A Quote by Steven Strogatz

In mathematics, our freedom lies in the questions we ask — and in how we pursue them — but not in the answers awaiting us.

Steven Strogatz

Quote Topics

Answers Ask Awaiting Freedom How Lies Mathematics Our Pursue Questions Them Us

Quote Author

Steven Strogatz
American - Mathematician
Born: August 13, 1959

Logic leaves us no choice. In that sense, math always involves both invention and discovery: we invent the concepts but discover their consequences. … in mathematics our freedom lies in the questions we ask – and in how we pursue them – but not in the answers awaiting us.

Steven Strogatz

The most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom to learn. All education is a continuous dialogue - questions and answers that pursue every problem on the horizon. That is the essence of academic freedom.

William O. Douglas

Ask how you’d live your life differently if you knew you were going to die soon, then ask yourself who those people you admire are and why you admire them, and then ask yourself what was the most fun time in your life. The answers to these questions, when seen, heard, and felt, provide us with an open doorway into our mission, our destiny, our purpose.

Thom Hartmann

We do not ask the right questions when we are young, so we miss the important answers. Now it is too late to ask, too late for the illuminating answers, and the unanswered questions haunt us for a lifetime.

Peter Abrahams

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

Eric Hoffer

Inquiry is more important than answers, for it is the questions we ask and the way in which we ask them that defines us.

John Paul Caponigro

So many reporters ask a lot of crazy questions. The answers to most of these questions are so obvious, but they ask them anyway just to see what kind of reaction they can get out of you.

Monty Williams

One of the big misapprehensions about mathematics that we perpetrate in our classrooms is that the teacher always seems to know the answer to any problem that is discussed. This gives students the idea that there is a book somewhere with all the right answers to all of the interesting questions, and that teachers know those answers. And if one could get hold of the book, one would have everything settled. That's so unlike the true nature of mathematics.

Leon Henkin

Others of us are lost. We're forever seeking. We torture ourselves with philosophies and ache to see the world. We question everything, even our own existence. We ask a lifetime of questions and are never satisfied with the answers because we don't recognize anyone as an authority to give them. We see life and the world as an enormous puzzle that we might never understand, that our questions might go unanswered until the day we die, almost never occurs to us. And when it does, it fills us with dread.

Lisa Unger

Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly.

Laurell K. Hamilton

It's okay to ask questions, but get the answers. So, where are the answers? Since the questions came from within you, guess where the answers are? Within you.

Prem Rawat

Many of the questions we ask God can't be answered directly, not because God doesn't know the answers but because our questions don't make sense. As C.S. Lewis once pointed out, many of our questions are, from God's point of view, rather like someone asking, "Is yellow square or round?" or "How many hours are there is a mile?

N. T. Wright

I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe.

Madeleine L'Engle

All answers are only found in the super-conscious. It takes us to a point where we don't ask questions anymore because that part of us which would ask goes away.