Quotes about doubt

A collection of quotes on the topic of question, questioner, doing, can.

Best quotes about doubt

„Simplicity is a matter of taste“

— Stephen Hawking, book The Grand Design

Source: The Grand Design

„It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.“

— Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day

http://books.google.com/books?id=EcKZ8bbMLDMC&q=%22It+is+not+fair+to+ask+of+others+what+you+are+not+willing+to+do+yourself%22&pg=PA64#v=onepage
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1946&_f=md000366
15 June 1946
My Day (1935–1962)

„It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

Variant: It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

„Ignorance never settles a question.“

— Benjamin Disraeli British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister 1804 - 1881

Source: Speech in the House of Commons (14 May 1866)

„The important thing is not to stop questioning.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

Old Man's Advice to Youth: "Never Lose a Holy Curiosity," http://books.google.com/books?id=dlYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Life%2C%202%20May%201955&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q=Life,%202%20May%201955&f=false LIFE magazine (2 May 1955) statement to William Miller, p. 64.
1950s
Context: The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. … Don't stop to marvel.

„Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.“

— Orson Welles American actor, director, writer and producer 1915 - 1985

„I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.“

— Woody Allen American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician 1935

„The question is not what you look at, but what you see.“

— Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist 1817 - 1862

Variant: It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

„Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?“

— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968

„You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.“

— Victor Hugo, book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

All quotes about doubt

Total 5345 quotes question, filter:

„I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.“

— Osamu Dazai, book The Setting Sun

Source: The Setting Sun

People, Time, Season

„The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence.“

— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

Variant: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

People, Confidence, Problem, World

„Before you judge me, try hard to love me,
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my childhood?“

— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009

HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)

Love, Heart, Childhood

„Even the genius ask questions.“

— Tupac Shakur rapper and actor 1971 - 1996

„For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.“

— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews

Love, Death, God, War

„If you ever need anything please don't hesitate to ask someone else first.“

— Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

„When you love something, you'll always come back to it. You'll always keep asking questions, and finding answers.“

— Kobe Bryant American basketball player 1978 - 2020

Love, Making love

„There are four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living "for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is same. Only love.“

— Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963

Love, Life

„It's not only the question, but the way you try to solve it.“

— Maryam Mirzakhani Iranian mathematician 1977 - 2017

Interview with Research Fellow Maryam Mirzakhani | january 2008

Way

„To become a complete philosopher, you need to familiarize yourself with all the difficult questions.“

— Mwanandeke Kindembo 1996

„Art is a big question mark.“

— Marilyn Manson American rock musician and actor 1969

Art

„The reflective teacher makes the learners decide for themselves and ensures that the decision is sound and reasonable. He or she asks a lot of questions for the learners to carry out self-assessment.“

— Sukavich Rangsitpol Thai politician 1935

Teacher

Teachers, Self-confidence, Decision, Making love

„Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people
And you're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions
If we can speak honestly.What do you feel when you see
All the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night
Before you go to sleep?
What do you feel
When you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?“

— Pink (singer) American singer-songwriter 1979

Dear Mr. President, featuring the Indigo Girls, written by Pink and Billy Mann
Song lyrics, I'm Not Dead (2006)

People, Feeling, Sleep, Night

„Sometimes people like to ask me why should girls go to school, why is it important for them. But I think the more important question is why shouldn't they, why shouldn't they have this right to go to school.“

— Malala Yousafzai Pakistani children's education activist 1997

Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (December 10, 2014)

People, School, Girl, Thinking

„The Socialists ask what is our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists.“

— Benito Mussolini Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequent Republican… 1883 - 1945

Article in Popolo d'Italia, quoted in "A History of Terrorism" (2001) by Walter Laqueur, p. 71
Undated

„Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
… live in the question.“

— Rainer Maria Rilke, book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Heart, Patience

„Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing? That is the question.“

— Martin Heidegger, book Introduction to Metaphysics

Warum ist überhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts? Das ist die Frage.
What is Metaphysics? (1929), p. 110
Cf. Gottfried Leibniz, De rerum originatione radicali (1697)ː "cur aliquid potius extiterit quam nihil."
Source: Introduction to Metaphysics

„If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.“

— Louis Armstrong American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer 1901 - 1971

„Fashion is architecture. It is a matter of proportions.“

— Coco Chanel French fashion designer 1883 - 1971

As quoted in Coco Chanel : Her Life, Her Secrets (1971) by Marcel Haedrich

Fashion

„I know you want to study me psychologically. That's reasonable and I appreciate it. At least you don't lecture to me and pry into my affairs. You have a good technique as a psychiatrist. Let the other fellow talk and stick his neck into the noose. I don't mean that the way it sounds. But you hardly say anything. Someday I'm going to ask you questions.“

— Hermann Göring German politician and military leader 1893 - 1946

To Leon Goldensohn (21 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Way, Study

„I never stole in my childhood, so there was no question of apologising to my father.“

— Nathuram Godse Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi 1910 - 1949

Godse referring to Gandhi's autobiographical story, where Gandhi stole a piece of gold from his father's watch and later on apologised to his father
Excerpts from the play Mee Nathuram Godse boltoy

Childhood

„Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.“

— Erich Fromm German social psychologist and psychoanalyst 1900 - 1980

Love, Problem, Relationship, Romantic

„The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.“

— Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-British philosopher 1889 - 1951

Life, Death, Problem

„We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.“

— Werner Heisenberg German theoretical physicist 1901 - 1976

This has also appeared in the alternate form: "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Variant: What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Source: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

Nature

„If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.“

— Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963

Variant: If there's any message, it is ultimately that it's okay to be different; that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.

Color

„Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.“

— Anne Sexton poet from the United States 1928 - 1974

Flying

„Think for yourself and question authority.“

— Timothy Leary American psychologist 1920 - 1996

Timothy Leary's track on Sound Bites from the Counter Culture (1989)

Thinking

„The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.“

— John Cage American avant-garde composer 1912 - 1992

Beauty, Thinking

„You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means.“

— Louis Armstrong American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer 1901 - 1971

„I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer“

— Douglas Adams English writer and humorist 1952 - 2001

Funny

„I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.“

— Noam Chomsky american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

„What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.“

— Arthur Conan Doyle, book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

People, World

„Mary is the great mother. She is the mother. That's what Mary is. Whether she existed or not, is not the point. She exists at least as a hyper-reality. She exists as the mother. What's the sacrifice of the mother? That's easy: if you're a mother who's worth her salt, you offer your son to be destroyed by the world. That's what you do. And that's what's going to happen. He's going to be born, he's going to suffer, he's going to have his trouble in life, he's going to have his illnesses, he's going to face his failures and catastrophes, and he's going to die. That's what's going to happen, and if you're awake you know that, and then you say, 'well, perhaps he will live in a way that will justify that.' And then you try to have that happen. And that's what makes you worthy of a statue like [The Pieta]. 'Is it right to bring a baby into this terrible world?' Well, every woman asks herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons. Mary answers 'yes' voluntarily. Mary is the archetype of the woman who answers yes to life voluntarily. Not because she is blind. She knows what's going to happen. So, she's the archetypal representation of the woman who says yes to life knowing full well what life is. She's not naive. She's not someone who got pregnant in the backseat of a 1957 Chevy during one night of half-drunk idiocy. Not that. She does so consciously. Consciously, knowing what's to come. And then she allows it to happen, which is a testament to mothers.“

— Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962

Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Life, World, Way, Failure

„Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.“

— Voltaire French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694 - 1778

Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses. (It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers) — Pierre-Marc-Gaston, duc de Lévis (1764-1830), Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets de morale et de politique (Paris, 1808): Maxim xviii
Misattributed

Deep, For Men

„Lovely is the feeling now,
Fever, temperature's rising now,
Power is the force, the vow,
That makes it happen,
It asks no questions how.“

— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009

Off the Wall (1979)

Love, Feeling

„Think for yourself and question authority. “

— Тимоти Фрэнсис Лири 1920 - 1996

Thinking

„I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!“

— Lewis Carroll, book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

World, Feeling, Thinking, Change

„There are years that ask questions and years that answer.“

— Zora Neale Hurston, book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ch. 3, p. 21.

Sad, Depressing, Hurtful, Positive

„If you had to chose one half of your son, which one would it be?"
What kind of a question is that?!"
No need to snap. It was just a question.“

— Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963

„Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.“

— Jack Canfield American writer 1944

Waiting

„There's no time for hatred, only questions. Where is love? Where is happiness? What is life? Where is peace?“

— Jeff Buckley American singer, guitarist and songwriter 1966 - 1997

Love, Life, Peace, Time

„I remember the time an older man asked me when I was young, "Do you know what you are doing now?" I thought it was some kind of trick question.
Tell me," I said.
You are building your memories," he replied, "so make them good ones.“

— Ravi Zacharias Indian philosopher 1946

Memory, Time

„Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, and the open exchange of ideas.“

— Neil deGrasse Tyson American astrophysicist and science communicator 1958

Source: Cosmos

Idea, Light, Science, Dependency

„Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.“

— Jack London American author, journalist, and social activist 1876 - 1916

As quoted in Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior (1991) by Dan Millman, p. 78
Life’s not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.
As quoted in "They Came to Write in Hawai‘i" by Joseph Theroux, in Spirit of Aloha (March/April 2007)

Life, Wise, Life

„Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?“

— Marcus Aurelius, book Meditations

Source: Meditations

„I suppose nowadays it's all a question of surgery, isn't it? Of course the notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy and a child forever, and I think you can. I have known plenty of people who, in their later years, had the energy of children and the kind of curiosity and fascination with things like little children. I think we can keep that, and I think it's important to keep that part of staying young. But I also think it's great fun growing old.“

— Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963

Children, People, Beauty, Boy

„Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.“

— Joseph Campbell American mythologist, writer and lecturer 1904 - 1987

Life

„The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.“

— Thomas Sowell American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author 1930

„Life is largely a matter of expectation.“

— Homér Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Life

„Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.“

— Dr. Seuss American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books 1904 - 1991

Variant: Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.

Deep, Wise, Life

„I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.“

— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

God

„Quit questioning God and start trusting Him!“

— Joel Osteen American televangelist and author 1963

God

„What's dry?' 'Good question. Next question!“

— Tamora Pierce American writer of fantasy novels for children 1954

„O my body, make of me always a man who questions!“

— Frantz Fanon, book Black Skin, White Masks

Variant: Oh my body, make of me a man who always questions!
Source: Black Skin, White Masks

„The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.“

— Claude Lévi-Strauss French anthropologist and ethnologist 1908 - 2009

Personality

„A lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth.“

— Gabriel García Márquez Colombian writer 1927 - 2014

[The Autumn of the Patriarch, 2006 [1976], HarperCollins, 978-0-06-088286-0, 254] translated from El Ontoño del Patriarica (1975) by Gregory Rabassa

Love, Truth, Lie

„The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.“

— Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970

Often paraphrased as "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Compare: "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." B. Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951). Compare also: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming (1919).
See also: Dunning-Kruger effect, Historical Antecedents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect#Historical_antecedents.
1930s, Mortals and Others (1931-35)

Stupidity, World, Intelligence

„The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.“

— Ayn Rand Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905 - 1982

Motivational, Success, Life

„In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.“

— Carlos Castaneda, book Journey to Ixtlan

Source: Journey to Ixtlan

Death, World, Decision, Time

„Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't then it is of no use to us.“

— Carlos Castaneda Peruvian-American author 1925 - 1998

Heart

„I'm calm," Rachel insisted. "Every time I'm around you, some monsters attack us. What's to be nervous about?"
"Look," I said. "I'm sorry about the band room. I hope they didn't kick you our or anything."
"Nah. They asked me a lot of questions about you. I played dumb."
"Was it hard?" Annabeth asked.“

— Rick Riordan, book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Hope, Time

„It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.“

— Margaret Mead American anthropologist 1901 - 1978

Attributed in American Quotations (1992) by Gorton Carruth and Eugene H. Ehrlich, p. 149
1990s

Fear, Behavior

„Don't you ever get tired of asking questions?'
'Never. They're mother's milk to me.“

— Tamora Pierce, book First Test

Source: First Test

„Damn it… Don't you dare ask God to help me.“

— Joan Crawford American actress 1904 - 1977

God, Help

„But my favorite of Einstein's words on religion is "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." I like this because both science and religion are needed to answer life's great questions.“

— Temple Grandin USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist 1947

Source: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism

Life, Religion, Science

„People will challenge you, question you, try to get you off track. Don't listen to the temptation to act out of character.“

— T. B. Joshua Nigerian Christian leader 1963

On temptation - "'ATTRIBUTING THE SATELLITES SUCCESS TO ME IS BLASPHEMY' – T.B. JOSHUA" http://www.modernghana.com/print/247180/1/attributing-the-satellites-success-to-me-is-blasph.html Modern Ghana (November 4 2009)

People

„Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.“

— Bertolt Brecht German poet, playwright, theatre director 1898 - 1956

"The Popular and the Realistic" (written 1938, published 1958), as translated in Brecht on Theatre (1964) edited and translated by John Willett.

History

„On the surface it may seem that wars are caused by economic and political questions, but in fact they are caused by our wholesale slaughter of animals. The laws of justice are inexorable, and human beings are going to have to pay with their own blood … We kill animals, but nature is an organic whole, and by killing animals we are, as it were, affecting certain glands in that organism. When this happens, the balance of the organism is disrupted, and it is not surprising that before long war breaks out among men. Yes, human beings have slaughtered millions of animals for their meat, without realizing that on the invisible plane those animals are linked to other human beings, and it is they who will now have to share the fate of the animals. When we slaughter animals we are slaughtering human beings. Everybody agrees that it is time to establish the reign of peace in the world, that there must be no more wars. Yes, but war will go on just as long as we continue to slaughter animals, because by destroying them we are destroying ourselves.“

— Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov Bulgarian philosopher 1900 - 1986

The Yoga of Nutrition, Editions Prosveta, 2012 ebook edition, pp. 24 https://books.google.it/books?id=jnoVCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24-25.

Men, Fate, War, World

„You’re in total isolation. And you don’t know how long you’re going to be there, but you truly believe they can do anything to you. There’s no way to even question it. You’re not protected by anything. Why am I here? Your mind is very uncertain of time. You become like mad. It’s very hard for anyone. Even for people who have strong beliefs.“

— Ai Weiwei Chinese concept artist 1957

2010-, The City: Beijing, 2011

People, Way, Strong, Time

„No man who aims at making his life an harmonious whole, pure, complete, and harmless to others, can endure to gratify an appetite at the cost of the daily suffering and bloodshed of his inferiors in degree, and of the moral degradation of his own kind. I know not which strikes me most forcibly in the ethics of this question the injustice, the cruelty, or the nastiness of flesh-eating. The injustice is to the butchers, the cruelty is to the animals, the nastiness concerns the consumer. With regard to this last in particular, I greatly wonder what persons of refinement—aye, even of decency—do not feel insulted on being offered, as a matter of course, portions of corpses as food! Such comestibles might possibly be tolerated during sieges, or times of other privation of proper viands in exceptional circumstances, but in the midst of a civilised community able to command a profusion of sound and delicious foods, it ought to be deemed an affront to set dead flesh before a guest.“

— Anna Kingsford English physician, activist and feminist 1846 - 1888

Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism (1912); quoted in Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb by Rod Preece (Routledge, 2002), p. 344 https://books.google.it/books?id=Mf6TAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA344.

Life, Food, Feeling, Communication

„Residues arise … naturally in several branches of analysis …. Their consideration provides simple and easy-to-use methods, which are applicable to a large number of diverse questions, and some new results ….“

— Augustin Louis Cauchy French mathematician (1789–1857) 1789 - 1857

Sur un nouveau genre de calcul, 1826.

Nature

„The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.“

— Alhazen Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer 965 - 1039

Alhazen, quoted in “Muslim Journeys.” Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2013. Also in Ibn al-Haytham Brief life of an Arab mathematician: died circa 1040 (September-October 2003) http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/09/ibn-al-haytham-html

Truth, Faith, Nature, Study

„I was obsessed with fairytales, and I was a very, very inquisitive kid, and I would ask my mom all kinds of questions. It all kind of formed a story in my head, and I really wanted to be a published author when I was 10, but I had a hard time writing a novel when I was 10, so I decided to wait until I was little bit older and then get it done.“

— Chris Colfer actor, singer, book author 1990

-Chris Colfer on how he came up with the idea of TLOS
Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

Moms, Idea, Fairytale, Time

„Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union.… You are responsible, and your forebears, for 60 million to 100 million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t ask me about anybody, please.“

— Paul Robeson American singer and actor 1898 - 1976

HUAC Testimony

People

„Understanding human history in the millennia following the Agricultural Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the biological instincts necessary to sustain such networks? The short answer is that humans created imagined orders and devised scripts. These two inventions filled the gaps left by our biological inheritance.“

— Yuval Noah Harari, book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Imagination, History, Understanding

„What a man sacrifices in struggling for his Volk, a woman sacrifices in struggling to preserve this Volk in individual cases. What a man gives in heroic courage on the battlefield, woman gives in eternally patient devotion, in eternally patient suffering and endurance. Every child to which she gives birth is a battle which she wages in her Volk’s fateful question of to be or not to be.“

— Adolf Hitler Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party 1889 - 1945

Speech from the Sixth Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg (September 8th, 1934), quoted in Hitler: speeches and proclamations, 1932-1945 - Volume 2 - Page 533 https://books.google.com/books?id=a9dVAAAAYAAJ&q=What+a+man+sacrifices+in+struggling+for+his+Volk,+a+woman+sacrifices+in+struggling+to+preserve+this+Volk+in+individual+cases&dq=What+a+man+sacrifices+in+struggling+for+his+Volk,+a+woman+sacrifices+in+struggling+to+preserve+this+Volk+in+individual+cases&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8id_w8-TWAhXIRSYKHSn5CV0Q6AEILDAB
1930s

Fate, Birth, Courage, Suffering

„If the development by the enemy as well as by us of thermonuclear weapons could have been averted, I think we would be in a somewhat safer world today than we are…I do not think we want to argue technical questions here, and I do not think it is very meaningful for me to speculate as to how we would have responded had the technical picture at that time been more as it was later.
However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. I do not think anybody opposed making it; there were some debates about what to do with it after it was made. I cannot very well imagine if we had known in late 1949 what we got to know by early 1951 that the tone of our report would have been the same.“

— Robert Oppenheimer American theoretical physicist and professor of physics 1904 - 1967

Oppenheimer testifying in his defense in his 1954 security hearings, discussing the American reaction to the first successful Russian test of an atomic bomb and the debate whether to develop the "super" hydrogen bombs with vastly higher explosive power; from volume II of the Oppenheimer hearing transcripts http://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/Oppenheimer%20hearings/Vol%20II%20Oppenheimer.pdf, pg 95/266 (emphasis added)

World, Way, Imagination, Thinking

„Question is, are you bozos smart enough to feel stupid?“

— Eminem American rapper and actor 1972

"Berzerk"
2010s, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)

Stupidity, Feeling

„These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"“

— Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)
Context: "Can machines think?"... The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B... We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"

Thinking

„The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.“

— Joanne K. Rowling British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series 1965

J. K. Rowling, as quoted in ‪Harry Potter's Bookshelf : The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures‬ (2009) by John Granger 
2000s
Context: I think most of us if you were asked to name a very evil regime would think of Nazi Germany. … I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the Wizarding world. So you have to the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is a great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world. People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves on nothing else, they can pride themselves on perceived purity. … The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

People, Truth, Books, Thinking

„Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.“

— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943

"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency" (February 1892)
Context: Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

Men, Hope, Nature, Time

„Hold all and wait.
The questions that are in one’s mind will be worked out eventually without a word from the Master.
The light becomes stronger and the darkness vanishes in the reorganization of the inner man and his thinking processes and habits.
Do not make the mistake of trying to fit the teachings of ECK into the old ways of thinking.
Drop all and start over again.“

— Paul Twitchell American writer 1909 - 1971

Way, Thinking, Light, Waiting

„I think success is when you are confronted with utter defeat of your world, your intimacy, your ideas, your public picture, your heritage, your previous achievements. When in one moment it looks like there is one, and nothing that helps you. When almost every look is also a look of doubt, when you yourself put everything under the question mark. When all the illusions about yourself fall, illusions about your surroundings, about people, about faith and religion, about flags, about objects of love and how much are you in love…and then, in that moment of personal and private holocaust, of that ocean of pain looking like all inner strength faded away, and there is no right for excuses about your existence. When at that moment you rise and keep moving forward, you start and you lead a creative and productive life. Yes, I think that is objective strength and power.“

— Alfred Freddy Krupa Croatian contemporary painter, master draughtsman, book artist and art teacher, the pioneer of the New Ink Art movement 1971

Overcoming a Personal Holocaust, Alfred Freddy Krupa (in the article by Ante Vranković), Life As A Human (Canada), 2019
2010s

Faith, Religion, Pain, Success

„When it is a question of fighting against imperialism we can state with conviction that we are all Stalinists. We can take pride that we have taken part in the fight for the advance of our great cause against our enemies. From that point of view I am proud that we are Stalinists.“

— Nikita Khrushchev First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1894 - 1971

Remark made at Kremlin New Year's Eve reception, December 31, 1956. Quoted in Khrushchev by Edward Crankshaw. ISBN 9781448205059

Fight, Parting

„I don’t feel like I’ve hit my limit yet. Rather, it’s a question of how I overcome moments in which I may feel like this is my limit.“

— Yuzuru Hanyu Japanese figure skater (1994-) 1994

Translation source: Yuzuru Hanyu – World Championships 2021 ‘Day After’ Interview https://axelwithwings.com/2021/03/30/eng-translation-yuzuru-hanyu-world-championships-2021-day-after-interview-210328/ by Axel with Wings, published 28 March 2021. (Retrieved 31 March 2021)
Other quotes, 2021
Original: (ja) なんか限界だなって感じはないです。ただ、この限界だなって思うかもしれない時期をどうやって乗り越えていくか。
Source: Part 1 of the final interview at Worlds 2021 in Stockholm, as quoted in an article https://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2021/03/28/kiji/20210328s00079000616000c.html by Nippon Sports (Sponichi), published 28 March 2021. (Retrieved 31 March 2021)

Feeling

„Don't ask the question, unless you are truly prepared for every possible anwser for it.“

— Jim Russell

To many people tend to ask questions that the possible answers to that question might cause anger, hurt, disappointment or displays a weakness that they never were aware of until they got the one answer they weren't prepared for. If you haven't considered that then you might want to refrain from asking it.

„“People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.”“

— John Irving, book The Cider House Rules

Variant: People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.
Source: The Cider House Rules

People

„Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.“

— Edgar Cayce Purported clairvoyant healer and psychic 1877 - 1945

Dreams

„Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican."
A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no matter under what form of government -- may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans."
Well! You are a democrat?"
No."
What! "you would have a monarchy?"
No."
A Constitutionalist?"
God forbid."
Then you are an aristocrat?"
Not at all!"
You want a mixed form of government?"
Even less."
Then what are you?"
I am an anarchist."

Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit at the government."

By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.“

— Pierre Joseph Proudhon French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist 1809 - 1865

Source: Proudhon: What Is Property?

God, Faith, Understanding

„Question for God every morning:

What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today?“

— John C. Maxwell American author, speaker and pastor 1947

God

„The power to question is the basis of all human progress.“

— Indíra Gándhí Indian politician and Prime Minister 1917 - 1984

„Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.“

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Variant: Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt thou the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love
Source: Hamlet

Love, Truth, Star, Sun

„If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!“

— Emile Zola French writer (1840-1902) 1840 - 1902

As quoted in Writers on Writing‎ (1986) by Jon Winokur.
Variant: If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.

World

„If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save.

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.“

— James Baldwin (1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924 - 1987

Source: nothing personal

Love, Life, Death, God

„And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.“

— Stephen King, Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary (1983)
Context: It's probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls - as little as one may like to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which one's sense of humor begins to reassert itself.

„All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure.“

— Michael Chabon, book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

Friendship

„What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe.“

— Stephen Hawking, book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 12
Context: Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

Mathematics, Universe, Science

„… you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance.“

— Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

Source: A Fine Balance

Hope, Failure, Success, Despair

„We are all carrying so many things in our life and inside ourselves. Often it feels there is no place to put them down. Where do you place the questions you carry“

— Sabrina Ward Harrison Canadian writer 1975

Source: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Life, Feeling

„If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?“

— Scott Adams cartoonist, writer 1957

People, Stupidity, Time, Funny