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Literary notes about Questionable (AI summary)

Writers employ "questionable" in a remarkably varied way, using it to evoke doubt, prompt moral inquiry, or simply cast a skeptical glance at personalities and procedures. In some texts it characterizes individuals or practices as dubious in character or intent—for instance, labeling a man as "questionable" in his notoriety or methods ([1], [2], [3]) or questioning the propriety of a scientific procedure or political maneuver ([4], [5], [6]). At times the term expresses uncertainty about outcomes or details, as seen when authors remark on the uncertain success of an enterprise ([7]) or raise doubts about a work’s dramatic power ([8]). Philosophical writings, too, find "questionable" a useful device, inviting readers to interrogate established values and assumptions ([9], [10]). In this way, "questionable" becomes a versatile, evocative word, enriching literature by signaling ambiguity, inviting reflection, and enhancing narrative tension ([11], [12], [13]).
  1. A questionable most blameable man; yet to us the far notablest of all.
    — from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle
  2. “Yes, a marriage is being arranged—a marriage between a questionable woman and a young fellow who might be a flunkey.
    — from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  3. There was always something questionable about her.
    — from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  4. Even if all students were embryonic scientific specialists, it is questionable whether this is the most effective procedure.
    — from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
  5. And some few politicians who had won to prominence through questionable methods were threatened with exposure if they did not side with the strikers.
    — from Jim Waring of Sonora-Town; Or, Tang of Life by Henry Herbert Knibbs
  6. The august Assembly finds the step questionable; invites him meanwhile to the honours of the sitting.
    — from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle
  7. We were not used to dancing on an even keel, though, and it was only a questionable success.
    — from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
  8. [271] And now we may say this also of the catastrophe, which we found questionable from the strictly dramatic point of view.
    — from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley
  9. Unless it be that you have already divined of your own accord who this questionable God and spirit is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner?
    — from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  10. That is to say, as a thinker who regards morality as questionable, as worthy of interrogation, in short, as a problem?
    — from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  11. For his worshippers too a most questionable thing!
    — from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle
  12. I.89 Questionable shape, ] To question , in our author's time, signified to converse .
    — from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare
  13. Questionable, therefore, means capable of being conversed with.
    — from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

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