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It is not that we don't know the right answers, it is just that we don't ask the right questions.
Sep 10, 2025
The right question is usually more important than the right answer.
If you don't ask the right question, every answer seems wrong -
Any leader who asks the right questions of the right people has the potential to discover and develop great ideas.
Stop, look, investigate, ask the right questions, come to the right conclusions and have the courage to act on them and see what happens. The first steps may bring the roof down on your head, but soon the commotion will clear and there will be peace and joy.
My father was really good at having me stand on my own two feet, both financially and philosophically. His whole parenting philosophy was to give my brother and me the skills to be grown-ups and the curiosity to ask the right questions.
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.
I have been asked this question over and over again: 'Dr. Jeremiah, do you think God is finished with America?' But that is the wrong question. The right question is: 'Is America finished with God?'
Some of my greatest role models are the young children who ask the right questions - who will sit down and share their concerns. They're not just learning from me - they're educating me. That's what drives me.
More than one skillful physician has said that if one asks the right questions, the patient will make the diagnosis for you in his or her own words.
When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near.
An almost indispensable skill for any creative person is the ability to pose the right questions. Creative people identify promising, exciting, and, most important, accessible routes to progress - and eventually formulate the questions correctly.
When things get too complicated, it sometimes makes sense to stop and wonder: Have I asked the right question?
The art of clinical diagnosis lies in the ability to ask the right questions.
If you ask the wrong question, of course, you get the wrong answer. We find in design it's much more important and difficult to ask the right question. Once you do that, the right answer becomes obvious.
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?
I went to Seattle as just another geek in the food chain, thinking, "Well, in my own puny little way, I'd rather be a part of history than just sit and watch it on TV." So, the fact that so many people are starting to ask the right questions and rack their brains for solutions does give me hope.
When the wrong question is being asked, it usually turns out to be because the right question is too difficult. Scientists ask questions they can answer. That is, it is often the case that the operations of a science are not a consequence of the problematic of that science, but that the problematic is induced by the available means.
Derek Bok asks the right question, 'What policies would produce the greatest happiness?' and he gives great and often startling answers, combining his deep knowledge of politics with the new findings of happiness research.
A key to improved prayer is to learn to ask the right questions. Consider changing from asking for the things you want to honestly seeking what He wants for you. Then as you learn His will, pray that you will be led to have the strength to fulfill it.
He did it (listened) as the world's most charming and magnetic people do, always asking the right question at the right time, never fidgeting or taking his eyes from the speaker's face, making the other guy feel like the most knowledgeable, brilliant, and intellectually savvy person on the planet.
In a way, I think religion is to be admired for asking the right questions. I just think it's got the wrong answers.
Data is the new science. Big Data holds the answers. Are you asking the right questions?
I like BuzzFeed, and I understand the pressure that online reporters are under. But I think everyone agrees that, despite all the awesome kitten gifs, they're still obligated to be skeptical of government officials and ask the right questions.
And then what makes the work interesting is if you choose the right questions.
And what I wanted to do was, I wanted to explore problems and areas where we didn't have answers. In fact, where we didn't even know the right questions to ask.
In a way, math isn't the art of answering mathematical questions, it is the art of asking the right questions, the questions that give you insight, the ones that lead you in interesting directions, the ones that connect with lots of other interesting questions -the ones with beautiful answers.
Effective management always means asking the right question.
Asking the right questions is as important as answering them
Only the inquiring mind solves problems.
The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.
We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.
If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.
Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking...asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking.
Most people believe that great leaders are distinguished by their ability to give compelling answers. This profound book shatters that assumption, showing that the more vital skill is asking the right questions…. Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read—without question.
In the old economy, it was all about having the answers. But in today’s dynamic, lean economy, it’s more about asking the right questions. A More Beautiful Question is about figuring out how to ask, and answer, the questions that can lead to new opportunities and growth.
In school, we're rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question.
When people ask me what philosophy is, I say philosophy is what you do when you don't know what the right questions are yet. Once you get the questions right, then you go answer them, and that's typically not philosophy, that's one science or another. Anywhere in life where you find that people aren't quite sure what the right questions to ask are, what they're doing, then, is philosophy.
Philosophy may be defined as the art of asking the right question...awareness of the problem outlives all solutions. The answers are questions in disguise, every new answer giving rise to new questions.
To get the right answer, it helps to ask the right question.
If you don't ask the right questions, I can't give you the answers, and if you don't know the right question to ask, you're not ready for the answers
I wish that we worried more about asking the right questions instead of being so hung up on finding answers.
Solutions come through evolution. They come through asking the right questions, because the answers pre-exist. It is the questions that we must define and discover. You don't invent the answer-you reveal the answer.
You have to trust your instincts and know that the right question or the right answer will come to you. You don’t always have to have the solution to the problem; sometimes it’s very interesting to watch somebody go through the process of solving the problem, but it’s got to be truthful.
There are no right answers to wrong questions.
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.
I always had an existential crisis, trying to figure out ‘what does it all mean?’ I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the knowledge of the world, if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then, we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened. That’s the only way to move forward.