“The questions we ask are "What?" and "How?" What are the facts and how are they related? If sometimes, in a moment of absent-mindedness or idle diversion, we ask the question "Why?"”

—  Carl L. Becker

the answer escapes us.
The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-century Philosophers (1932)

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 "The questions we ask are "What?" and "How?" What are the facts and how are they related? If sometimes, in a moment of a…" by Carl L. Becker?
Carl L. Becker photo
Carl L. Becker 25
American historian 1873–1945

Related quotes

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin photo

“In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

“Asking what the question is, and why the question is asked, is always asking a pertinent question.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 17.

Kate DiCamillo photo

“We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it?”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

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
Paul Nurse photo

“How scientists go about their job: and it's a process, it's a question of asking questions, respecting observation, respecting experiment, having tentative explanations and then testing them…. There is a problem sometimes with how we teach science at schools. Because we sometimes teach it as if it has been chiseled in stone.”

Paul Nurse (1949) Nobel prize winning British biochemist

in Charlie Rose Science Series: The Imperative of Science http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9027 with Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University, Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bruce Alberts, Editor-In-Chief of Science and Lisa Randall of Harvard University.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Let us be practical and ask the question: How do we love our enemies?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Prakash Javadekar photo

“Why do we lack innovation in India? Because, we don't allow questioning. We don't promote inquisitiveness. If a child asks questions in school, he is asked to sit down. This should not go on. We need to promote inquisitiveness, children should ask questions”

Prakash Javadekar (1951) Indian politician

as quoted in " Students should rebel, challenge status quo to innovate, says Prakash Javadekar http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Students-should-rebel-challenge-status-quo-to-innovate-says-Prakash-Javadekar/articleshow/53098941.cms", Times of India (07 July 2016)

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)

“A theory of knowledge is an answer to the question "What is knowledge?" This question, like many which are asked by philosophers, sounds very simple. We all know, at least roughly, what knowledge is. But difficulties appear the moment that we begin to fill in the details.”

David Pears

What is Knowledge? (1971)

Eddie Griffin photo

“You know how we built the pyramids? You gotta ask yourself a question always flip the script. What if up was down and down was up? What if you looked down into space standing up on Earth? This is how we built the pyramids.”

Eddie Griffin (1968) American actor and comedian

Freedom of Speech (2008)

Related topics