“Sometimes questions can be more cruel than insults”

Source: Along for the Ride

Source: Information and Decision Processes (1960), p. xi

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 1 (“Lobsters”), p. 1 (quoting Edsger W. Dijkstra)

Source: The Brass Verdict

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
Context: In the development of intelligence nothing can be more "basic" than learning how to ask productive questions. Many years ago, in Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Charles Weingartner and I expressed our astonishment at the neglect shown in school toward this language art.... The "back to the basics" philosophers rarely mention it, and practicing teachers usually do not find room for it in their curriculums. …all our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is our most important intellectual tool… There are at present no reading tests anywhere that measure the ability of students to address probing questions to the particular texts they are reading... What students need to know are the rules of discourse which comprise the subject, and among the most central of such rules are those which govern what is and what is not a legitimate question.

Source: Abdelmadjid Tebboune (2021) cited in: " "You Can’t Question a People’s History and You Can’t Insult the Algerians" https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/algerian-president-abdelmadjid-tebboune-you-can-t-question-a-people-s-history-and-you-can-t-insult-the-algerians-a-44033dcb-53b4-4660-8e24-44aff8756c2e" in SPIEGEL International, 9 November 2021.