jean, 'with, ah, "ungifted" children when you have them?'
'Cherish them and raise them, you imbecile. Most of them end up working for us, in Karthain and elsewhere. What did you think we'd do, burn them on a pyre?'
'Forget I asked — Scott Lynch

At a time when we need an urgent national conversation about how schools and curriculum should address the environmental crisis, we're being told that the problems we need to focus on are teacher incompetence, government monopoly, and market competition. The reform agenda reflects the same private interests that are moving to shrink public space-interests that have no desire to raise questions that might encourage students to think critically about the roots of the environmental crisis, or to examine society's unsustainable distribution of wealth and power. — Bill Bigelow

You and I are poets, Mrs. Osgood. Our job is to raise questions, not to answer them. — Lynn Cullen

Philosophical questions are so difficult, the problems they raise are so complex, that no one can fairly expect, now, any more than in the past, to win more than a very limited assent. — G.E. Moore

I think film should raise questions, not give answers. I think film should challenge people to reflect, debate and get by themselves to the answer that fits them. — Diego Luna

I grew up in the church, with traditional hymns, but at the same time I was beginning to listen to pop music, the mid-60s, The Beatles, which had just as much influence on me as those hymns did. Then the hippy stuff like Pink Floyd started to raise questions about how I lived my life and the world in which I lived. — Alan Green

Teachers seeking to 'teach the controversy' over Darwinian evolution in today's climate will likely be met with false warnings that it is unconstitutional to say anything negative about Darwinian evolution. Students who attempt to raise questions about Darwinism, or who try to elicit from the teacher an honest answer about the status of intelligent design theory will trigger administrators' concerns about whether they stand in Constitutional jeopardy. A chilling effect on open inquiry is being felt in several states already, including Ohio. South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. [District Court] Judge Jones's message is clear: give Darwin only praise, or else face the wrath of the judiciary. — David K. DeWolf

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I'm ready for conventions. You know what's interesting, the sort of questions that Lost raises are of a different sort from this movie. In other words, Lost is about figuring out the world of the show, whereas this one seems to raise questions about the world that we know. But I'm happy to entertain both. — William Mapother

I agree that all kids of all colors love hip-hop. My point in writing the book was to raise questions about the ways the hip-hop generation and the millennium generation, both who have lived their entire lives in post-segregation America, are processing race in radically different ways than any generation of Americans. I think they have a lot to tell us as a country about ways of addressing race matters. — Bakari Kitwana

Raise Your Hand [10w]
Raise your hand to answer questions,
not to hit children. — Beryl Dov

The big discoveries raise questions that make astronomers work feverishly and argue with an agitation that verges on rudeness. — Nigel Calder

Having been an educator for so many years I know that all a good teacher can do is set a context, raise questions or enter into a kind of a dialogic relationship with their students. — Godfrey Reggio

I learned that I could not do enough work; it's always incomplete. When you ask a question, the answer will raise four more questions, and those four will become eight. — Tobin Bell

I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise. — James McBride

McGovern is the only major candidate - including Lindsay and Muskie - who invariably gives a straight answer when people raise these questions. He lines out the painful truth, and his reward has been just about the same as that of any other politician who insists on telling the truth: He is mocked, vilified, ignored, and abandoned as a hopeless loser by even his good old buddies like Harold Hughes. On — Hunter S. Thompson

Evangelical Christian politicians who cheat often raise questions about hypocrisy, especially if they preached piety in public and disregarded it in private. When Jewish politicians fall, they shatter different expectations, particularly that American Jews need to work together to preserve respectability and fireproof against anti-Semitism. — Jodi Kantor

For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric CO2 has continued to accumulate - up about 4 percent in the last 10 years - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That should raise obvious questions about CO2 being the cause of climate change. — Walter Cunningham

As a Jew and a psychologist, I understand the stress that religious communities feel in connection with questioning of circumcision ... I raise these questions out of deep caring and compassion, for our community generally, and our male infants in particular. We are inflicting, generally, unrecognized harm with circumcision, and the perpetuation of this harm is far greater a concern than the discomfort that comes from confronting the advisability of this practice. Many Jews who do not circumcise in North America, South America, Europe, and Israel support this view. — Ronald Goldman

Around the world, countries flush with cash but poor in arable land are now rushing to secure vast amounts of acreage in land-rich but underdeveloped nations. In theory, of course, such trades could benefit both sides, but in practice they usually raise extraordinarily troubling ethical and political questions. What — Michael T. Klare

The intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public. And this role has an edge to it, and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place ti is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. — Edward W. Said

They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today-my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The most effective learning takes place in the classroom, where you can easily raise your hand, engage in spontaneous discussions with classmates and faculty, turn to the person next to you to ask for clarification, or approach the professor after class or during office hours to ask questions or exchange viewpoints in a way that practically guarantees an instant response and is not constrained by typing, software interfaces, or waiting for a response. — Ian Lamont

The best characters are the ones that somehow manage to be both attractive and repulsive at the same time. If you do that, you're at the center of the universe - if you can find characters who are more ambiguous and can raise more questions than answers. — Nicolas Cage

As is perhaps obvious, Morris Zapp had no great esteem for his fellow-labourers in the vineyards of literature. They seemed to him vague, fickle, irresponsible creatures, who wallowed in relativism like hippopotami in mud, with their nostrils barely protruding into the air of common-sense. They happily tolerated the existence of opinions contrary to their own - they even, for God's sake, sometimes changed their minds. Their pathetic attempts at profundity were qualified out of existence and largely interrogative in mode. They liked to begin a paper with some formula like, 'I want to raise some questions about so-and-so', and seemed to think they had done their intellectual duty by merely raising them. This manoeuvre drove Morris Zapp insane. Any damn fool, he maintained, could think of questions; it was answers that separated the men from the boys. — David Lodge

I am of the generation of writers who can get instant feedback from readers within hours of publication. The fan forum is extraordinary - readers from all over the world coming together to discuss, argue and debate scenes and characters from a novel. They add a layer to the story that I cannot write and yes, I will participate in that conversation and answer questions. After all, they are the people I'm writing for and their enthusiasm and questions really pushes me to raise the bar. — Michael Scott

A free and independent press is generally considered essential for democracy, both to raise timely questions about debatable government policies and to report challenges to those policies when they fail. — W. Lance Bennett

The symbolism of meat-eating is never neutral. To himself, the meat-eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death. There is a kind of gestalt-shift between the two positions which makes it hard to change, and hard to raise questions on the matter at all without becoming embattled. — Mary Midgley