Asking Quotes - page 54
Did you know you can ask very simple questions to the scientists who claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago? You could say to them, in a very nice way of course, "Excuse me, were you there?" You are actually asking them, "Were you there to see the dinosaurs when they first came into existence? Were you there to see them alive? Were you there to see them die out?" Obviously, they weren't there, so how could they really know everything about them?
Ken Ham
Consciousness presupposes itself, and asking about its origin is an idle and just as sophistical a question as that old one, "What came first, the fruit-tree or the stone? Wasn't there a stone out of which came the first fruit-tree? Wasn't there a fruit-tree from which came the first stone? Journals and Papers, Hannay, 1996 1843 IVA49.
Søren Kierkegaard
I've been studying the records of all the Pirates and I feel if we can just get a little more production out of every man, we can have a good team this season. I don't think that's asking too much. I'd like to have Roberto Clemente drive in 100 runs, Willie Stargell give us a few more homers than the 21 he had last season and maybe Bailey can push a few more runners home.
Roberto Clemente
I used to go over to Howard's house on Sunday mornings for breakfast and it was unusual when he didn't get at least three phone calls while we ate, asking him to keep catastrophes of the night before out of the papers. One star would be picked up drunk in the street, another would have been caught in a raid on a marijuana party, another would have wrapped his car around a tree with someone else's wife in the seat alongside him. The next day I would always look in the papers to see if anything sneaked through. Nothing ever did. That Howard, he sure is a genius.
Clark Gable
We think, and our leaders think, that we can go on in the old ways, exactly as we have done - more competition, more greed, more of the same, and it will just go on, we will win. It is not so any longer; it does not work. If two-thirds of the world's population are living in poverty then the economic system does not work. If we think that they will go on without asking that it work for them, then we are sorely out of step with reality. Maitreya will make that clear.
Benjamin Creme
There was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be ‘necklaced' here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions...I do not except myself from this criticism...What we are talking about here-whether one wants to recognize it or not, or call it by its proper name or not-is a form of self-censorship. I worry that patriotism run amok will trample the very values that the country seeks to defend.
Dan Rather
When the first wife of EVR Nagammai wanted to go to temple, EVR could not win over her by his arguments. So he secretly went to some of his ‘minor' friends and showed them his first wife and told them that she was a new Dasi in the town asking them to make her consent to their desires. Consequently they started teasing and stalking her from the temple. Traumatised by this his wife stopped attending the temple. Later she came to know that this was a trick played by her rationalist husband.
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy
Have you ever argued with a toddler? Because if you have, you probably lost that argument, or you killed the toddler. Either way, you didn't win the argument, because you can't win an argument against a toddler. Toddlers will say the most outlandish shit. [...] Over the course of this election season, we've come to realize that president-elect Donald Trump might have the mind of a toddler. And if you think about it, it makes sense. He loves the same things that toddlers do. They like building things. They love attention, always grabbing things they're not supposed to. [...] You don't argue with a child if you want to win. Don't amplify the toddler's voice, because you'll just get trapped in the toddler's world. Rather, just keep asking the toddler to elaborate. Because logic is the downfall of every toddler. The point is to gently demoralize the toddler and smother his tantrums. And, as a bonus, stop him from delegitimizing the press.
Trevor Noah
Oh, they had an explanation ready for every occasion, from the extension of capital punishment to the twelve-year-old to the abolition of the Soviet workers' right to strike and to the one-party-election-system; they called it ‘revolutionary dialectics' and reminded one of those conjurers on the stage who can produce an egg from every pocket of their frockcoats and even out of the harmless onlooker's nose. They explained everything so well that, during a committee meeting, old Heinrich Mann, at one time a great ‘sympathiser,' shouted to Dahlem, leader of the German Communists: ‘If you go on asking me to realise that this table here is a fishpond, then I am afraid my dialectical capacities are at an end.'
Arthur Koestler
Lincoln spoke in solace for all who fought upon this field; and the years have laid their balm upon their wounds. Men who wore the blue and men who wore the gray are here together, a fragment spared by time. They are brought here by the memories of old divided loyalties, but they meet here in united loyalty to a united cause which the unfolding years have made it easier to see. All of them we honor, not asking under which flag they fought then - thankful that they stand together under one flag now. Lincoln was commander-in-chief in this old battle; he wanted above all things to be commander-in-chief of the new peace. He understood that battle there must be; that when a challenge to constituted government is thrown down, the people must in self-defense take it up; that the fight must be fought through to a decision so clear that it is accepted as being beyond recall.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
My nerdy teenage rebellion was to confront my parents with the scientific method, challenging their weird beliefs, asking for peer-reviewed data and scientific context. I remember that one day when I was 15, I asked my mother to use her divining rod and a piece of paper to determine the first 30 decimal values of pi. It took her three hours and not a single one was right. That felt like a huge success, but she just told me she had a bad day because of the full moon. Tomorrow she would try again and would succeed. And if not, who says that the 30 digits of pi in the math books are actually right? Maybe her version was correct in the first place and she had access to a higher knowledge? It simply wasn't possible to challenge her.
Johannes Grenzfurthner
Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking, observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaningful, then we are engaged in art. Common to both is love and devotion to that which transcends personal concerns and volition.
Albert Einstein
People say kids can't understand the difference between fact and fiction, but that's bullshit. Kids understand that real crabs don't sing like the ones in The Little Mermaid. But you give an adult fiction, and the adult starts asking really fucking dumb questions like 'How does Superman fly? How do those eyebeams work? Who pumps the Batmobile's tires? It's a fucking made-up story, you idiot! Nobody pumps the tires! Grant Morrison: Psychedelic Superhero, 2011.
Grant Morrison
He reached his hand toward me. "You don't mind my asking, do you?” "Of course not,” I say calmly as I reverse the lit end of the cigarette so that the flame is cupped in the palm. I reach for his handshake. He screams like a woman in distress with her skirt held high. I puff my meanness as he licks at the burn and whimpers, "You sonofagun. You've burned the dickens out of my hand.” "I know.” "But why? I didn't do anything. I don't even know you.” "I guess it's my Samoan blood.” Sal rushes to my defense. He points his finger at the fag. "Out!” "But I didn't do anything.” "Out, out!” he shouts, his hands stiffly on the bar. The old fag picks himself up and begins to drag himself out.
Oscar Zeta Acosta
![In the end there is no escaping from the fact that businesses run business. And the best thing government can do is set a framework within which business has the stability to plan and invest in the future [...] I want a situation more like the Democrats and the Republicans in the US. People don't even question for a single moment that the Democrats are pro-business party. They should not be asking the question about the New Labour [...] New Labour is pro-business, pro-enterprise, and we believe there is nothing inconsistent between that and a decent and just society. (Tony Blair)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/86/tony-blair-asking-believe-971886.webp)
We must also lift by legislation the bars of discrimination against those who seek entry into our country, particularly those who have much needed skills and those joining their families. In establishing preferences, a nation that was built by the immigrants of all lands can ask those who now seek admission: "What can you do for our country?" But we should not be asking: "In what country were you born?"
Lyndon B. Johnson
Third, we must make increased use of our food as an instrument of peace--making it available by sale or trade or loan or donation-to hungry people in all nations which tell us of their needs and accept proper conditions of distribution. Fourth, we must assure our pre-eminence in the peaceful exploration of outer space, focusing on an expedition to the moon in this decade--in cooperation with other powers if possible, alone if necessary. Fifth, we must expand world trade. Having recognized in the Act of 1962 that we must buy as well as sell, we now expect our trading partners to recognize that we must sell as well as buy. We are willing to give them competitive access to our market, asking only that they do the same for us.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
John F. Kennedy
Let it be clear - and this is a judgment which the Members of the Congress must finally make - let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action - a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs: 531 million dollars in fiscal '62 - an estimated seven to nine billion dollars additional over the next five years. If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.
John F. Kennedy
