Inquirers Quotes

• For the thinker the world is a thought; for the wit, an image; for the enthusiast, a dream; for the inquirer, truth.

  Ludwig Buchner

  Dream, World, Wit

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• He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• Don't be an examiner, be the interested inquirer.

  Studs Terkel

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• Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always questioning never learn anything.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Silent, Questioning, Teach

  Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Gosse, Robert Arnot (1904). “The Works of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Embracing Novels, Romances, Plays, Poems, Biography, Short Stories and Great Speeches”

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• Men who are lovers of wisdom [i.e., philosophers] must be inquirers into many things.

  Heraclitus

  Wisdom, Philosophical, Men

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• Without tact you can learn nothing.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Tact

  Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Gosse, Robert Arnot (1904). “The works of Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield: embracing novels, romances, plays, poems, biography, short stories and great speeches”

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• As regards authority I so proceed. Boetius says in the second prologue to his Arithmetic, 'If an inquirer lacks the four parts of mathematics, he has very little ability to discover truth.' And again, 'Without this theory no one can have a correct insight into truth.' And he says also, 'I warn the man who spurns these paths of knowledge that he cannot philosophize correctly.' And Again, 'It is clear that whosoever passes these by, has lost the knowledge of all learning.'

  Roger Bacon

  Truth, Men, Path

  Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.117, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Matter, Moral, Problem

  Arthur Conan Doyle (2016). “A Study in Scarlet”, p.30, Arthur Conan Doyle

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• The happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

  John Adams

  Men, Dignity, Virtue

  John Adams (1841). “Letters, Addressed to His Wife”, p.277

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• The happiness of society is the end of government.

  John Adams

  Happiness, Government, Presidential

  'Thoughts on Government' (1776)

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• I remember being a kid and seeing the 'National Inquirer' at the grocery store checkout line. When somebody actually picked up a copy, it was mortifying. You felt dirty for them. But now it's perfectly acceptable to read something like that. There's absolutely no taboo surrounding that kind of exploitation.

  Rashida Jones

  Dirty, Kids, Naughty

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• ...we are all inclined to ... direct our inquiry not by the matter itself, but by the views of our opponents; and, even when interrogating oneself, one pushes the inquiry only to the point at which one can no longer offer any opposition. Hence a good inquirer will be one who is ready in bringing forward the objections proper to the genus, and that he will be when he has gained an understanding of the differences.

  Aristotle

  Science, Differences, Views

  Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle (2012). “The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle”, p.1731, Modern Library

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• The inquirer after holiness should associate with those whose intelligence will instruct him; whose example will guide him; whose conversation will inspire him; whose cautions will warn him.

  John Angell James

  Inspire, Example, Holiness

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 314, 1895.

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• The Christian Theology Reader brings the best primary sources to the theological inquirer.

  Gabriel Fackre

  Christian, Source, Theology

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• I would not go so far as to say that vaccination has never saved a person from smallpox. It is a matter of record that thousands of the victims of this superstitious rite have been saved from smallpox by the immunizing potency of death. But it is a fact that the official statistics of England and Wales show unmistakably that, while vaccination has killed ten times more people than smallpox, there has been a decrease in smallpox concomitant with the decrease in vaccination. . . It might be appropriately asked, in the words of the Vaccination Inquirer

  Herbert M. Shelton

  Vaccines, People, Records

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• Now, in the development of our knowledge of the workings of Nature out of the tremendously complex assemblage of phenomena presented to the scientific inquirer, mathematics plays in some respects a very limited, in others a very important part. As regards the limitations, it is merely necessary to refer to the sciences connected with living matter, and to the ologies generally, to see that the facts and their connections are too indistinctly known to render mathematical analysis practicable, to say nothing of the complexity.

  Oliver Heaviside

  Nature, Knowledge, Science

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• It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Real, Discovery, Progress

  Henry St John's letter to Alexander Pope, as quoted in "The Work of Lord Bolingbroke: With a Life, Prepared Expressly for this Edition, Containing Additional Information Relative to His Personal and Public Character, Selected from the Best Authorities. In Four Volumes. Volume III", 1841.

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• Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

  John Adams

  Christian, Men, Numbers

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1969). “The Works of John Adams: Controversial papers of the Revolution (continued) Works on government”

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• All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

  John Adams

  Christian, Men, Dignity

  John Adams (1841). “Letters, Addressed to His Wife”, p.277

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• It is an observation of one of the profoundest inquirers into human affairs that a revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense.

  John Adams

  Government, People, Revolution

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography (cont.) Diary. Notes of a debate in the Senate of the United States. Essays: On private revenge. On self-delusion. On private revenge. Dissertation on the canon and the feudal law. Instructions of the town of Braintree to their representative, 1765. The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym. Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford. Instructions of the town of Boston to their representatives, 1768. Instructions of the town of”, p.399

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• The New York Times has had fake stories. CBS has had fake stories. And now Newsweek had a fake story. You realize the only one that hasn't had to print a retraction is the National Inquirer

  Jay Leno

  New York, Fake, Stories

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• Unless there exist peculiar institutions for the support of such inquirers, or unless the Government directly interfere, the contriver of a thaumatrope may derive profit from his ingenuity, whilst he who unravels the laws of light and vision, on which multitudes of phenomena depend, shall descend unrewarded to the tomb.

  Charles Babbage

  Science, Light, Government

  Charles Babbage (1830). “Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes”, p.19

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• But medicine has long had all its means to hand, and has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the discoveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery will be made, if the inquirer be competent, conduct his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and make them his starting-point. But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct research in any other way or after another fashion, and asserts that he has found out anything, is and has been victim of deception.

  Hippocrates

  Fashion, Mean, Science

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• The absence of romance from my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

  Thucydides

  Winning, Past, Romance

  History of the Peloponnesian War bk. 1, ch. 1

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• When children ask you questions about gray hairs, and wrinkles in the face, and sighs that have no words, and smiles too bright to be carved upon the radiant face by the hands of hypocrisy--when they ask you about kneeling at the altar, speaking into the vacant air, and uttering words to an unseen and in an invisible Presence--when they interrogate you about your great psalms, and hymns, and anthem-bursts of thankfulness, what is your reply to these? Do not be ashamed of the history. Keep steadily along the line of fact. Say what happened to you, and magnify God in the hearing of the inquirer.

  Joseph Parker

  Children, Hymns, Wrinkles

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