July 12, 2024, 12:47 a.m.
Are you seeking inspiration, reflection, or a fresh perspective? Look no further! In this blog post, we've curated a collection of the top 51 questions and quotes that are sure to provoke thought, spark creativity, and ignite meaningful conversations. Whether you're a curious thinker, an avid reader, or simply someone who enjoys the power of a well-phrased question or a poignant quote, this compilation is designed to engage your mind and elevate your spirit. Dive in and explore the wisdom and wonder these selections have to offer.
1. “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.” - Thomas Pynchon
2. “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” - Voltaire
3. “I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.” - Sarah Dessen
4. “There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.” - Charles Proteus Steinmetz
5. “Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.” - Tom Robbins
6. “Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly.” - Laurell K. Hamilton
7. “Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.” - Milan Kundera
8. “Is it better to go with the flow or let the flow go?” - Aidan Chambers
9. “Maybe we should always start everything from the inside and work to the outside, and not from the outside to the inside. What d'you think?” - Aidan Chambers
10. “When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.” - C.S. Lewis
11. “The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.” - John Fowles
12. “Until modern times, we focused a great deal of the best of our thought upon rituals of return to the human condition. Seeking enlightenment or the Promised Land or the way home, a man would go or be forced to go into the wilderness, measure himself against the Creation, recognize finally his true place within it, and thus be saved both from pride and from despair. Seeing himself as a tiny member of a world he cannot comprehend or master or in any final sense possess, he cannot possibly think of himself as a god. And by the same token, since he shares in, depends upon, and is graced by all of which he is a part, neither can he become a fiend; he cannot descend into the final despair of destructiveness. Returning from the wilderness, he becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.(pg.95, "The Body and the Earth")” - Wendell Berry
13. “Questions, I've got some questionsI want to know youBut what if I could ask you only one thingOnly this one time, what would you tell me?Well maybe you could give me a suggestionSo I could know you, what would you tell me?Maybe you could tell me what to ask youBecause then I'd know you, what would you tell mePlease tell me that there's timeTo make this work for all intents and purposesAnd what are your intentions, will you try?Impressions, you've made impressionsThey're going nowhereThey're just going to wait here if you let themPlease don't let themI want to know youAnd if they're going to haunt mePlease collect themPlease just collect themAnd now I'm beggingI'm begging you to ask me just one questionOne simple questionBecause then you'd know meI'll tell you that there's timeTo make this work for all intents and purposesAt least for my ownWhat is a heart worth if it's just left all alone?Leave it long enough and watch it turn into stoneWhy must we always be untrue?” - Jack Johnson
14. “With the passage of days in this godly isolation [desert], my heart grew calm. It seemed to fill with answers. I did not ask questions any more; I was certain. Everything - where we came from, where we are going, what our purpose is on earth - struck me as extremely sure and simple in this God-trodden isolation. Little by little my blood took on the godly rhythm. Matins, Divine Liturgy, vespers, psalmodies, the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the constellations suspended like chandeliers each night over the monastery: all came and went, came and went in obedience to eternal laws, and drew the blood of man into the same placid rhythm. I saw the world as a tree, a gigantic poplar, and myself as a green leaf clinging to a branch with my slender stalk. When God's wind blew, I hopped and danced, together with the entire tree.” - Nikos Kazantzakis
15. “Die Judenfrage,' it used to be called, even by Jews. 'The Jewish Question.' I find I quite like this interrogative formulation, since the question—as Gertrude Stein once famously if terminally put it—may be more absorbing than the answer. Of course one is flirting with calamity in phrasing things this way, as I learned in school when the Irish question was discussed by some masters as the Irish 'problem.' Again, the word 'solution' can be as neutral as the words 'question' or 'problem,' but once one has defined a people or a nation as such, the search for a resolution can become a yearning for the conclusive. Endlösung: the final solution.” - Christopher Hitchens
16. “All right gentlemen, we have a job to do. At approximately 01:30 tonight, three children made an escape. Our job is to find them and bring them back. Every minute the factory is down, I lose two thousand, seven hundred and thirty-eight dollars and forty-seven cents. Therefore, we must find them and find them fast. They were last seen heading south by southwest in three makeshift kites. We'll head in that direction, fanning out and using our heat sensors to track them. Any questions?" Tubaface raised his hand. "Yes?""Where do babies come from?""That question is wholly innapropriate to our present situation. Someone slap him.” - Sean Cullen
17. “Q: Why do I love thee, O Night?A: Because you know I will never answer.” - Vera Nazarian
18. “History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history--while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance--might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth.” - Howard Zinn
19. “To get answers of life, ask questions” - Sukant Ratnakar
20. “Always ask the questions you want to, life is too short to know if you'll get a second chance to ask , and afterlife is probably too long to wonder what the answer may be.” - Kaitlin Hollon
21. “Her eyes were of different colors, the left as brown as autumn, the right as gray as Atlantic wind. Both seemed alive with questions that would never be voiced, as if no words yet existed with which to frame them. She was nineteen years old, or thereabouts; her exact age was unknown. Her face was as fresh as an apple and as delicate as blossom, but a marked depression in the bones beneath her left eye gave her features a disturbing asymmetry. Her mouth never curved into a smile. God, it seemed, had withheld that possibility, as surely as from a blind man the power of sight. He had withheld much else. Amparo was touched—by genius, by madness, by the Devil, or by a conspiracy of all these and more. She took no sacraments and appeared incapable of prayer. She had a horror of clocks and mirrors. By her own account she spoke with Angels and could hear the thoughts of animals and trees. She was passionately kind to all living things. She was a beam of starlight trapped in flesh and awaiting only the moment when it would continue on its journey into forever.” (p.33)” - Tim Willocks
22. “Others of us are lost. We're forever seeking. We torture ourselves with philosophies and ache to see the world. We question everything, even our own existence. We ask a lifetime of questions and are never satisfied with the answers because we don't recognize anyone as an authority to give them. We see life and the world as an enormous puzzle that we might never understand, that our questions might go unanswered until the day we die, almost never occurs to us. And when it does, it fills us with dread.” - Lisa Unger
23. “The book answers questions other people have thought of. I have thought of questions they have not answered. I always thought my questions were wrong questions because no one else asked them. Maybe no one thought of them. Maybe darkness got there first. Maybe I am the first light touching a gulf of ignorance.Maybe my questions matter.” - Elizabeth Moon
24. “An empowered life begins with serious personal questions about oneself. Those answers bare the seeds of success.” - Steve Maraboli
25. “Good books make you ask questions. Bad readers want everything answered.” - Scott Westerfeld
26. “Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both.” - Criss Jami
27. “Socrates himself said, 'One thing only I know, and this is that I know nothing.' Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers. Moreover, it can be so dangerous to say in public that it can cost you your life. The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.” - Jostein Gaarder
28. “Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.” - J.D. Stroube
29. “We feel that, for the honour of God (and also, though we do not say this, for the sake of our own reputation as spiritual Christians), it is necessary for us to claim that we are, so to speak, already in the signal-box, here and now enjoying the inside information as to the why and wherefore of God’s doings. This comforting pretence becomes part of us: we feel sure that God has enabled us to understand all His ways with us and our circle thus far, and we take if for granted that we shall be able to see at once the reason for anything that may happen to us in the future. And then something very painful and quite inexplicable comes along, and our cheerful illusion of being in God’s secret councils is shattered. Our pride is wounded; we feel that God has slighted us; and unless at this point we repent, and humble ourselves very thoroughly for our former presumption, our whole subsequent spriritual life may be blighted.” - J.I. Packer
30. “To be, or not to be: what a question!” - E.A. Bucchianeri
31. “It’s not a bad lesson to learn in the bleaker months: how you view a storm is a question of perspective; provided you find the right rock to watch it from, it could be the most incredible thing you’ll ever witness.” - Dan Stevens
32. “In the past, I always used to be looking for answers. Today, I know there are only questions. So I just live.” - Sarah Brightman
33. “How ya doin'?' I always think, What kind of a question is that?, and I always reply, 'A bit early to tell.” - Christopher Hitchens
34. “Think about the answers of the questions that have not yet been asked! When they are asked, you will have the answers ready!” - Mehmet Murat ildan
35. “... because a fight's worth nothing if you know from the start that you're going to win it. It's the ones in between that test you. They're the ones that bring questions with them.” - Markus Zusak
36. “At the fruit of existence, there is a single concept of anonymity. This unknown concept is well known however. All one has to do is simply look behind the mirror for the answer. Yet, the answer won't come until the right question is asked. Because the illusions of reality are dressed in endless reflections, the blind will continue to be guided by the blind. The unknown concept is recognized to those who have tasted the fruit of existence, and as distant as the woman trying to grab Heaven from the reflection of an empty pond.” - Lionel Suggs
37. “She didn't have an answer for that. People like her only ever have questions.” - Steven Herrick
38. “It isn't the sort of thing you ask questions about, because the answers are not usually answers you want to know.” - Margaret Atwood
39. “There are always more questions. Science as a process is never complete. It is not a foot race, with a finish line.... People will always be waiting at a particular finish line: journalists with their cameras, impatient crowds eager to call the race, astounded to see the scientists approach, pass the mark, and keep running. It's a common misunderstanding, he said. They conclude there was no race. As long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing.” - Barbara Kingsolver
40. “Monsieur Bienvenu was simply a man who accepted these mysterious questions...and who had in his soul a deep respect for the mystery which enveloped them.” - Victor Hugo
41. “I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers.” - Jim Butcher
42. “Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, "What else could this mean?” - Shannon L. Alder
43. “Wait, is this a nice-ish way of telling me we had sex and I was lousy? That's how you can tell I'm inexperienced? Because, if so, that's just rude. And what were you doing at Shenanigans? And how did you find me on the road?"Gabriel looked wounded. "To answer your questions in order: The only body fluid I exchanged with you is blood--""That's very comforting, thank you.” - Molly Harper
44. “Does he treat you with respect at all times? That's the first question. The second question is, if he is the exact same person twenty years from now that he is today, would you still want to marry him? And finally, does he inspire to be a better person? You find someone you can answer yes to all three, then you've found a good man.” - Colleen Hoover
45. “Pose your questions to people and you will get countless useless answers.” - Dejan Stojanovic
46. “The question wasn't whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I'm glad Tennyson didn't ask that, because then I'd have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I cared far more than was safe.” - Neal Shusterman
47. “He was evidently the sort of person who posed questions that were traps for you to fall into.” - Alice Munro
48. “Even cats have questions – like “Can’t you see my bowl is empty?” or “Why don’t you turn off the ***! rain now?” From their perspective we are gods!” - jay woodman
49. “what would the masters do?when people arn’t successful, they sometimes wonder, why not? they get answers, then they wonder why those answers don’t seem to meet their needs. they get the wrong answers, and they get upset about it. perhaps they’re really getting the right answers, but answering the wrong questions.too many people ask nothing but “Why” questions.they analyze and analyse problems - but no solution. “you can analyse a glass of water and you’re left with a lot of chemical components, but nothing you can drink”.“Why?” questions can drive us crazy. “What?” questions drive us sane.What questions lead us to practical solutions.” - Peter McWilliams
50. “We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.” - Parker J. Palmer
51. “Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security. But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessings stronger than cursing.” - Madeleine L'Engle