Inquiry Quotes - Page 2

• Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything.

  John Polkinghorne

  Problem, Speak, Mills

  52 Copy quote

• I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Thinking, America

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.41, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every step in the progress of this study has tended to obliterate the technical barriers by which logicians have sought to separate the inquiries relating to the several parts of man's nature.

  Richard Owen

  Men, Progress, Steps

  7 Copy quote

• The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food. Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.

  William Winwood Reade

  Curiosity, Expansion, Genius

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.394

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The inquiries of the jurist are in truth prosecuted much as inquiry in physic and physiology was prosecuted before observation had taken the place of assumption.

  Henry James Sumner Maine

  Taken, Assumption, Observation

  Henry Sumner Maine, Sir, J. H. Morgan (2000). “Ancient Law”, p.2, Beard Books

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal

  V. S. Naipaul

  Father, Thinking, People

  V.S. Naipaul (2010). “Literary Occasions: Essays”, p.240, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The general statement that the mental faculties are class concepts, belonging to descriptive psychology, relieves us of the necessity of discussing them and their significance at the present stage of our inquiry.

  Wilhelm Wundt

  Class, Psychology, Stage

  Wilhelm Max Wundt (1969). “Principles of Physiological Psychology”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Matter, Belief, Possibility

  Joseph Glanvill (1979). “Collected Works of Joseph Glanvill”, Georg Olms Verlag

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• For we can affirm with a good conscience that we have, after reading the Holy Scripture, applied ourselves and yet daily apply ourselves to the extent that the grace of the Lord permits to inquiry into and investigation of the consensus of the true and purer antiquity.

  Martin Chemnitz

  Reading, Grace, Scripture

  Martin Chemnitz (1971). “Examination of the Council of Trent”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.

  Edward Sapir

  Language, Interest, Critical

  Edward Sapir, David Goodman Mandelbaum (1985). “Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality”, p.118, Univ of California Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Character, Criticism, Being Free

  53 Copy quote

• There was an inquiry just last week about the new Bette Midler show, and I just didn't want to do that.

  Robert Urich

  Want, Lasts, Week

  7 Copy quote

• Interactive computers and software will, I think, provide a less costly method of doing some kinds of inquiry, in knowledge acquisition and even reasoning and interaction.

  Roy Romer

  Thinking, Acquisition, Kind

  45 Copy quote

• We will that all men know we blame not all the lords, nor all those that are about the king's person, nor all gentlemen nor yeomen, nor all men of law, nor all bishops, nor all priests, but all such as may be found guilty by just and true inquiry and by the law.

  Jack Cade

  Kings, Men, Law

  27 Copy quote

• It is a shameful thing to be weary of inquiry when what we search for is excellent.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Curiosity, Excellent, Weary

  8 Copy quote

• There is no thought or situation that you can't put up against inquiry. Every thought, every person, every apparent problem is here for the sake of your freedom.

  Byron Katie

  Freedom, Sake, Problem

  Byron Katie, Stephen Mitchell (2008). “Loving What Is: How Four Questions Can Change Your Life”, p.162, Random House

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind it is? And how much is there of it? Quality and Quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Men, Discovery

  James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (2003). “The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell”, p.217, Courier Corporation

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Real, Guarantees That

  "The Politics of Ignorance" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 2, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religious belief, like history itself, is a story that is always unfolding, always subject to inquiry and ripe for questioning. For without doubt there is no faith.

  Jon Meacham

  Religious, Doubt, Stories

  7 Copy quote

• Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self-inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers.

  Deepak Chopra

  Philosophy, Creativity, Reflection

  "Exclusive: Deepak Chopra Explores the Evolution of God". Interview with Dan Schawbel, www.forbes.com. September 25, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, People, Benefits

  Alexander Hamilton, Harold Coffin Syrett, Jacob Ernest Cooke (1962). “Papers: Harold C. Syrett, Editor; Jacob E. Cooke, Associate Editor”

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Curiosity, Needs

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I shall endeavour still further to prosecute this inquiry, an inquiry I trust not merely speculative, but of sufficient moment to inspire the pleasing hope of its becoming essentially beneficial to mankind.

  Edward Jenner

  Inspire, Becoming, Keep Moving Forward

  25 Copy quote

• The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Philosopher, Logical, Method

  7 Copy quote

• There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Science, Errors, Doubt

  "J. Robert Oppenheimer" by L. Barnett in Life Magazine, Volume 7, No. 9, International Edition (p. 58), October 24, 1949.

  80 Copy quote

  Show source