Robert Sheckley Quotes

You want to question what is important and why is it important. I don't have all the answers, but I'm very curious to know and learn.

The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to all genuine individuality, because relationships and reactions result from it which cannot be exhausted with logical operations.

What we want in students is creativity and a willingness to fail. I always say to students, 'If you've never at some point stayed up all night talking to your new boyfriend about the meaning of life instead of preparing for the test, then you're not really an intellectual.'

The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.

There is no such thing as an unreasonable question, or a silly question, or a frivolous question, or a waste-of-time question. It's your life, and you've got to get these answers.

I think that probably the most important thing about our education was that it taught us to question even those things we thought we knew. To say you've got to inquire, you've got to be testing your knowledge all the time in order to be more effective in what you're doing.

I was always one of those guys who was a seeker after truth. I want to know what's going on.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

I try not to be an ideologue about anything. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'm willing to evolve.

The compelling drive to get at the truth is what improves us all as psychologists and is part and parcel of intellectual integrity. But I do urge that we not let the drive for honesty put blinders on us and cut off our range of vision so that we miss the very thing we set out the understand - namely, the living human being.

I never stop reading. I read everything, and I read every day. If you never read anything, be curious. Curiosity is the true foundation of education, reading things that we've factually already agreed on, and I love reading books. With that said, it's more important that you ask the question 'why.'

The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Clarity and consistency are not enough: the quest for truth requires humility and effort.

You know, interesting minds usually do hold more than one idea at a time.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

And I like asking questions, to keep learning; people with big egos might not want to look unsure.

'What am I missing?' is a much more important question than 'How cool am I?'

Intellectual curiosity about one's own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery. If I couldn't cure myself, perhaps I could at least begin to understand myself.

I'm not quite pompous enough to think of myself as an educator or a man capable of definitive refutation of falsehoods.

Uncertainty is a very good thing: it's the beginning of an investigation, and the investigation should never end.