The Question Quotes & Sayings

There is no question that a society that sets out to control its citizens' use of drugs sets out on the slippery path to totalitarianism. — Terence McKenna

The question is unanswerable because its truth can't be tested. — Jen Nadol

The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things. — Lewis Carroll

There was nothing more pressing to do all day, every day, except think about the question that his whole life had failed to answer: How did music trick the body into thinking it had a soul? — Richard Powers

She wanted to slap herself for showing weakness around him. "Why?" he prodded. "Why what?" she snapped. "Why me?" "I was asking myself the same question." "The wide-eyed act won't work with me, cara." "I am not - " "I won't marry you. If that's what you're after, forget it. Not happening." "I'm after what?!" she spluttered. She was at a loss for words. "It takes more than a cherry to make me cough up a wedding ring, " he said with thinly veiled derision. "You should've done your homework. Marriage? Not in my cards. — Kat Madrid

I like chatting with people. If people ask me a direct question, I give them a direct answer and I feel I've always done that with the press. — Kiefer Sutherland

Though, in debating with regard to theories, it be lawful to say whether this or that is consistent with the Divine attributes, yet, when we find that God has actually done any thing, all question about its justice, wisdom, and benevolence, is forever out of place. — Nehemiah Adams

From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience is the only virtue which slaves can still practice. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

He's been looking at my file. So the question has to be right there on the tip of his tongue right about now, waiting to be spoken. But he keeps up the 'act professional' charade, makes it feel like he sees this kind of thing all the time, but in reality he's having a little fun with it. I'm the story he's going to tell at a bar after making my name anonymous. I'm the case study that's going to become dinner conversation when he takes some rich bitch out next week. He's going to do it to make himself look well-balanced, prove how normal he is in a world full of weirdoes. In short, he's going to look 'normal' at my expense. — Cyma Rizwaan Khan

The real question for me is, do people have the tools that they need in order to make those decisions well? And I think that it's actually really important that Facebook continually makes it easier and easier to make those decisions ... If people feel like they don't have control over how they're sharing things, then we're failing them. — Mark Zuckerberg

Don't ever ask a player to do something he doesn't have the ability to do. He'll just question your ability as a coach, not his as an athlete. — Lou Holtz

On the question of marriage, as in all other respects, Lutheranism is a compromise, a bridge between two logical views of the universe: the Catholic-Christian and the Individualistic Monist. And bridges are made to go over, not to stand upon. — Ellen Key

[In response to the question "Do you think that you underestimated the insurgency's strength?"] I think so. I guess if I look back on it now, I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered. — Dick Cheney

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around. — Howard Schultz

The question is what will Mitt Romney do as president if his policy is simply to be hands off and let the government be made so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. In the 21st century global economy, no state alone has the ability to compete against China. — Jennifer Granholm

This powerful question - "Am I standing in my power or am I trying to please another?" - challenges us to believe in ourselves and make the daring choice to trust in our innate ability to know what's in our highest and best interest. — Debbie Ford

Those who are driven by poverty, those who're free from material worries hunger exhausting labor a joyless existence ask the same question, the question of meaning. — Kathy Acker

I think the question is, how do we live with change? Change in our friends, change in our lovers? Change in me and change in my body, from the stroke. Things have changed this plane of consciousness. We've tried to keep things the same. It causes suffering. This suffering is another step in your spiritual life, in your spiritual journey. — Ram Dass

The question is: do you want suffering or do you want peace? It's that simple. — Donna Goddard

These are human beings with real lives and the uncertainty and the fear that any of them face right now could be ended at a stroke if we had all the candidates for prime minister simply say that the right to remain here is not in question and I call again upon Theresa May and on the current prime minster to do that. That would be the humane thing to do and I even at this stage hope that that's a direction they will take. — Nicola Sturgeon

It's simply a question of finding the right incentive. Pauper or prince, every man can be bought — Leigh Bardugo

The 'phenomenal concept' issue is rather different, I think. Here the question is whether there are concepts of experiences that are made available to subjects solely in virtue of their having had those experiences themselves. Is there a way of thinking about seeing something red, say, that you get from having had those experiences, and so isn't available to a blind person? — David Papineau

Some people are agents from birth, Monsignors
he told them
appointed to the work by the period of history, the place, and their own natural dispositions. In their cases, it was simply a question of who got to them first, Your Eminences: 'Whether it's us, whether it's the opposition, or whether it's the bloody missionaries. — John Le Carre

Consider this:
1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?
And here's a bonus question:
2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle? — Brad Warner

One's happiness is very largely a question of state of mind rather than the world you are looking at. — Geoff Dyer

Two big questions that people ask me are: if we make these robots more and more human-like, will we accept them - will they need rights eventually? And the other question people ask me is, will they want to take over? — Rodney Brooks

The question from agnosticism is, 'who turned on the lights?' The question from faith is 'whatever for?' Thoreau climbed Mount Katahdin and gives vent to an almost outraged sense of the reality of the things of this world: "I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries- think of our life in nature-daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,- rocks, trees, wind! — Annie Dillard

Those people on the other side, they will answer any question about climate change by saying, 'I'm not a scientist.' Well, I'm not a scientist either. I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain. — Hillary Clinton

Our romantic options are unprecedented and our tools to sort and communicate with them are staggering. And that raises the question: Why are so many people frustrated? — Aziz Ansari

The way of the unconscious is different. Symbols gather round the thing to be explained, understood, interpreted. The act of becoming conscious consists in the concentric grouping of symbols around the object, all circumscribing and describing the unknown from many sides. Each symbol lays bare another essential side of the object to be grasped, points to another facet of meaning. Only the canon of these symbols congregating about the center in question, the coherent symbol group, can lead to an understanding of what the symbols point to and of what they are trying to express. — Erich Neumann

To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I believe the Lord has chosen me to spread His word through my words and who am I to question His plans for me? — Cindy Bauer

The question is whether voters, particularly independents, believe that Obama truly values personal liberty and responsibility as much as the government-bought safety net. — Ron Fournier

For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: Can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different worldview. — Mark Steyn

The question deserves to be asked: Is hating one's nation really such a bad thing? Or perhaps more importantly, after the crimes our government has committed, what moral self-respecting person can truly love this nation? — Michel Templet

Accomplished a bit more for Bush than for Gore only because there were more question marks for Bush. I think he established that he possesses at least the minimum qualifications for being president. — Stuart Rothenberg

The agony of being unable to answer the question of why are we the way we are, divisively instead of cooperatively behaved, has been the particular burden of life. It has been our species' particular affliction or condition - our human condition. — Jeremy Griffith

Due to the failure of politics, which has become a process of middle-management, art has become one of the last open spaces to question core beliefs and to design a viable future. Art becomes an open space where we can ask fundamental questions about ourselves. — Antony Gormley

Strident minorities, acting on the growing disposition to censor their opponents, ensure that the deeper the question, the more likely it is to be settled by shallow arguments. — Roger Scruton

BROWSED this far into the magazine, you've likely noticed something unusual about this issue: it has three consecutive covers. Why? Good question. The theme of The Atlantic 's annual Ideas Issue this year is creativity - which is a hard concept to define, let alone to illustrate. We could have gone with an illuminated lightbulb, or photographed Brad Pitt painting at an easel, but those options didn't seem very ... creative. — Anonymous

The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. — Woodrow Wilson

The question is, how long does Mr. Spinny have to live? And what does that tell us? — Neal Stephenson

Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question? — Richard Dawkins

The three of us stood there for a minute. I don't know what Stew was thinking, and the filing cabinet wasn't thinking anything. But I was thinking, is this the world? Is this really the place in which you've ended up, Snicket? It was a question that struck me, as it might strike you, when something ridiculous was going on, or something sad. I wondered if this was really where I should be, or if there was another world someplace, less ridiculous and less sad. But I never knew the answer to the question. Perhaps I had been in another world before I was born, and did not remember it, or perhaps I would see another world when I died, which I was in no hurry to do. In the meantime, I was stuck in the police station, doing something so ridiculous it felt sad, and feeling so sad it was ridiculous. The world of the police station, the world of Stain'd-by-the-Sea and all of the wrong questions I was asking, was was the only world I could see. — Lemony Snicket

The question of God, by contrast, is one that can and must be pursued in terms of the absolute and the contingent, the necessary and the fortuitous, potency and act, possibility and impossibility, being and nonbeing, transcendence and immanence. — David Bentley Hart

It's true that I am not from the south and I have a certain reserve. I take time to get close to, and I don't immediately throw my arms round someone. But it is more a question of style. — Bernard Arnault

I had no more conception of what it meant to be a forester than the man in the moon ... But at least a forester worked in the woods and with the woods - and I loved the woods and everything about them ... My Father's suggestion settled the question in favor of forestry. — Gifford Pinchot

To refer to the oft mooted question, "Which piece is stronger, the Bishop or the Knight?" it is clear that the value of the Bishop undergoes greater changes than that of the Knight. — Emanuel Lasker

If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: Has the Riemann hypothesis been proven? — David Hilbert

Miss Havisham is a glitch in the smooth functioning of the Patriarchy, enforcing awareness of a moment of social disaster and personal shame, something it seems she would want us to forget (but no one would forget). (Maybe an interesting "discussion question" for readers of Complicated Grief might be, "What do Terry Barton and Miss Havisham have in common?"?) — Laura Mullen

Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document ... The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences. — Thomas Sowell

Well, if a horse refuses, you've phrased your question wrongly. It's the same with women. Don't ask them, 'Shall we go out to dinner?' Ask: 'What can I cook for you?' Can she say not to that? No, she can't. — Nina George

I had to ask the burning question as we walked to the door. "How's it feel to throw a man off a building twenty stories up?"
"Good. Kind of liberating actually. Educational too. I never knew a man could scream so loud. Or so long. — KevaD

Sentences are made wonderfully one at a time. Who makes them. Nobody can make them because nobody can what ever they do see.
All this makes sentences so clear I know how I like them.
What is a sentence mostly what is a sentence. With them a sentence is with us about us all about us we will be willing with what a sentence is. A sentence is that they cannot be carefully there is a doubt about it.
The great question is can you think a sentence. What is a sentence. He thought a sentence. Who calls him to come which he did.
... What is a sentence. A sentence is a duplicate. An exact duplicate is depreciated. Why is a duplicated sentence not depreciated. Because it is a witness. No witnesses are without value. — Gertrude Stein

we do not ask. We want to be told. One of the most curious things in the structure of our psyche is that we all want to be told because we are the result of the propaganda of ten thousand years. We want to have our thinking confirmed and corroborated by another, whereas to ask a question is to ask it of yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighboring yeomen, the listener said, Ah, Clym Yeobright: what is he doing now?' When the instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is felt that he will not be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in particular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some region of singularity , good or bad. The devout home is that he is doing well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it ... So the subject recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name, so much the better for him, if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the better for a narrative — Thomas Hardy

His reaction to the idea was not simple. He felt a great warmth that they should want to give him a party and at the same time he quaked inwardly remembering the last one they had given.
Now everything fell into place-Mack's question and the silences when he was about. He thought of it a lot that night sitting beside his desk. He glanced about considering what things would have to be locked up. He knew the party was going to cost him plenty. — John Steinbeck

For this is wisdom- to love and live To take what fate or the Gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to hold, and, in time
let go. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I need to give you one last bit of advice in the off chance this rather extraordinary and enviable situation in which you find yourself is actually true- that somehow you've fallen deep down into a Cordova story. I stared back at him. Be the good guy, he said. How do I know I'm the good guy? He pointed at me, nodding. A very wise question. You don't. Most bad guys think they're good. But there are a few signifiers. You'll be miserable. You'll be hated. You'll fumble around in the dark, alone and confused. You'll have little insight as to the true nature of things, not until the very last minute, and only if you have the stamina and the madness to go to the very, very end. But most importantly- and critically- you will act without regard for yourself. You'll be motivated by something that has nothing to do with the ego. You'll do it for justice. For grace. For love. Those large rather heroic qualities only the good have the strength to carry on their shoulders. And you'll listen. — Marisha Pessl

Fifteen-year-old Sam had seen twenty-year-old Ryan for the first time and had immediately run upstairs and jerked off. It had been a revolutionary and enlightening experience that essentially answered the question that yes, I was indeed very, very gay. — T.J. Klune

Any new technology, if it's used by evil people, bad things can happen. But that's more a question of the politics of the technology. — Geoffrey Hinton

Fine," Strider said tightly. "You can. But you wont. Because you know that if you take the woman out of this home, I'll go gray from worry. And you like my hair the way it is."
"Stridey-man. Are you hitting on my? Trying to get me to run my fingers through those mangy locks?"
Gideon chuckled. "Sweetie pie."
Striders lips even twitched into a grin. "You know I hate when you get mushy like that."
Boy loved it. No question. — Gena Showalter

I love the question-and-answer. I love to see liberals try to thrash their way to a coherent argument. And actually, I think it's fun to debate. — Ann Coulter

She had never heard the word 'intellectual' used as a noun before she went to Barnard, and she took it to heart. It was a brave noun, a proud noun, a noun suggesting lifelong dedication to lofty things and a cool disdain for the commonplace. An intellectual might lose her virginity to a soldier in the park, but she could learn to look back on it with wry, amused detachment. An intellectual might have a mother who showed her underpants when drunk, but she wouldn't let it bother her. And Emily Grimes might not be an intellectual yet, but if she took copious notes in even the dullest of her classes, and if she read every night until her eyes ached, it was only a question of time. — Richard Yates

Here's a question I still can't answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice? — Jeffrey Eugenides

NAEP data show beyond question that test scores in reading and math have improved for almost every group of students over the past two decades; slowly and steadily in the case of reading, dramatically in the case of mathematics. Students know more and can do more in these two basic skills subjects now than they could twenty or forty years ago... So the next time you hear someone say that the system is "broken," that American students aren't as well educated as they used to be, that our schools are failing, tell that person the facts. — Diane Ravitch

I've always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I've heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last. — David Bowie

It seems like he's keeping my foot within his grasp for longer than necessary when I see his eyes wander up my legs again. I tingle in every spot his gaze touches.
His voice sends shivers up my spine when he asks, "Have you ever been fucked, Eve?"
My eyelids flutter and I let out a small surprised gasp at his question, breath gushing from my lips. I'm not exactly a virgin, not too far off though, and I can safely say that I have never been fucked in the way that Phoenix is insinuating. Most of the sex I've had has been the fantasy kind. Our eyes lock and he moves his hand from the heel of my foot up along the back of my leg, massaging my shin.
I actually moan when his fingers press in, releasing the tension from a knotted muscle. His mouth opens as he watches me.
"I don't think that's a very appropriate question to ask of a friend," I finally manage to croak out.
He smiles darkly. "I told you I was bad news. — Raine Anthony

The act of making a photograph is less a question of what is being looked at than how. — Margaret Atwood

Choice. - The question is, What influences, directs, or determines the mind or Will to come to such a conclusion or choice as it does? — Jonathan Edwards

Stephens resumed speaking as the crowd quieted. He referred to one final "improvement" the Confederate Constitution had introduced, a brief but crucial clause that banned forever any "bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves." "The new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions - African slavery as it exists among us - the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization." This question, Stephens baldly admitted, "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."20 Stephens then referenced — Don H. Doyle

Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.
Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd. — Oscar Wilde

Warren Berger's book is a cure for a disease in large enterprises. A More Beautiful Question provides a framework to help leaders ask the most important questions - which is one of the most fundamental characteristics of a great leader - while sharing inspiring stories to show the incredible power of this concept. — Jim Stengel

The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop. — P. J. O'Rourke

In face of this modern nihilism, Christians are often lacking in courage. We tend to give the impression that we will hold on to the outward forms whatever happens, even if God really is not there. But the opposite ought to be true of us, so that people can see that we demand the truth of what is there and that we are not dealing merely with platitudes. In other words, it should be understood that we take this question of truth and personality so seriously that if God were not there we would be among the first of those who had the courage to step out of the queue. — Francis A. Schaeffer

The same uneven application of values applies in the weird worlds of academia and the think tanks. Like the media, they choose to close off their minds the moment that the question of Islam comes along. Most bizarre is that you can get away with saying anything, absolutely anything, so long as it is flattering of Islam. It doesn't matter how soppy, how sentimental, how completely unacademic it is: so long as it's about Islam, different standards apply. — Douglas Murray

Immigrants can spread diseases for which we may have no immunity. There is also the question of crime and culture. Many immigrants come from countries with different legal structures and are not willing to behave in the way we expect American citizens to behave. — Ron Paul

The question is not whether a doctrine is beautiful but whether it is true. When we wish to go to a place, we do not ask whether the road leads through a pretty country, but whether it is the right road. — Augustus Hare

I became very interested in the Islamic question, and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery. — V.S. Naipaul

Pinn's Accoutrements - what's that?" "If anyone else asked that question, O He Who is Terrible and Great, I would have said they were an ignorant fool; in you it is a sign of that disarming simplicity which is the fount of all virtue. Pinn's Accoutrements is the most prestigious supplier of magical artifacts in London. It is situated on Piccadilly. Sholto Pinn is the proprietor. — Anonymous

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

What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. — Thucydides

They're being controlled," Dax says to Daphne.
"Very astute," Simon says. "All it takes is a please most times. You know what they say: you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar."
"Why would I want to catch flies?" I ask.
Simon raises his eyebrows. "Seriously? That's the part of all this you question? — Bree Despain

Our civilization ... is not devaluing its awareness of the unknowable; nor is it deifying it. It is the first civilization that has severed it from religion and superstition. In order to question it. — Andre Malraux

How is it that you're such an expert on home pregnancy kits?"
You're asking that question of an Italian stallion like myself? The women call me 'sperm of thunder'. I don't dare stand too close for fear I may impregnate them with just a whiff of my manhood. — Jill Smolinski

Most philosophers do not want intellectual matters to reduce to a question of morality (obedience or rebellion to God's Word). They want to hold the intellect or reason to be above matters of moral volition. They hold that truth is obtainable and testable no matter what ethical condition the thinker is in.
Hence, they maintain that all disputes must be rationally resolvable, and a rational case for a philosophic position relies on a valid chain of discursive argumentation that takes us back to incontestable first principles or facts. — Greg L. Bahnsen

The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I? — Adyashanti

Preaching on Sunday mornings is such a simple thing, and by complicating it, I think we all do ourselves and the audience a disservice. It is very simple. Here is the model: Make people feel like they need an answer to a question. — Andy Stanley

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

He had got a good start on another book, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. I stood until he finished a paragraph, shut the book on a finger, and looked the question. "Twenty grand," I told him. "The DA wanted fifty, so I'm stepping high. One of the dicks was pretty good, he nearly backed me into a corner on the overalls, but I got loose. No mention of Saul or Fred or Orrie, so they haven't hit on them and now they probably won't. I signed two different statements ten hours apart, but they're welcome to them. The status quo has lost no hide. If there's nothing urgent I'll go up and attend to my hide. I had a one-hour nap with a dick standing by. As for eating, what's lunch? — Rex Stout

Being certain one is alive isn't something to which one pays mind. If you could ask the question, you were fine. If you could not, hopefully you had a cozy coffin. — Thomm Quackenbush

Everybody has the answers or they'll make them up for you. Just once I'd like to hear a brand-new question. — Rod McKuen

Is there any wonder why we are in such big trouble? Any question why the people don't trust their government anymore, and demand a change? — Chris Christie

The first question we usually ask new parents is : "Is it a boy or a girl ?".
There is a great answer to that one going around : "We don't know ; it hasn't told us yet." Personally, I think no question containing "either/or" deserves a serious answer, and that includes the question of gender. — Kate Bornstein

It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those who are struggling. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves. — Barack Obama

Stop for moment... an event has happen (Think on this, how did it happen, why it happen? Is there something like sign from the universe for your question? How positive will use this which have happen (Focus on the positive not on the negative) )... continue... now stop on this quotes (Again to the same process), find out why, how and everything else... Use this process to all stuff, it's important to show that you think! — Deyth Banger

The great fact is, that life is a service. The only question is, Whom will we serve? — Frederick William Faber

They're similar, Cara and Tris, two women sharpened by loss. The difference is that Cara's pain has made her certain of everything, and Tris has guarded her uncertainty, protected it, despite all she's been through. She still approaches everything with a question instead of an answer. It is something I admire about her - something I should probably admire more. For — Veronica Roth

Question: how can one manage not to lose time? Answer: experience it at its full length. Means: spend days in the dentist's waiting room on an uncomfortable chair; live on one's balcony on a Sunday afternoon; listen to lectures in a language that one does not understand, choose the most roundabout and least convenient routes on the railway (and, naturally, travel standing up); queue at the box-office for theatres and so on and not take one's seat; etc. — Albert Camus

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states. — Charles Kennedy