“We are very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes we live on.”

—  Oliver Wendell Holmes, book Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes we live on." by Oliver Wendell Holmes?
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes135
Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

Related quotes

Ted Chiang photo

“Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know.”

Ted Chiang (1967) American science fiction writer

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo

“We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.”

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie book Purple Hibiscus

Source: Purple Hibiscus

A. C. Grayling photo

“Of all the questions we can ask ourselves the most important is: how is one best to live?”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), “Introduction” (p. xi)

“So one of the questions I think Jesus is going to ask us on judgment day is not have we lived a good life, and not just have we lived the Gospel, he's going to ask us "Who have you made a disciple of in My name?" So that becomes the question for me and for you, who am I discipling right now?”

Louis Frederick Kihneman (1952) American prelate of the Catholic Church (born 1952)

Source: Make disciples of all men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9rEbitrSPM (July 18, 2020)

Al Gore photo

“The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: "We the people." It wasn't, "We the conglomerates." It wasn't, "We the corporations."”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

It was, "We the people."
As quoted by the Philadelphia Daily News (21 October 2005).

K. Barry Sharpless photo

“We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.”

K. Barry Sharpless (1941) American chemist

Nobel Banquet speech, 2001

Ben Carson photo

“We do not have to compare our achievements with those of others. We need only to ask ourselves one question: Have I given my best?”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 265

Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“We have so much to live for, so much to hope for! Humanity is essentially good. We are all of one great family. We can give strength to the voice of hope. We can give thanks to those who work for peace. We can give added attention to those who feed the hungry and bind up the wounds of conflict. To the extent we cultivate this virtue of optimism, we will bless all the world's peoples.”

Gordon B. Hinckley book Standing for Something

Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“The question is asked in ignorance, by one who does not even know what can have led him to ask it.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Preface
1840s, Philosophical Fragments (1844)

“There can be no real peace when living with someone who has already declared war, no peace but capitulation. And even that, as we see around us, doesn't lead to further peace but to further degradation and exploitation. We're responsible for not only what we do but for what is in our power to stop. Before we can speak of peace, we have to speak honestly of stopping, by any and all means possible, those who have declared war on the world and on us. Those who destroy wont stop because we ask nicely. There is only one language that they understand, and everyone here knows what it is. Yet we don't speak of it openly.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

A Language Older Than Words (2000)

Related topics