Samuel Beckett Quotes

Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.

Action is the right outlet of emotion.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

To me, the thing that sets us apart from so many other animal species is our ability to ask questions, investigate, gather information, come to our own conclusions, and sometimes depart from the pack, sometimes move away from the tribe.

We're all like detectives. We want to figure things out. Life, you know, we want to figure out life, and we want to figure out what's going on, so it's beautiful. It's beautiful that people are thinking.

The impulse to ask questions is among the more primitive human lusts.

All knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself.

Men are led by trifles.

I hope we get to the bottom of the answer. It's what I'm interested to know.

If I had the choice of knowing the truth or searching for the truth, I'd take the search.

Sometimes, the best answer is a more interesting question.

Questions outlive the answers.

Persistent questioning and healthy inquisitiveness are the first requisite for acquiring learning of any kind.

the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. ... Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.

The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions.

I am the biggest "but why?" question asker.

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things. As far as I can conjecture the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs.

Doubt is the first step towards knowledge, not faith.

When you don't respond to bad behavior, you get more of it.

The starting point is a question.

Human nature is fond of novelty.

Sometimes you find the panel, but it doesn’t open; sometimes it opens, and your gaze meets nothing but a mouse skeleton. But at least you’ve looked. That’s the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don’t, but between those who want to know everything and those who don’t. This search is a sign of love I maintain.

I keep six honest serving men.

Children and scientists share an outlook on life. If I do this, what will happen? is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist. ... The unfamiliar and the strange - these are the domain of all children and scientists.