People who are aware of, and ashamed of, their prejudices are well on the road to eliminating them.
Gordon AllportRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Scientific inquiry generates questions rather than definitive answers, reflecting our intellectual growth.
This quote by Gordon Allport emphasizes that the essence of scientific pursuit is the continual generation of questions, rather than the accumulation of answers. Intellectual maturity, according to the philosopher mentioned, is characterized by an increasing dissatisfaction with simplistic answers to complex problems, prompting deeper exploration and a relentless search for understanding.
Themes
Scientific InquiryQuestionsIntellectual MaturityAnswersPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a science conference could use this quote to illustrate the importance of curiosity in research.
More from Gordon Allport
All quotes →Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.
Gordon AllportRead
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