“Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers will always be children. So you're right, it's a child's question, just as it should be.”

“So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…”

“Adults discourage children from asking philosophical questions, first by being patronizing to them and then by directing their inquiring minds towards more "useful" questions. Most adults aren't themselves interested in philosophical questions. They may be threatened by some of them. Moreover, it doesn't occur to most adults that there are questions that a child can ask that they can't provide a definitive answer to and that aren't answered in a standard dictionary or encyclopedia either.”

“...only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.”

“It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.”

“Democracy should always be viewed with a philosophical perspective rather than a political one, because after all democracy was born to a philosopher and murdered by a politician.”