Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

I will go wherever the truth leads me. It is secular scholarship, Rebbe; it is not the scholarship of tradition. In secular scholarship there are no boundaries and no permanently fixed views.” Lurie, if the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth.

What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

Philosophy has to be enquiring; it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.

The real community of man is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers.

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

The specious figments of genius, and the erratic flights of philosophy, may excite our wonder, but they cannot stand the ordeal of scrutiny, or the Lydian touch of experiment.

For dear me, why abandon a belief Merely because it ceases to be true

Man discovers truth by reason only, not by faith.

You doubt because you love truth.

As for the search for truth, I know from my own painful searching, with its many blind alleys, how hard it is to take a reliable step, be it ever so small, towards the understanding of that which is truly significant.

As it is, lovers of inquiry must follow their beloved wherever it may lead.

Men who are lovers of wisdom [i.e., philosophers] must be inquirers into many things.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

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.

In exploring new and doubtful tracts of speculation, the mind strikes out true and original views; as a drop of water hesitates at first what direction it will take, but afterwards follows its own course.

The key to all sciences is unquestionably the question mark. To the word How? we owe most of our greatest discoveries. Wisdom in life may perhaps consist in asking ourselves on all occasions: Why?

No man - prince, peasant, pope - has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy!

I will spark a generation of thinkers who will question traditional thought until they find the absolute truth.

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens outthe widest vistas. It 'bakes no bread', as has been said, but it can inspire our souls with courage.

The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never fewer. Indeed the measure of our intellectual maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our capacity to feel less and less satisfied with our answers to better problems.

Doubt . . . impels a search for the truth. It opens the door to knowledge. Faith puts a lock on the door. Indeed, . . . faith anesthetizes the desire to seek knowledge and truth.

I believe science has a wonderful ability, in an unbiased way, to offer hope to many people who are confused, but it's not the only way to find hope.

When you cannot answer a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a great principle.