But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?
Patrick RothfussRead
It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Unanswerable questions foster deeper thinking and understanding.
This quote emphasizes the value of questions that provoke thought rather than simple answers. By grappling with complex questions, individuals engage in critical thinking and personal exploration, leading to greater insights compared to merely possessing factual knowledge.
Themes
QuestionsThinkingLearningKnowledgeUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a classroom setting, a teacher might use this quote to encourage students to ask more questions.
More from Patrick Rothfuss
All quotes →I wanted to tell her that she was the first beautiful thing I had seen in three years. That the sight of her yawning to the back of her hand was enough to drive the breath from me. How I sometimes lost the sense of her words in the sweet fluting of her voice. I wanted to say that if she were with me then somehow nothing could ever be wrong for me again.
Patrick RothfussRead
Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.
Patrick RothfussRead
Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.
Patrick RothfussRead
How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way
Patrick RothfussRead
All the truth in the world is held in stories.
Patrick RothfussRead
Similar quotes
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
John DeweyRead
Avoid fancy words....If you admire fancy words, if every sky is beauteous, every blonde curvaceous, every intelligent child prodigious, if you are tickled by discombobulate, you will have bad time Reminder 14.
William Strunk, Jr.Read
The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.
Simone WeilRead
Fundamentally, the solution to economic insecurity is economic prosperity - an achievable goal. But for anyone who has grown up without financial security, there's a shadow that lies over even those who move towards independence: lack of financial literacy.
Stacey AbramsRead
Let no man despise the oracles of books! A book is a dead man, a sort of mummy, embowelled and embalmed, but that once had flesh and motion and a boundless variety of determinations and actions.
William GodwinRead
I started playing chess when I was about 4 or 5 years old. It is very good for children to learn to play chess, because it helps them to develop their mental abilities. It also helps to consolidate a person's character, because as it happens both in life and in a chess game we have to make decisions constantly. In chess there is no luck and no excuses: everything is in your hands.
Vladimir KramnikRead