Inquiry Quotes - Page 19

• We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Imagination, Causes, Guides

  Lacon: or many things in a few words (p. 111)

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• There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry is laboriously exerted to gain that which those who possess it are ready to throw away.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Cities, Differences

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.410

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• Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.

  Samuel Johnson

  Vanity, Advice, Motive

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1834). “Murphy's essay. The rambler. The adventurer. The idler. Rasselas. Tales of the imagination. Letters. Irene. Miscellaneous poems”, p.139

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• Helping children at a level of genuine intellectual inquiry takes imagination on the part of the adult. Even more, it takes the courage to become a resource in unfamiliar areas of knowledge and in ones for which one has no taste. But parents, no less than teachers, must respect a child's mind and not exploit it for their own vanity or ambition, or to soothe their own anxiety.

  Dorothy H Cohen

  Teacher, Children, Ambition

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• Scientific inquiry shouldn't stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Found, Explanation, Reasonable

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• A principle familiar to propagandists is that the doctrine to be instilled in the target audience should not be articulated: that would only expose them to reflection, inquiry, and, very likely, ridicule. The proper procedure is to drill them home by constantly presupposing them, so that they become the very condition for discourse.

  Noam Chomsky

  Home, Reflection, Target Audience

  Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman (2004). “Letters from Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda”, p.41, Pluto Press

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• Rather than be afraid of evolution and try to stifle inquiry, people should revel in the joys of knowing and find a serenity and a joy in being a part the rest of life on Earth. Not apart from it, but a part of it.

  Sylvia Earle

  Rest Of Life, Knowing, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Long, Atheism, Impossible

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1873). “An Oration on the Gods”, p.35

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• If you get in a battle with someone, you don't get their power if you win. Power is something that you have to acquire yourself, through self-inquiry and the practice of meditation.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Winning, Self

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• Religious freedom in an open society has the best prospects of flourishing to the extent that it expresses itself as freedom of religious inquiry.

  Sidney Hook

  Religious, Atheism, Flourishing

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• Skepticism literally means a thoughtful inquiry, the looking at a problem in a disinterested spirit, the surveying of a question from many sides. In this sense it is the very essence of philosophy and science.

  Joseph Alexander Leighton

  Philosophy, Mean, Thoughtful

  Joseph Alexander Leighton (1918). “The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy”

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• Whenever philosophy has taken into its plan religion, it has ended in skepticism; and whenever religion excludes philosophy, or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to willful blindness and superstition.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Philosophy, Taken, Atheism

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• It is probably true that almost all atheists stand for the values of reason and freethought. I will attempt to put these values in more substantial terms. There is the belief that inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self deception, and error. There is the belief that logic and the scientific method is the only way the world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.

  Richard Carrier

  Atheist, Errors, Self

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• The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.

  S. T. Joshi

  Religious, Atheist, Teaching

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• An anecdote is related of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683), who, in speaking of religion, said, "People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion." To the inquiry of "What religion?" the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it".

  Gilbert Burnet

  Men, People, Anecdotes

  "Burnet's history of my own time". Book by by Gilbert Burnet, vol. i, p. 175, 1833.

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• Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mistake, Eye, Vanity

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “The works of Samuel Johnson”, p.99

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• Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always the estimation of the widow's mite, but, that it is not every one who asketh that deserveth charity; all, however, are worthy of the inquiry, or the deserving may suffer.

  George Washington

  Heart, Hands, Giving

  George Washington (1835). “The writings of George Washington: being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes, and illustrations”, p.374

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• The moment philosophy supposes it can find a final and comprehensive solution, it ceases to be inquiry and becomes either apologetics or propaganda.

  John Dewey

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

  John Dewey, Jo Ann Boydston, Ernest Nagel (2008). “The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1938”, p.42, SIU Press

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• Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Details, Different

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.363

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• The Board of Inquiry report fails to recognize that the central problem in the Los Angeles Police Department is the culture. The reality is there will not be meaningful reform in the Los Angeles Police Department until the culture is changed.

  Erwin Chemerinsky

  Meaningful, Reality, Police

  "Report faults LAPD culture for corruption", www.cnn.com. September 11, 2000.

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• A kiss is an inquiry on the second floor as to what's going on on the first floor.

  Theresa Russell

  Kissing, Firsts

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• The Boer War occurred 37 years ago. Boer means farmer. Many criticized a great power like Britain for trying to wipe out the Boers. Upon making inquiry, I found all the gold and diamond mines of South Africa were owned by Jews; that Rothschild controlled gold; Samuels controlled silver, Baum controlled other mining, and Moses controlled base metals. Anything these people touch they inevitably pollute.

  Henry Hamilton Beamish

  War, Mean, Years

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• Suffering is a call for inquiry, all pain needs investigation.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Inspirational, Pain, Suffering

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• [T]here are depths of thousands of miles which are hidden from our inquiry. The only tidings we have from those unfathomable regions are by means of volcanoes, those burning mountains that seem to discharge their materials from the lowest abysses of the earth.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Mean, Science, Volcanoes

  Oliver Goldsmith (1825). “A History of the Earth: And Animated Nature”, p.26

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• Insanity - to have to construct a picture of one's life, by making inquiries of others.

  Philip K. Dick

  Insanity, Constructs

  Philip K. Dick (2012). “Martian Time-Slip”, p.219, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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