Anthony de Mello Quotes

Science and literature give me answers. And they ask me questions I will never be able to answer.

The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.

An answer is always on the stretch of road that is behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.

One can do without solutions. Only the questions matter. We may share them or turn away from them.

Questioning is the piety of thought.

To philosophize is to doubt.

Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.

The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: 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.

I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.

A philosopher's a lover of wisdom.

This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.

It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge?

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

Everything in this world can volunteer some reply, what takes up time is posing the questions.

Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man.

Everything comes from the great book of nature.

Why' is the only question that bothers people enough to have an entire letter of the alphabet named after it. The alphabet does not go 'A B C D What? When? How?' but it does go 'V W X Why? Z.

Said the monk: "All these mountains and rivers and the earth and stars - where do they come from?" Said the master: "Where does your question come from?"

Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia; that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.

Thinking begins when you ask really difficult questions.

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?

Asking doesn't mean you lack wisdom - it's evidence of wisdom.

The first beginnings of wisdom...is to ask questions but never to answer any.