Quotes About Questioning

On my journey into the fascinating world of questioning, I’ve been finding and gathering some wonderful quotes about questioning from well-known people.

See them as images below, sorted by Quotes about Questioning, Beautiful Questions, Curiosity Quotes, Critical Thinking quotes, and insightful quotes by master questioner Albert Einstein.

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1. Quotes About Questioning
2. Einstein Quotes
3. Beautiful Qs
4. Curiosity Quotes
5. Critical Thinking
6. All

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  Michelle Obama’s advice to her younger self. Read her whole quote.

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  Via "8 Questions" in Time magazine.

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  From author George Saunders' 2013 commencement speech at Syracuse University, which later became the book "Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness"

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  From “Why Michael Keaton Would Rather Be a Dog” in Time magazine.

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  From author George Saunders' 2013 commencement speech at Syracuse University, which later became the book "Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness"

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  From Gilbert’s talk “Flight of the Hummingbird: The Curiosity-Driven Life” on Oprah’s Super Soul Sessions

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  Quote submitted by reader James Parker, citing John C. Maxwell’s 2012 book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential

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  From author George Saunders' 2013 commencement speech at Syracuse University, which later became the book "Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness"

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  From the short film BRIEFLY

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  From a terrific 2015 USC commencement speech by Pico Iyer about the value of "stepping back."

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  As seen in author Oliver Burkeman’s column “8 Secrets to a (Fairly) Fulfilled Life” quoting Jungian therapist James Hollis. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/04/oliver-burkemans-last-column-the-eight-secrets-to-a-fairly-fulfilled-life

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  From the post “A Beautiful Question for the Ages”

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  From Herman Melville's TYPEE. Thanks to Jim Clark for submitting this one.

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  H/T to BrainPickings.com

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  As explained in my articles in Fast Company and Psychology Today.

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  See our article on Grazer “Ever Wonder What Curiosity Can Do for You?"

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  From the post “A Beautiful Question for the Ages”

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  Hat tip to Donna Banks for finding this in a Christensen book and forwarding it to us.

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  Einstein’s beautiful question as a teenager.

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  A good beautiful question for making the best out of challenging situations.

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  From author Amy Tan's 2008 TED Talk “Where does creativity hide?”

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  Find out more about Professor David Hackett Fischer in this related post “A historian’s view of questioning: Some keen insights from Pulitzer Prize–winner David Hackett Fischer”

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  As seen on Cameron Norman’s blog Censemaking.com

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A longer version of the Anne Frank quote, as written in Anne Frank’s Tales From the Annex.

“Ever since I was a little girl and could barely talk, the word ‘why’ has lived and grown along with me… When I got older, I noticed that not all questions can be asked and that many whys can never be answered. As a result, I tried to work things out for myself by mulling over my own questions. And I came to the important discovery that questions which you either can’t or shouldn’t ask in public, or questions which you can’t put into words, can easily be solved in your own head. So the word ‘why’ not only taught me to ask, but also to think. And thinking has never hurt anyone. On the contrary, it does us all a world of good.”

Another one that I absolutely love, from the Nobel laureate scientist Isidor Isaac Rabi.

“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, “So? Did you learn anything today?” But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference—asking good questions—made me become a scientist.”

(Hat tip to Jason Fried’s excellent website 37signals.com, which recently featured that quote.)

I’ll be featuring new quotes regularly, so please check back in. And if you come across a great questioning quote and would like to share it, send it here.