Popular quotes about Curiosity! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people's thoughts.
Jean-Jacques RousseauThe Internet is the best and worst thing to happen to writing. It makes it so easy to quickly satisfy a lot of curiosity but it dampens curiosity for the same reason. It removes the obstacles that used to make hunting for knowledge sexy. I don't have Internet at home, so that helps. I try not to peek at the Internet through my phone when writing, but I don't have very good stamina.
Myriam GurbaI have known plenty of people who, in their later years, had the energy of children and the kind of curiosity and fascination with things like little children. I think we can keep that, and I think it's important to keep that part of staying young. But I also think it's great fun growing old.
Unknown[My favourite are] the films of Agnes Varda, because of her sense of humor and the intimate, personal way she tells her stories. She is brave in taking creative risks, and her curiosity in others is so contagious. This brings me closer to the subjects in her films.
Maya GodedThe alternative to fanaticism and to death is not some miraculous realization that someone has been wrong and he has to apologize. No, the answer to fanaticism and to death is curiosity and compromise and concession.
Amos OzCuriosity has ... proven to be a great ingredient in resilience, a trait particularly valuable in an extended economic downturn. Resilient people aren't made of steel; they just provide themselves with more options, and those options come from a curious mind.
Chip ConleySurvival is for the human animal; fear the motivation. For the spiritual being survival is irrelevant. Curiosity, compassion and creativity are the name of the game; unconditional love the motivation.
Peter ShepherdFurther, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter--it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up independently, for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that they should not be the source of any idea.
Nassim Nicholas TalebI asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.
Oscar WildeWhen we take a slight survey of the surface of our globe a thousand objects offer themselves which, though long known, yet still demand our curiosity.
Oliver GoldsmithThere are those much more rare people who never lose their curiosity, their almost childlike wonder at the world; those people who continue to learn and to grow intellectually until the day they die. And these usually are the people who make contributions, who leave some part of the world a little better off than it was before they entered it.
William Herbert SheldonHave you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.
Henry David ThoreauAnita Johnston, Ph.D., author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, taught me to look in the mirror with curiosity rather than fear. So I may look at my reflection and think, 'That's interesting. I wonder why my body seems bigger today than it did yesterday. Maybe it's water weight. Maybe it's my outfit. Or maybe my eyes are just playing tricks on me.' I know it's not possible for me to gain a noticeable amount of weight overnight, so I will go no further than that. I move on with my day without skipping a beat-and definitely without missing a meal.
Jenni Schaeferthose two wholesome defects of the French people, malice and curiosity, both of which are essential to its greatness.
Marthe BibescoMy colleagues in elementary particle theory in many lands [and I] are driven by the usual insatiable curiosity of the scientist, and our work is a delightful game. I am frequently astonished that it so often results in correct predictions of experimental results. How can it be that writing down a few simple and elegant formulae, like short poems governed by strict rules such as those of the sonnet or the waka, can predict universal regularities of Nature?
Murray Gell-MannIt is better to have a few forms well known than to teach a little about many hundred species. Better a dozen specimens thoroughly studied as the result of the first year's work, than to have two thousand dollars' worth of shells and corals bought from a curiosity-shop. The dozen animals would be your own.
Louis AgassizWriters are interested in a diverse range of subjects, but prefer to move from field to field to satisfy intellectual curiosity, rather than devote an entire working life to one particular discipline.
Robert W. BlyNot judginess, but openness and curiosity are our proper business. I'm still trying to educate myself. I don't think you need to keep rehearsing your instincts. Far better to seek out models of what you can't do.
John UpdikeHuman curiosity, the urge to know, is a powerful force and is perhaps the best secret weapon of all in the struggle to unravel the workings of the natural world.
Aaron KlugMy goal is not to shove information into your head. It's to find ways to reignite the curiosity that we all had as children for the natural world. You don't have to tell a child to explore the backyard.
Neil deGrasse TysonWhat is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?
Lucy LarcomCuriosity, easily frightened, takes refuge in puzzles, murder mysteries, and spectator sports.
Mason CooleyWhat you need to be a good photographer is an overwhelming curiosity and a good digestion.
Eve ArnoldIf American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.
John Jay ChapmanTaste is an evolution and refinement of oneโs personal likes and dislikes. This evolution takes place with a constant curiosity and interest in everything. The editing consequently refines the choices and defines taste.
Norma KamaliI've always been a student of different ways of looking at the world, different religions. That's been part of my survival mechanism, and also part of my curiosity as a person.
Assata ShakurCuriosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties. He who easily comprehends all that is before him, and soon exhausts any single subject, is always eager for new inquiries; and in proportion as the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety, by more rapid flights and bolder excursions.
Samuel JohnsonFew people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.
Ralph Waldo EmersonI'm not coming from film school. I learned cinema in the cinema watching films, so you always have a curiosity. I say, 'Well, what if I make a film in this genre? What if I make this film like this?'
Wong Kar-waiIf you don't keep learning, other people will pass you by. Temperament alone won't do it - you need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time.
Charlie MungerI sort of have a dog-minded single strategy but I am a little more open to stuff that's out there, now and looking at scripts in the world and seeing if something that already exists can spark my interest and my curiosity.
Todd HaynesConservationists have, I fear, adopted the pedagogical method of the prophets: we mutter darkly about impending doom if people don't mend their ways. The doom is impending, all right; no one can be an ecologist, even an amateur one, without seeing it. But do people mend their ways for fear of calamity? I doubt it. They are more likely to do it out of pure curiosity and interest.
Aldo LeopoldIt may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and the prospect of satisfying it can be the most exciting of emotions.
Jack FinneyIt is in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any man continues to exist with even patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and people, and that he wakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work and pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through which he sees the world in the most enchanted colours...and the man may squander his estate and come to beggary, but if he keeps these two amulets he is still rich in the possibilities of pleasure.
Robert Louis StevensonI guess, I ended up finding music to pour my curiosity into. It was my creative outlet and therapy at the same time.
Missy HigginsWe have no clear ideas of the agency of [demonic] spirits, nor is it necessary. The Scripture says little to satisfy our curiosity; but tells us plainly that he is always watching us, and desiring to sift us as wheat. I believe we give him no more than his due, when we charge him with having a hand in all our sins. I believe he cuts us all out abundance of work.
John NewtonYet it is trueโskin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosityโlike a talking pig or a mathematical horse.
Susanna Clarke