Quotes about answer
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“And the whole world has to answer right now,
Just to tell you once again,
'Who's bad!”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Bad
Bad (1987)

World

“There is a season for everything, patience will reward you and reveal all answers to your questions.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Question, Patience, Season

“Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

37e–38a
Plato, Apology

Life, Understanding

“And now once again I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I could not answer, that is to say, again, for the hundreth time, I answered that I hated her.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Gambler

The Gambler (1866)

Love, Hate, Question, Time

“I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
: By the known rules of ancient liberty.
The word ancient emphasizes the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison

War, Books, Freedom, Evil

“I have made it a rule never to employ a larger telescope when a smaller will answer the purpose.”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works".

“Three things give the student the possibility of surpassing his teacher: ask a lot of questions, remember the answers, teach.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Teachers, Question

“God does not answer our desperate questionings; he simply gives us himself.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

God, Question

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5712889.Sitting_Bull Attributed quotes

Fight, Dogs, Time, Evil

“What I have learned is not to pay much attention to those that say, “Money will not make you happy.” To them, I answer, it’s certainly a good place to start. And not having it can make you sad.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1985

Money, Happiness, Learning, Sadness

“Maths seem to be based on predestination. You have the question, but the answer is already there. Your task is to get it correct, no matter how many times you have failed.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Time, Question

“Quize is a luck game.
If you are lucky enough, you will win.
It would be fair if they would let everyone answer to the same question.”

Md Mim Akhtar

Question, Game

““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, Question

“So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.”

Clarice Lispector book The Hour of the Star

Variant: I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort. So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.
Source: The Hour of the Star (1977), p. 11

Question

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

Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) Purported clairvoyant healer and psychic

Dreams, Question

“Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Feeling, Question

“We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

God, People, Parting

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 41
The Gay Science (1882)

Failure, Question, Success

“The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

World, Dreams, Time

“God always answers prayers. Sometimes it's "yes." Sometimes the answer is "no." Sometimes it's "you gotta be kidding.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

God

“You think that would have changed things? The answer is of course, and for a while, and never.”

Alice Munro book Too Much Happiness

Source: Too Much Happiness

Thinking, Change

“To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Epilogue, p. 242
Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography (1933)

Hope, Question, Knowledge

“Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent," said Miss Susan. "But answers do.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

Question, Sense

“An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Source: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949)
Context: Experimenters are the schocktroops of science… An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer. But before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned – the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted – Nature’s answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of theorists, who find himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics.

Question, Nature, Science

“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Four (16 July 1903)
Variant: Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. (Translation by Stephen Mitchell)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Question, Distant

“[Whose_property]Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Osteopathy” (1901), in Mark Twain's Speeches, p. 253 http://books.google.com/books?id=jmhaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA253&dq=%22Whose+property+is+my+body%22 Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

“Once they have you asking the wrong questions. They don't have to worry about the answers.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Variant: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Question

“The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is…42!”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Life, Universe

“I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.”

Marilynne Robinson (1943) American novelist and essayist

For women

“You know, that might be the answer — to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)

“Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It’s lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work.”
-Skulduggery”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Dying of the Light

“Why is it that all cars are women?" he asked.

"Because they're fussy and demanding," answered Zee.

"Because if they were men, they'd sit around and complain instead of getting the job done," I told him.”

Patricia Briggs book Silver Borne

Source: Silver Borne

Women, Men, Cars

“If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Stupidity, Question

“The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.”

Alain de Botton book Status Anxiety

Source: Status Anxiety

Life

“We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Letter to Mrs William Froude, 27 June 1848.

“Violence?"Skulduggery said. "Violence is never the answer, until it's the only answer.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Dying of the Light

“A window within the soul to see
Light and Magick I send with thee
Be strong, be brave, make the right choice
Though Darkness shouts with a terrible voice
Know that I am watching from above
And that always, always, the answer is love!”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

Love, Soul, Light, Strong

“Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Way, Future

“I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know that the answer is Yes.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist

Source: The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)

Question

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books, Question, Learning

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War, People, Books, World

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Variant: Then she kissed him. Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
Source: The History of Love (2005), P. 11

love, Relationship, Good Night, Cute

“My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and US support for these policies.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

Support, Parent

“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940) This has often been misquoted in the form: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears ..."
The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 13 May 1940, vol. 360, c. 1502. Audio records of the speech do spare out the "It is" before the in the beginning of the "Victory"-Part.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Context: I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Victory

“Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered.
Dr. Joseph Murphy”

Joseph Murphy (1898–1981) American writer

Feeling, Reality, Joy

“It was from the artists and poets that the pertinent answers came, and I know that panic would have broken loose had they been able to compare notes.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)
Context: It was from the artists and poets that the pertinent answers came, and I know that panic would have broken loose had they been able to compare notes. As it was, lacking their original letters, I half suspected the compiler of having asked leading questions, or of having edited the correspondence in corroboration of what he had latently resolved to see.

“To persevere in one's duty, and be silent is the best answer to calumny”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Perseverance

“Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

War, Way, Personality

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Heart, Night

“One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Way, Problem

“As for the goddess’s answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Were all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked.”

John Dewey book Democracy and Education

Source: Democracy and Education

Education

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

“A reverent agnosticism can be on occasion a better evangelism than a religion which knows all the answers.”

William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic

Source: Many Witnesses, One Lord

Religion

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, Secret, Hope

“For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed.

The riddle does not exist.

If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Question

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer … It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

World, Fear, Dreams, Hope

“When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why God? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, "There's just something about you that pisses me off".”

Stephen King Storm of the Century

Storm of the Century (1999)
Source: Storm of the Century: An Original Screenplay

Life, God, Family

“I have had prayers answered - most strangely so sometimes - but I think our Heavenly Father's loving-kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Love, Thinking

“Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity.”

Saul Bellow book Herzog

Source: Herzog

Stupidity, Question

“Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Question

“Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Secret

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“until the end of the world, all whys will be answered, but now, you can only ask!”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Source: Bob Marley Talking

World

“The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Interview for KFRC RKO Radio (8 December 1980)

“Would I serve you or (Prince) Jon stolen goods? he asked. "No, don't answer me.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

“To answer your question, you want me because I'm made of awesome.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Heart of Darkness

Question

“My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: John Lennon: In His Own Words

Guy, Cry

“You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to makes such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Love, Lie, Secret, Personality

“She glared at him. "Why are you forever asking hard questions?"
He smiled. "Sooner or later you'll have to be able to answer one."
Daja shoved him, grinning.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Smile, Question

“If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Life, Sincerity

“I am not bound to please thee with my answers.”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

“Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Question

“To be so lovely and so lost. To be all answerful with all that knowing trapped inside. To be beautiful and broken.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Love, Beauty

“Quite often somebody will say, 'What year do your books take place?' and the only answer I can give is, in childhood.”

Beverly Cleary (1916) American writer of children's books

Books, Childhood

“Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Christmas, School, Birthday, Tree

“Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, to-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

People, Age, World, Fear

“The Answer to the Great Question… Of Life, the Universe and Everything… Is… Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Life, Question, Universe

“"Do I look like someone who has something to do here on Earth?" - That's what I'd like to answer the busybodies who inquire into my activities.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“The idea occurred to him when he was twenty. At first it was only a vague idea, a question looming — what should I do? — with an answer taking shape: nothing.”

Georges Perec (1936–1982) French writer

Idea, Question

“We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Life, Feeling, Question, Problem

“You believe in God?" demanded Billy Karma.

"I believe in thirty-seven separate and distinct gods," answered Argyle proudly. "That puts me thirty-six ahead of you."

"It makes you a pagan."

"It makes you a man of limited vision," said Argyle.”

Mike Resnick The Outpost

Source: The Outpost

God

“There's a quality of legend about freaks.
Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

Schjeldahl, Peter. "Looking Back: Diane Arbus at the Met" http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/21/050321craw_artworld?currentPage=all, The New Yorker, March 21, 2005. Retrieved February 4, 2010. source: Sass, Louis A. "'Hyped on Clarity': Diane Arbus and the Postmodern Condition". Raritan, volume 25, number 1, pp. 1–37, Summer 2005. Source: Kimmelman, Michael, The Profound Vision of Diane Arbus: Flaws in Beauty, Beauty in Flaws, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/arts/design/the-profound-vision-of-diane-arbus-flaws-in-beauty-beauty-in.html, 1 November 2018, The New York Times, 11 March 2005

Personality, Life, People

“What more could you want? How about dominion over this 'beautiful place'? Beauty doesn't last. Friends and family decay. Power is the only thing that goes on forever."
Jack answered with his gut. "No, love goes on forever.”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

Love, Family, Beauty

“I worship you, but I loathe marriage. I hate its smugness, its safety, its compromise and the thought of you interfering with my work, hindering me; what would you answer?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Hate, Marriage

“As for those who state that it is thanks to a woman, the lady Eve, that man was expelled from paradise, my answer to them would be that man has gained far more through Mary than he ever lost through Eve.”

Christine de Pizan book The Book of the City of Ladies

Source: The Book of the City of Ladies

“What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

Girl

“Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.”

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy

Source: 1910s, The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

Life, World, Lying, Question

“Would you rather die, or be unwound? Now he finally knows the answer. Maybe this is what he wanted. Maybe it's why he stood there and taunted Roland. Because he'd rather be killed with a furious hand than dismembered with cool indifference.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Indifference

“When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Family, Mother's Day

“Brother Hovind, I know you will say that you don't know for sure and all that what is your 'guess' on when the Lord is coming back?
SHORT ANSWER- During the feast of Trumpets in 2028.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 239

“We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?
This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

Love, Death, Family, Law

“The answer to crime is not gun control, it is law enforcement and self-control.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes, U.S. Senate debate in Illinois, October 21, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/debates/04_10_21debate2.htm. 2009

Law

“When the gods would punish us, they answer our prayers.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

Del Rey p. 92
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

God

“As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up, and seeking to sustain, the new State government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. In the Annual Message of Dec. 1863 and accompanying Proclamation, I presented a plan of re-construction (as the phrase goes) which, I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to, and sustained by, the Executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable; and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right to say when, or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was, in advance, submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I should then, and in that connection, apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed-people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power, in regard to the admission of members to Congress; but even he approved every part and parcel of the plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation for the whole State, practically applies the Proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed-people; and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Congress, and I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal; and not a single objection to it, from any professed emancipationist, came to my knowledge, until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July 1862, I had corresponded with different persons, supposed to be interested, seeking a reconstruction of a State government for Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New-Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident the people, with his military co-operation, would reconstruct, substantially on that plan. I wrote him, and some of them to try it; they tried it, and the result is known. Such only has been my agency in getting up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. But, as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it, whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest. But I have not yet been so convinced.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Last public address (1865)

People, Confidence, Knowledge, Reading

“You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Variant: You could attach prices to ideas. Some cost a lot some little. … And how do you pay for ideas? I believe: with courage.
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 52e

Courage, Thinking

“If people want consultative government, the price is increased complexity and delay in arriving at decisions. If they want speed of government, then they must accept a greater degree of authoritarianism. I suspect that the real answer is that most people prefer the latter so long, that is, as government’s decisions conform with their own views.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 27, 1968, page 215.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

People, Decision, Speed

“As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be allowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings; while our understandings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop.”

Edward Payson (1783–1827) American religious leader

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 464.

Feeling, Understanding, Heart

“That is a very good question. I don't know the answer. But can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker?”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

His reply to a shoe manufacturer who had asked why Miller's job should be subsidized when his was not, as recounted at a London press conference. The Guardian (25 January 1990)

Question

“There is a riddle about a man who is locked in a room with nothing but a bed and a calendar, and the question is: How does he survive?
The answer is: He eats dates from the calendar and drinks water from the springs of the bed.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 3 “United Hotcake Preferred” (p. 72)

Spring, Drink, Question, Water

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Quotes about answer
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