86 Questions From Famous Quotes

Quotes have the power to inspire, provoke thought, and challenge our perceptions. They've been crafted by some of history’s most notable figures, spanning various fields and epochs. But behind every great quote is a question—a spark of curiosity or a profound inquiry that invites us to delve deeper into understanding. In this curated collection, we explore 86 questions drawn from famous quotes. Each question encourages introspection and offers a unique lens through which we can examine our lives, beliefs, and the world around us. Join us on this reflective journey, where words become a springboard for exploration and enlightenment.

1. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

2. “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

3. “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.” - Thomas Pynchon

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

5. “He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.” - Elie Wiesel

6. “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” - Primo Levi

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. “With faith, there are no questions; without faith, there are no answers.” - Yisroel Meir Ha-Cohen

9. “Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.” - Anne Rice

10. “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

11. “Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?” - Mitch Albom

12. “...where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.” - David Brin

13. “He looked at me intently, from what seemed behind the veil of a grave experience. Then slowly and prophetically, he said the scariest thing I'd ever heard: "Because the answer to a heartfelt question, Jack, will always break your heart.” - Thomas H. Cook

14. “The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.” - Nancy Newhall

15. “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

16. “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

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

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

19. “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

20. “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

21. “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

22. “Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.” - Miriam Toews

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

24. “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

25. “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

26. “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

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

28. “There are works which wait, and which one does not understand for a long time; the reason is that they bring answers to questions which have not yet been raised; for the question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer.” - Oscar Wilde

29. “Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer - except faith.” - Charles Sheffield

30. “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

31. “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

32. “And you still haven't answered any of my one-hundred ten questions, or my follow ups.” - Greg Farshtey

33. “Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?” - L.M. Montgomery

34. “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

35. “It's a fact—everyone is ignorant in some way or another.Ignorance is our deepest secret.And it is one of the scariest things out there, because those of us who are most ignorant are also the ones who often don't know it or don't want to admit it.Here is a quick test:If you have never changed your mind about some fundamental tenet of your belief, if you have never questioned the basics, and if you have no wish to do so, then you are likely ignorant.Before it is too late, go out there and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from you, and just have a basic honest conversation.It will do both of you good.” - Vera Nazarian

36. “We question ourselves through others by way of stories, advice, and gestures; and we receive our answers form listening to others reactions” - Jeremy Aldana

37. “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

38. “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

39. “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

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

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

42. “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

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

44. “Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

45. “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

46. “There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough.” - John Green

47. “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

48. “‎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

49. “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

50. “Bakit kahit simpleng pagmamahal ay kinakailangan ng materyal na kapital?” - Eros S. Atalia

51. “Questions that will free you might have answers that will imprison you again.” - Nema Al-Araby

52. “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

53. “He had a talent for asking exactly the right questions to lead me to my own answers. Just being near him made things clearer.” - k.d. sarge

54. “To be, or not to be: what a question!” - E.A. Bucchianeri

55. “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

56. “How ya doin'?' I always think, What kind of a question is that?, and I always reply, 'A bit early to tell.” - Christopher Hitchens

57. “حُكمك على الشخص يكون من أسئلته وليس أجوبته” - فولتير

58. “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

59. “... 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

60. “Not all questions can be answered.” - Edward Abbey

61. “When one needs an answer to life's greatest questions, look towards either Chaos or Nothingness.” - Lionel Suggs

62. “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

63. “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

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

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

66. “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

67. “...only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.” - Paul Tillich

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

69. “Most people don't know how to ask the right questions. Mondo knew how to ask questions, just at the right time, when you weren't expecting it. People paused for a few seconds, they stopped thinking about themselves and their own business, they thought, and their eyes seemed to blur, because they remembered asking those questions themselves, long ago.” - j.m.g. le clezio

70. “Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to whack you with a stick until delicious candy surprises fall out?” - Molly Harper

71. “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

72. “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

73. “Breaking a sweat through our difficulties minimized the likelihood of a crippling injury to our faith.” - K. Howard Joslin

74. “There is always the question why And there is always life, Which doesn't need an answer.” - Dejan Stojanovic

75. “Love is the only answer to every question. It is the only thing that will serve you in every situation. It is the route and the destination. It is medication, liberation and should be at the heart of and expression of your vocation.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

76. “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

77. “Have I heard all the stories I need to hear?" she asked, stupidly. But he answered as if it were a good question."No, you haven't. But you don't have time to hear any more from me. So listen for stories wherever you go. It won't always be someone telling them; sometimes they come in other ways. And Summer, when you tell yourself stories, make them true. And make them surprising. That's how you will know they might be true.” - Katherine Catmull

78. “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

79. “Do I dream you? Or you dream me? Or does someone, something bigger than all' - her hands swept the vast constellations above them - 'this beauteous calamity, dream everything we see and more?” - David Hewson

80. “There are essentially two questions in life - a spiritual question and a material question. The spiritual question is 'Who am I?' The material question is 'What am I to do with my life?' One leads to the other.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

81. “He was evidently the sort of person who posed questions that were traps for you to fall into.” - Alice Munro

82. “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

83. “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

84. “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

85. “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

86. “He preferred smart questions to smart answers.” - Yoko Ogawa