Q Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with Q. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Question every thought that causes suffering and test it against your own sense of truth.”
Source: Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What!
“Question everyone in authority, and see that you get sensible answers to your questions ... questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence. Vow as much love to your country as you like ... but, I implore you, do not forget to question.”
“Question everything.”
Source: Extant
“Question everything...as some of it is just plain wrong and may actually be making you quite ill!”
“Question everything generally thought to be obvious.”
Source: Design: Dieter Rams &
“Question everything. Get a second opinion (or more). Push for what you need. Don’t take no for an answer.”
Source: Spiritual Sugar: The Divine Ingredients to Heal Yourself With Love
“Question everything that is popular, and seek answers in what is not.”
Source: Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
“Question everything, unless it's the answer”
“Question Everything until you find that common thread that unravels everything.”
Source: The Lotus - Realization of Oneness
“Question everything, even if it represents generations of conventional wisdom.”
“Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.”
Source: Bloodline: Five Stories
“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.”
“Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passion. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers.”
Source: Slammed
“Question first impressions: recognize that your initial perception of a situation may be incomplete or biased.”
Source: The Council of Gods
“Question for God every morning: What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today?”
“Question for job applicants: What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
“Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.”
“Question: Have you ever considered winning an award?
Naskar: Not really - I am a misfit - not quite mainstream enough for any of the fields. Besides, I am here to bridge cultures, not win awards.”
Source: Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch
“Question: How can you do onto others as you would like done onto you, if you are not compassionate toward yourself?
Sure, it is important to be kind to others. But don’t forget to give yourself a break.”
“Question : HOW TO SACRIFICE THE EGO?
Osho : IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. THE EGO CANNOT BE SACRIFICED because the ego exists not.
The ego is just all idea: it has no substance in it.
The ego is a kind of absence. Because you don't know yourself, hence the ego.The ego is like darkness; darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is simply the absence of light. You cannot fight with darkness, or can you? You cannot throw darkness out of the room; you cannot take it out, you cannot take it in. If you put the light on, there is no darkness; if you put the light off, there is darkness.
Darkness is only the absence of light -- so is ego: absence of self-knowledge. You cannot sacrifice it.
It has been told to you again and again: "Sacrifice your ego" -- and the statement is patently absurd, because something that does not exist cannot be sacrificed. And if you try to sacrifice it, something which is not there in the first place at all, you will be creating a new ego -- the ego of the humble, the ego of the egoless, the ego of the person who thinks he has sacrificed his ego. It will be a new kind of darkness again.
No, I don't say to you: Sacrifice the ego. On the contrary, I say: Try to see where the ego is. Look DEEP into it; try to locate it, where it exists, whether it exists at all or not.
Before one can sacrifice anything one must be certain about its existence.
But don't be against it from the very beginning. If you are against it, you cannot look deep into it. There is no need to be against anything. The ego is your experience -- maybe it is just apparent, but it is still your experience. Your whole life moves around the phenomenon of the ego. It may be a dream.
But to you it is so true.
There is no need to be against it. Dive deep into it, go into it. Going into it means bringing awareness into your house, bringing light into darkness. Be alert, watchful.
Watch the ways of the ego, how it functions, how it manages at all. And you will be surprised: the deeper you go into it, the less it is found. And when you have penetrated to the very core of your being, you will find something totally different which is not ego, which is egolessness. It is self, supreme self -- it is God. You have disappeared as a separate entity; you are no more an island, now you are part of the whole.
In that experience of being one with the whole, the ego is sacrificed, but that is only a way of speaking, a metaphor. Don't take it literally.
Try to understand the ego. Analyse it, dissect it, watch it, observe it, from as many angles as possible. And don't be in a hurry to sacrifice it, otherwise the greatest egoist is born:
the person who thinks he is humble, the person who thinks that he has no ego.
Rather, follow a totally different path:
meditate on the phenomenon of ego, enquire what it is. And as the enquiry deepens, the ego disappears. Enquiring into the ego you will come to the self.
And remember: the self has nothing to do with the ego, because the self has nothing to do with you at all. The self is always the supreme self: AHAM BRAHMASMI!
At that point, you (the ego) are not, only God is: Tat-tvam-asi -- thou art that. At that point, there is no distinction between thou and that.
The dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean and has become the ocean itself.
But no sacrifice -- the non-substantial cannot be sacrificed, it can only be understood.
And in the very understanding is the disappearing. And this disappearance is beautiful, because it does not leave any traces behind, no scars, no wounds.”
“Question : I FEEL I HAVE SURRENDERED TO SAI BABA, BUT STILL I FEEL THE NECESSITY OF WORKING WITH ANOTHER TEACHER OR GURU. IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Osho : The first thing is to remember that the master really does not work. He is there, his presence works, but the presence can work only if you have trust. If you don't have trust, nothing can be done.
So really, if you feel you have surrendered to Sai Baba, what is the need to come to me? If the surrender has really happened, then asking for another master is futile. I doubt your surrender, your trust, because when trust has happened nothing more is needed.
It is good if you feel an intimate closeness with Sai Baba..But then don't wander here and there, then don't go to anybody else, because this is impossible.
If you have surrendered then move to Sai Baba, open yourself to him so that he can work; then don't go seeking here and there.
I am ready to help, but for that you will have to be receptive.
If you trust me, something becomes possible.
You cannot be forced into nirvana, you can only flow into it.
There are many who go on wandering from one master to another. The total result may be simply confusion, because each master works in his own way, he has his own methods, and you go on accumulating information. That information is bound to be contradictory. Then you will get confused, you may even go insane.
It is better to stick to one master and give your heart totally to him. If then nothing happens, move. But be finished with that master, don't be in an incomplete relationship.
First go back to Sai Baba, be finished with him. Either you are transformed, then there is no need to find anyone; or Sai Baba is not your master, it is proved. Then come to me.
And the same applies to my own disciples. If you are here with me, be finished with me. Be totally with me, so that either the mutation happens and then there is no need to find anyone or to go anywhere, or you come to realize, "This man is not for me." Then you can leave me totally, then you can move, then somewhere else.... But being here with me halfheartedly and then moving to someone else halfheartedly will not do. Rather, it may be dangerous. You may become so split, so divided, with so many voices in you, that you may become a crowd.
Patience is needed. If you are totally devoted to one master the thing is bound to happen. And I would say that even if the master is not true, the thing can happen if you are totally devoted. Even if the master is false the happening is possible if you are totally devoted - because the happening doesn't happen through the master, it happens through total devotion.
So even a dead master, or a master who has never been, just the name, will do. The real alchemy, the science of mutation, is within you. The master is at the most just a catalytic agent, nothing more.
Go back to your own master and be with him. And don't try to judge him; you have got no way to judge anybody. All that you can do is give your total heart to him. And what have you got to lose?
So why be so afraid? You have got nothing to lose, so why be so untrusting? Give yourself totally.
Many times it has happened that a disciple was transformed through a master who was not a master at all. And many times the contrary has also happened: the master was true but the disciple was not transformed. The ultimate thing depends on you, not on me. You are the deciding factor.
So wherever you go, make it a law: go with your total heart. Otherwise you will move with empty hands everywhere. And the more you move, the more you go to this master and that, the more there will be confusion, suffering, and finally you may decide that there exists no one who can transform you. Or, you may come to conclude that there is nothing like transformation, this is all hocus-pocus.
And the reason will only be this - that you were never anywhere with your total heart.”
Source: Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi- Discourses on Akshyupanishad
“Question : IF LIFE IS A BLISSFUL COSMIC PLAY, THEN WHY ARE ALL BEINGS SUFFERING?
Osho : You, please, forget about all beings. You don't know. I'm not suffering. You may be suffering; don't talk about all beings. You don't even know yourself. How can you know the other? Just talk about yourself, because things are already much too complicated.
When you start talking about all, you will make it almost impossible for yourself to understand the thing. Just you will do. Say only this: "Why am I suffering? If life is a blissful cosmic play, then why am I suffering?" -- only this much will do. Forget about all beings -- that is none of your business. If they want to suffer let them suffer. You, please, decide only for yourself. Even that is too much, not easy.
Why are you suffering?
The ego suffers.
The whole is a cosmic play; it is beautiful. It is a tremendous celebration -- moment to moment, moving to higher and higher peaks.
You are suffering because you are not part of it. The ego is never part of the whole; the ego tries to be separate. The ego tries to have its own plans, to have its own ideas, to have its own goals. That's why you are suffering.
If you become part of the whole there is no suffering. Suddenly you start floating with the stream. You are no longer moving upstream. You are no longer even swimming, because then too there is effort. You are just floating with the stream: wheresoever it leads, there is the goal. You have dropped private goals; you have accepted the destiny of the whole. Then you live easily, you die easily. There is no resistance.
Resistance is suffering -- and you cannot win against the whole. So every moment you resist you fail, you suffer.
Try to live without your ego, and there is no more suffering. Suffering is an attitude; it is not an actuality. You fall ill: you immediately start fighting with illness; suffering arises.
If you accept it, suffering disappears. Then you know that God wills this; there must be some point in it. It must be needed for your growth.
You ask me if life is a blissful cosmic play, then WHY... then why is there suffering. There is suffering because you are still not part of the cosmic play. You have your own small drama, and you want to play it. You are not part of the whole; you are trying to create a small world of your own. Every ego creates its own world, that's the problem.
Float with the whole, and suffering disappears. Suffering is symptomatic: it shows you must be fighting the whole, that's all. You are not suffering for your sins committed in the past; you are suffering for the sin that you are continuing right now, committing right now. The sin is simple: to fight, not to accept.
The word "sin" is beautiful. It comes from a root which means "to separate." The word "sin" itself comes from a root which means to separate: you are separated, that is the only sin.
Just the opposite is the concept of Patanjali -- He insists on "yoga," to be joined together.
..sin means to be separate; yoga means to be joined together again. If you are joined together again with the whole, there is no suffering.
The more you go far away from the whole, the more you suffer. The more you are, the more you will suffer.”
Source: Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 10
“question is the beginning of thought”
Source: The Legal Conscience: Selected Papers of Felix S. Cohen
“Question is the Champion of Quest”
“Question: Is there anything in the Bible that reveals the origin of the Negro?
Answer: It is generally believed that the curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the Black race. Certain it is that when Noah said, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," he pictured the future of the Colored race. They have been and are a race of servants, but now in the dawn of the twentieth century, we are all coming to see this matter of service in its true light and find that the only real joy in life is in serving others; not bossing them. There is no servant in the world as good as a good Colored servant, and they joy that he gets from rendering faithful service is one of the purest joys there is in the world.”
Source: The Golden Age
“Question: “Is your lifestyle a spotlight or a mirror?”
“Question is, are you bozos smart enough to feel stupid?”
“Question: It's a great book and its obvious that Guerin was very keen to blend what he felt were the best aspects of anarchism and the best aspects of socialism into this Libertarian Socialism. Do you think that those two terms Libertarian Socialism and Anarchism—are synonymous or do you think there are real differences between the two?
Well, I don't think we can really say, because the terms of political discourse aren't well defined. Capitalism, trade, the state, pick any one... they are pretty loose terms. Which is okay, but it doesn't make sense to try to define these terms carefully when you don't have an explanatory theory to embed them in. But the fact is we can't really answer the question, anarchism covers too many things, libertarian socialism covers too many things. But I sympathize with what he's trying to do. I think it's the right thing. If you look carefully they are really close, there are similarities and relationships. The more anti-statist, antivanguardist left elements of the socialist movement, Marxist movement in fact—folks like Anton Pannekoek and others—there are close similarities between them and some of the wings of the anarchist movement, like the anarcho-syndicalists. It's pretty hard to make much of a distinction between, say, Pannekoek's workers' councils and anarcho-syndicalist conceptions of how to organize society. There are some differences, but they are the kind of differences that ought to exist when people are working together in comradely relationships. So, yes, that's a sensible blend in my view. The much sharper distinction is between all these movements and the various forms of totalitarianism like Bolshevism, corporate capitalism and so on. There you have a real break. Totalitarian structures on the one hand and free societies on the other. In fact, 1 think there are significant similarities between libertarian socialism and anarchism, this blend, and even very mainstream thinkers like John Dewey—there are striking similarities.”
Source: Chomsky On Anarchism
“Question leads to correction and correction leads to growth.”
Source: Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society
“Question like a child, reason like an adult, and write like a sage.”
Source: Healology
“Question not, but live and labour Till yon goal be won, Helping every feeble neighbor, Seeking help from none; Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone, Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own.”
“Question of "Where We Begin" turns to be not only a formal question but also a question central to the attempt to make sense of things about which it is very difficult to make any sense - illness, death, despair, suicides, cruelty, the various troubles love can provoke, our inability to really know one another when we our inner selves are walled off by our bodies.”
“Question : OSHO, I AM VERY IMPATIENT, I WANT TO KNOW GOD, BUT I DON'T WANT TO WASTE MY TIME IN SEARCH OF HIM. CAN YOU SHOW ME A SHORT CUT?
Osho : Patience is the only way, and if you are absolutely patient you can find right now.
This is the ultimate paradox of religious inquiry, of the search for truth, for God, for NIRVANA: if you are impatient you will have to wait for eternity.
And patience means love because only love can be patient. Love can wait - love knows how to wait. It can wait forever, and because it can wait forever it becomes capable of receiving the gift right now.”
“Question : OSHO, WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FORGIVE, TO STOP CLINGING TO HURTS LONG SINCE PAST?
Osho : The ego exists on misery - the more misery the more nourishment for it. In blissful moments the ego totally disappears, and vice versa: if the ego disappears, bliss starts showering on you.
Joy is like poison to the ego, and misery is like vitamins.
You will have to understand the whole mechanism of the ego. If you try to forgive, that is not real forgiveness. With effort, you will only repress. You can forgive only when you understand the stupidity of the whole game that goes on within your mind.
You will repress in one form; it will assert in another form - sometimes so subtle that it is almost impossible to recognize it, that it is the same old structure, so renovated, refurnished, redecorated, that it looks almost new.
The ego lives on the negative, because the ego is basically a negative phenomenon; it exists on saying no. No is the soul of the ego. And how can you say no to bliss? You can say no to misery, you can say no to the agony of life. How can you say no to the flowers and the stars and the sunsets and all that is beautiful, divine? And the whole existence is full of it - it is full of roses - but you go on picking the thorns; you have a great investment in those thorns.
The first thing to remember is: ego is the most negative phenomenon in existence. It is like darkness.
Darkness has no positive existence; it is simply absence of light...that's why you cannot do anything directly with darkness.
If you try to fight with it, you will be defeated. Darkness cannot be defeated by fighting. It is impossible, for the simple reason that darkness does not exist. If you want to do anything with darkness you will have to go via light. If you don't want darkness, bring light in. If you want darkness, then put the light off. But do something with light; nothing can be done with darkness directly.
I don't say to you: Don't hate; love. I don't say to you that drop all your sins and become virtuous. I say: Bring light into your being. Don't be bothered by all these fragments of darkness.
And at the very center of darkness is ego. Ego is the center of darkness. You bring light - the method is meditation - you become more aware, you become more alert. Otherwise you will go on repressing, and whatsoever is repressed has to be repressed again and again and again.
That I have to do; that's the function of the Master, to destroy your ego. And you can become very revengeful, and you can carry deep wounds through it.
People go on carrying things that they hate. They live in their hatred. They go on fingering their wounds so they don't heal; they don't ALLOW them to heal - their whole life depends on their past.
Unless you start living in the present, you will not be able to forget and forgive the past.
I don't say to you: Forget and forgive all that has happened in the past; that is not my approach. I say: Live in the present that is the positive way to approach existence. Live in the present. That is another way of saying: Be more meditative, more aware, more alert, because when you are alert, aware, you are in the present.
Awareness cannot be in the past and cannot be in the future. Awareness knows only the present.
Awareness knows no past, no future; it has only one tense, the present. Be aware, and as you will start enjoying the present more and more, as you will feel the bliss of being in the present..You will stop going into the past. You will not have to forget and forgive, it will simply disappear on its own accord. You will be surprised - where it has gone?
To be free from past and future is to taste freedom for the first time, is to taste God. And in that experience one becomes whole, healthy; all wounds are healed. Suddenly there are no more any wounds; you start feeling a deep well-being arising in you. That well-being is the beginning of transformation.”
“Question Period is not part of the legislative process,and has nothing to do with it. It is a means of monitoring the Executive that the Government cannot evade.”
“Question reality, especially if it contradicts the evidence of your hopes and dreams.”
“Question the answers, I repeated every class. Reevaluate your conclusions when the evidence changes.”
Source: The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education
“Question the bravery.
Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.”
Source: Collected Poems
“Question the Chestnuts. Chestnuts: the new name for boobs? No. NO. Why would you even say that? Get your mind out of the gutter. No, by "chestnuts" I mean, "those old pieces of writing advice that you hear as common refrain." 'Write what you know.' 'Adverbs give Baby Jesus hemorrhoids.' 'If you write a prologue, an orphan loses his sight.' All the "old saws" need to be put on the chopping block.”
“Question the images. Take them by the hand and don't let the sweet distancing they offer you vanquish you; do away with the distance's comfort or the soft indifference you derive from concentrating on the quality of the framing, the use of light and shadows, the successful composition. Force these images to bring you to the Mexican Southeast, to history, to the struggle, to this taking sides, to choose a faction.”
“Question the opinions, don't question the facts.”
Source: Wealth of Words
“Question the status quo at all times, especially when things are going well.”
Source: How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom
“Question: What is love?
Answer: A neurochemical con job.”
“Question : WHAT IS LOVE?
Osho : It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There are many many layers, many planes of love.
If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung.
Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.
At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political.
And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics - the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political:
you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination.
You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously - you are not that conscious yet. You cannot do it deliberately; it is n unconscious mechanism.
Hence so much possessiveness and so much jealousy become a part, an intrinsic part, of your love.
That's why love creates more misery than joy. Ninety-nine percent of it is bitter; there is only that one percent of sugar that you have coated on top of it. And sooner or later that sugar disappears.
This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a stepping-stone, if you can use it as a meditation. If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards.
Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released - but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love is just a political relationship. At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness.
When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don't love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of partaking, can partake. Whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available - you are available unconditionally.
That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative.
'Medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease:
it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.
Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the ultimate truth.
Let your love move through the process of meditation. Watch it: watch the cunning ways of your mind, watch your power-politics. And nothing else except continuous watching and observing is going to help. When you say something to your woman or your man, look at it: what is the unconscious motive? Why are you saying it? Is there some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of that motive, bring it to consciousness - because this is one of the secret keys for transforming your life....
And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing that can ever happen to anybody. Then love is something of the ultimate, of the beyond.
Love is the process of alchemical change in your consciousness.”
“Question what you think is enlightenment.”
Source: The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is: Beyond Belief to Love, Fulfillment, and Spiritual Awakening
“Question: when you picture Jesus ministering to others, how do you see Him? Certainly not with the stressed-out, hurry-up attitude we often have. Don’t you get an image of Him ministering in a quiet, tranquil peace? That’s a trait you need to develop too. As ambassadors of Christ we need to become more like our Master in dealing with others. Paul writes, ‘Live in peace, and [then] the God of love [Who is the Source of affection, goodwill, love, and benevolence toward men] and the Author and Promoter of peace will be with you.’ When you resort to force, argument, intimidation, anger, and coercion, you’re on your own. But when you demonstrate affection, goodwill, love, and benevolence towards people, God has promised to be with you”
Source: Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder
“Question: Which Mediterranean government shares all of Ronald Reagan's views on international terrorism, the present danger of Soviet advance, the hypocrisy of the United Nations, the unreliability of Europe, the perfidy of the Third World and the need for nuclear defense policy? Question: Which Mediterranean government is Ronald Reagan trying, with the help of George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, to replace with a government led by a party which professes socialism and which contains extreme leftists?
If you answered 'the government of Israel' to both of the above, you know more about political and international irony than the President does.”
“Question who and what you are at the deepest level and watch as the Delusion of yourself begins to fade away.”
Source: YOU ARE THE CREATOR: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Awakening, Self Mastery and Healing
“Question:
Who will create a better world out of a shattered past?
Answer:
Someone who learns from life.”
“Question why we have certain attitudes towards professions/moods:
1) Corrupt politician
2) Vain movie star
3) Disgruntled employee
4) Mean classmate
5) Greedy banker
6) Deep writer
7) Sad poet
Why do we apply these moods to people from these occupations? Where does this desire to criticize stem from? Why are we more critical of some occupations more than others? Since when have stereotypes existed? Why do we typically utilize them in a negative manner?”
Source: Try Again