[John J. B. Morgan and T. Webb Ewing, Making the Most of Your Life, 2005, 75 http://books.google.fr/books?id=5i-JlfkMEUUC&pg=PA75]
Attributed
Variant: No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
“In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.”
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)
Context: I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?".
lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
The Meaning of It All (1999)
F 69
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)
Well, that's the question. The answer may not help him, but the question now has been asked.
The next question is what? How? And so all through the ages, people have been trying to find out the answer to that question. We've found the answer, and we do fly. This is true of every accomplishment, whether it's technology or literature, poetry, political systems or anything else. That is it. Ask the next question. And the one after that.
His explanation of the meaning of a small symbol he used when writing his signature, as quoted in an interview with David Duncan (with an image of his signature) http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/duncan.html, sometime around 1980.
“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”
Vol. V, par. 211
Collected Papers (1931-1958)
