Questions and Answers

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase … The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive. ~~ Frank Herbert

Life's two Great Questions: Why me? and What do I do now? ~~ William L. DeAndrea

If alcohol or drugs are the answer to your problem, what the hell is the question? ~~ Unattributed

'Tis not every question that deserves an answer. ~~ Thomas Fuller

The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions. ~~ Claude Levi-Strauss

It is easier to judge a person's mental capacity by his questions than by his answers. ~~ Le Duc de Levis

The University is a Mecca to which students come with something less than perfect faith. It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is know, but to question it. ~~ Jacob Bronowski

To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question. ~~ Eric Hoffer

The mayor gave no other answer than that deep guttural grunt which is technically known in municipal interviews as refusing to commit oneself. ~~ Stephen Leacock

The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil. ~~ Georges Bataille

My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple. ~~ John Lennon

The question grows more troubling with each passing year: how much of what yesterday's science fiction regarded as unspeakably dreadful has become today's award-winning research? ~~ Theodore Roszak

The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no. ~~ Lester Bangs

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying. ~~ Edward Hoagland

A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again. ~~ Margaret Mead

We face the question whether a still higher standard of living is worth its costs in things natural, wild, and free. ~~ Aldo Leopold

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of society. They are the terrorists of the mind. ~~ A. Bartlett Giamatti

No one is without knowledge except him who asks no questions. ~~ West African saying

Irrational barriers and ancient prejudices fall quickly when the question of survival itself is at stake. ~~ John F. Kennedy

Nothing to be done really about animals. Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn't in us. It's almost as if we're put here on earth to show how silly they aren't. ~~ Russell Hoban

The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing. ~~ Oscar Wilde

[In answer to the question, what do you want to be?:] I would like to be myself. I tried to be other things, but I always failed. ~~ Third Grader

I never question a success, any more than I do the right of a bulldog to lie in his own gateway. ~~ Josh Billings

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems. ~~ Sydney J. Harris

Don’t ask silly questions if you don't want foolish answers. ~~ C. Ryland

Opportunity doesn't knock. You knock, opportunity answers. ~~ American proverb

Life is an unanswered question, but let's believe in the dignity and important of the question. ~~ Tennessee Williams

If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question? ~~ Lily Tomlin

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. ~~ Leo Tolstoy

Ask not for whom the bell tolls … You might get an answer you don't especially like. ~~ Earnst Angst

What do you got in place of a conscience? Don't answer. I know: a lawyer. ~~ "Detective Story" (film, 1951)

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all of the answers. ~~ James Thurber

Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. They're more easily handled than dumb mistakes. ~~ William Wister Haines

I'm not very good at giving answers; I so seldom listen to the questions. ~~ "Becky Sharp" (film, 1935)

It is all right if you talk to yourself. It is all right if you answer yourself. But when you start disagreeing with the answers, you've got a problem. ~~ R. E. Phillips

He who will not answer to the rudder must answer to the rocks. ~~ Unattributed

Hitler had the best answers to everything. ~~ Charles Manson

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments. ~~ Isaac Asimov

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. ~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Whoever fears to submit any question to the test of free discussion, loves his own opinion more than the truth. ~~ Unattributed

Many people today don't want honest answers insofar as honest means unpleasant or disturbing. They want a soft answer that turneth away anxiety. ~~ Louis Kronenberger

I consider it a public duty to answer falsifications with facts. I will not pretend that I find this an unpleasant duty. I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight. ~~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. ~~ H. L. Mencken

If you leave home for a while … you question the conventional wisdom you've grown up with. That doesn't mean you have to change your opinions or who you are, but it's good to ask the questions. ~~ Molly Ringwald

It's hard for me to answer a question from someone who really doesn't care about the answer. ~~ Charles Grodin

When I interview people, and they give me an immediate answer, they're often not thinking. So I'm silent. I wait. Because they think they have to keep answering. And it's the second train of thought that's the better answer. ~~ Robin Leach

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power. ~~ Karen Nussbaum

There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer. ~~ Gertrude Stein

There are no answers, only cross-references. ~~ Joe Moore

In a general way, we try to anticipate some of your questions so that I can respond no comment with some degree of knowledge. ~~ William Baker

However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words. ~~ Ivan Turgenev

I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think any one will deny us. ~~ Louisa May Alcott

The great question … which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is What does a woman want? ~~ Sigmund Freud

Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. ~~ Thomas Jefferson

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question. ~~ Albert Camus

I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. ~~ Charlie Brown [Charles Schulz]

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know. ~~ Mark Twain

It's no longer a question of staying healthy. Its' a question of finding a sickness you like. ~~ Jackie Mason

As long as one keeps searching, the answers come. ~~ Joan Baez

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. ~~ Henry David Thoreau

It is a sign of strength, not of weakness, to admit that you don't know all the answers. ~~ John P. Loughrane

Courage is more than standing for a firm conviction. It includes the risk of questioning that conviction. ~~ Julian Weber Gordon

Only a weak mind seeks ultimate answers. ~~ Agnes Thornton

To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic. ~~ Albert Schweitzer

It is a good answer that knows when to stop. ~~ Italian proverb

I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered. ~~ Jean Ingelow

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers. ~~ Martina Horner

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs. ~~ Oliver Goldsmith

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. ~~ Pablo Picasso

There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return. ~~ Dag Hammarskjold

Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment. ~~ Christopher Morley

Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. ~~ Abraham Heschel

To them that ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you know for certain there are gods, that you are so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I ever seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it. ~~ Marcus Aurelius

In all affairs its a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. ~~ Bertrand Russell

What ought a man to be? Well, my short answer is himself. ~~ Henrik Ibsen

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own. ~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again night after night, but God knows the answer to that is , don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it. ~~ Elaine Dundy

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory. ~~ Friedrich Nietzsche

[A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right. ~~ H. L. Mencken

Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don't go to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Lean from others' mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself. ~~ Admiral Hyman Rickover

There can be no resolution of mourning and loss until you put the question of Why? behind … [Better questions might be] How do I survive and find courage? How can I take this life-shattering trauma and make it a basis for growing? ~~ Mrs. A. J. Levinson and Harold S. Kushner

Go around asking a lot of damfool questions and taking chances. Only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only by gambling can we take advantage of them. ~~ Clarence Birdseye

No answer is also an answer. ~~ German proverb

None of us here in Washington knows all or even half of the answers … If you love your country, don't depend on handouts from Washington for your information. If you cherish your freedom, don't leave it all up to big government. ~~ Barry M. Goldwater

When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come and get you." ~~ Jerry Lewis

It is not enough to be busy … the question is: what are we busy about? ~~ Henry David Thoreau

We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species. ~~ Desmond Morris

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone? ~~ James Thurber

A great many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated. My answer is "Don't you wish you knew?" ~~ Robert Charles Benchley

What is the answer? [I was silent.] In that case, what is the question? ~~ Gertrude Stein

Who rises from a prayer a better man, his prayer is answered. ~~ George Meredith

A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself. ~~ Admiral Arthur W. Radford

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely. ~~ Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay

[In reply to the question, What was it the last man on earth said?:] Where is everybody? ~~ Carl Sandburg

When one has great gifts, what answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise them? ~~ W. H. Auden

A new question has arisen in modern man's mind, the question, namely, whether life is worth living… No sensible answer can be given to the question…because the question does not make any sense. ~~ Erich Fromm

Animals are such agreeable friends; they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. ~~ George Eliot

The important thing is not to stop questioning. ~~ Albert Einstein

I've got a phone, answering machine, TV set, computer, hand grenade -- everything you need to run a business in Los Angeles. ~~ Ice-T

The first key to wisdom is assiduous and frequent questioning … For by doubting we come to inquiry, and by inquiry we arrive at truth. ~~ Peter Abelard

… there will always be pressures and time sin your life when you'll need answers, but … coke and the rest offer nothing -- no outlet, no information. And, believe me, you're only as good as your information. ~~ Bob Seger

Stop asking yourself questions that have no meaning. Or if they have, you'll find out when you need to -- find out both the questions and the answers. ~~ Thomas Merton