68 Questions With Inspirational Quotes

In a world where the right words can illuminate our paths and spark motivation, questions paired with inspirational quotes offer a powerful tool for reflection and growth. They encourage us to delve deeper and find meaning amidst life's complexities. In this collection, we've gathered 68 thought-provoking questions, each coupled with a moving quote to inspire, challenge, and empower you. Whether you're seeking guidance, clarity, or a push forward, these words may be just the catalyst you need to ignite transformation and cultivate resilience. Embark on this journey of introspection and be moved by the wisdom within.

1. “Religion carries two sorts of people in two entirely opposite directions: the mild and gentle people it carries towards mercy and justice; the persecuting people it carries into fiendish sadistic cruelty. Mind you, though this may seem to justify the eighteenth-century Age of Reason in its contention that religion is nothing but an organized, gigantic fraud and a curse to the human race, nothing could be farther from the truth. It possesses these two aspects, the evil one of the two appealing to people capable of naïve hatred; but what is actually happening is that when you get natures stirred to their depths over questions which they feel to be overwhelmingly vital, you get the bad stirred up in them as well as the good; the mud as well as the water. It doesn't seem to matter much which sect you have, for both types occur in all sects....” - Alfred North Whitehead

2. “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.” - Claude Levi-Strauss

3. “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” - Voltaire

4. “Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?"Mort thought for a moment."No," he said eventually, "what?"There was silence.Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right.” - Terry Pratchett

5. “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

6. “There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.” - Charles Proteus Steinmetz

7. “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

8. “After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.” - Richard Dawkins

9. “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

10. “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

11. “You remember having friends who used to lampoon the world so effortlessly, crouching at the verge of every joke and waiting to pounce on it, and you remember how they changed as they grew older and the joy of questioning everything slowly became transformed into the pain of questioning everything, like a star consuming its own core.” - Kevin Brockmeier

12. “She holds herself with such reserve. She smiles, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes, even in the company of the girls she's chosen to eat with. Why?I have no clue, and I really don't want to spend my time worrying about it. But my brain pushes at the question anyway.Why are people aloof?Because they don't want to let others in.Why don't they want to let others in?Well, sometimes because they're shy, and sometimes because they're convinced of their own superiority.But those aren't the only reasons. Sometimes it's because thay have something to hide.” - Lauren Myracle

13. “So las ich falsch in deinem Aug, dem tiefen?Kein heimlich Sehnen sah ich heiß dort funkeln?Es birgt zu deiner Seele keine PforteDein feuchter Blick? Die Wünsche, die dort schliefen,Wie stille Rosen in der Flut, der dunkeln,Sind, wie dein Plaudern: seellos... Worte, Worte?” - Hugo von Hofmannsthal

14. “Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.” - Oliver Goldsmith

15. “At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.” - Leo Babauta

16. “The question is very understandable, but no one has found a satisfactory answer to it so far. Yes, why do they make still more gigantic planes, still heavier bombs and, at the same time, prefabricated houses for reconstruction? Why should millions be spent daily on the war and yet there's not a penny available for medical services, artists, or for poor people?Why do some people have to starve, while there are surpluses rotting in other parts of the world? Oh, why are people so crazy?” - Anne Frank

17. “Is it better to go with the flow or let the flow go?” - Aidan Chambers

18. “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

19. “How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask-half our great theological and metaphysical problems-are like that.” - C.S. Lewis

20. “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

21. “But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me. ” - J.D. Salinger

22. “There are some questions that shouldn't be asked until a person is mature enough to appreciate the answers.” - Anne Bishop

23. “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

24. “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

25. “those which arise dependently are free of inherent existence.” - Siddhārtha Gautama

26. “An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.” - Madeleine L'Engle

27. “Those questions you have? Whether he's the one, whether you feel about him the way you should, or whether the relationship is going okay? When you're not sure whether you're in love with someone or not, the answer is not.” - Deb Caletti

28. “Q: Why do I love thee, O Night?A: Because you know I will never answer.” - Vera Nazarian

29. “She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and not to hide facts which could give a different complexion to a matter, but on subsequent thought she had revised her position.Although she still believed that one should be frank in answers to questions, this duty arose only where there was an obligation, based on a reasonable expectation, to make a full disclosure. There was no duty to reveal everything in response to a casual question by one who had no right to the information.” - Alexander McCall Smith

30. “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

31. “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

32. “It doesn’t cause me to doubt God’s existence, but it does force me to admit there’s a lot about God I don’t understand.” - Carolyn Custis James

33. “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

34. “An empowered life begins with serious personal questions about oneself. Those answers bare the seeds of success.” - Steve Maraboli

35. “Good books make you ask questions. Bad readers want everything answered.” - Scott Westerfeld

36. “Whatever you eye falls on - for it will fall on what you love - will lead you to the questions of your life, the questions that are incumbent upon you to answer, because that is how the mind works in concert with the eye. The things of this world draw us where we need to go.” - Mary Rose O'Reilley

37. “Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both.” - Criss Jami

38. “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

39. “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

40. “‎Halt looked up at the trees above him."Why does this boy ask so many questions?" he asked the trees.Naturally, they didn't answer.” - John Flanagan

41. “Some communities don't permit open, honest inquiry about the things that matter most. Lots of people have voiced a concern, expressed a doubt, or raised a question, only to be told by their family, church, friends, or tribe: "We don't discuss those things here."I believe the discussion itself is divine. Abraham does his best to bargain with God, most of the book of Job consists of arguments by Job and his friends about the deepest questions of human suffering, God is practically on trial in the book of Lamentations, and Jesus responds to almost every question he's asked with...a question.” - Rob Bell

42. “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

43. “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

44. “... 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

45. “The two girls disappeared into the stern cabin once more. Will watched them go, then asked Halt, 'Anything you'd like me to do? Grow a beard? Learn to walk like a rooster?''If you could stop asking facetious questions, that'd be a start,' Halt told him. 'But it's probably a little late in life for you to do that.” - John Flanagan

46. “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

47. “She didn't have an answer for that. People like her only ever have questions.” - Steven Herrick

48. “It isn't the sort of thing you ask questions about, because the answers are not usually answers you want to know.” - Margaret Atwood

49. “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

50. “I ask people impertinent questions. Hopefully turning up pertinent answers.” - Jim Butcher

51. “Might have, could have, may have, should have—the haves and have nots reduced to pointless possibilities.” - Terry Brooks

52. “Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.” - Jeffrey Pfeffer

53. “Beyond all sciences, philosophies, theologies, and histories, a child's relentless inquiry is truly all it takes to remind us that we don't know as much as we think we know.” - Criss Jami

54. “The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.” - Alain De Botton

55. “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

56. “The more you believe, the more you doubt. The more you doubt, the more you ask questions. Knowing that questions left unanswered is the best proof for your belief.” - Sandra Chami Kassis

57. “Bigger questions, questions with more than one answer, questions without an answer are the hardest to cope with in silence. Once asked they do not evaporate and leave the mind to its serener musings. Once asked they gain dimension and texture, trip you on the stairs, wake you at night-time. A black hole sucks up its surroundings and even light never escapes. Better then to ask no questions? Better then to be a contented pig than an unhappy Socrates? Since factory farming is tougher on pigs than it is on philosophers I'll take a chance.” - Jeanette Winterson

58. “Yeah, but what does that even mean... heaven? Because see, I need to be able to put him somewhere, Zo. In my head, I mean. I need to be able to close my eyes and picture him and know he's okay. And just saying the word heaven doesn't help that much. Because like what is heaven, exactly? And where is it? And what do you do there?” - Barbara Park

59. “Pose your questions to people and you will get countless useless answers.” - Dejan Stojanovic

60. “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

61. “Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.” - Tom Clancy

62. “If the spirit of wonder & curiosity stays alive in us, then surely we will always have new questions, and always expand our creativity in response?” - jay woodman

63. “Who are you, really? The question penetrated, echoed, demanded an answer. It nipped at me in ways I wasn't prepared for, pinched in places I didn't like. Was I really so entrenched in the world I'd been raised in, so set in my ways that I couldn't look beyond the surface of another person and see a human being? Was I that shallow?” - Lisa Wingate

64. “Our greatest failing is that we neglect the significance of a question and obsess over the accuracy of the answer. Therefore, we end up being satisfied with remarkably accurate answers to meaningless questions and dissatisfied with imprecise answers that attempt to respond to the important issues.” - D.A. Blankinship

65. “Do you love her?' she asked him.'Always have,' he said.'Then why in the world would you leave her alone?” - Suzanne Palmieri

66. “She didn't look at me and I didn't look at her. Some questions are so direct the only way to ask them is sideways.” - Deanna Raybourn

67. “The spiritual energy of our time, as I've come to understand it, is not a rejection of the rational disciplines by which we've ordered our common life for many decades - law, politics, economics, science. It is, rather, a realization that these disciplines have a limited scope. They can't ask ultimate questions...they don't begin to tell us how to order our astonishments, what matters in life, what matters in a death, how to love, how we can be of service to each other. These are the kinds of questions religion arose to address and religions traditions are keepers of conversation across generations about them.” - Krista Tippett

68. “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