Selected curiosity quotes

1. The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

2. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

3. As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

4. But who ever yet was offered a secret and declined it?

5. The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less.

6. My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating.

7. My main object in life is to see what will happen next.

8. There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

9. A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

10. The first thing I did in the studio was to want to tear that camera to pieces. I had to know how that film got into the cutting room, what you did to it in there, how you projected it, how you finally got the picture together, how you made things match. The technical part of pictures is what interested me. Material was the last thing in the world I thought about. You only had to turn me loose on the set and I'd have material in two minutes, because I'd been doing it all my life.

11. Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

12. I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

13. Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question.

14. Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

15. In order to read one must sit down, usually indoors. I am restless and would rather sail a boat than crack a book. I've never had a very lively literary curiosity, and it has sometimes seemed to me that I am not really a literary fellow at all. Except that I write for a living.

16. What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.

17. Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

18. The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

19. Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.

20. I hope we get to the bottom of the answer. It's what I'm interested to know.

21. I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

22. Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

23. You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

24. Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

25. There are dons who care for the intellect and the imagination, and there are priests who care for the spirit; but broadly speaking the function of universities and churches alike is to trim and tame enthusiasm, to suppress curiosity, and, in short, to whittle immortal souls into serviceable props of the established order.

26. The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.

27. To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.

28. Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

29. Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

30. Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: curiosity.

31. Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.

32. Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.

33. Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.

34. Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired.

35. I have always wanted to know as much as possible about the world.

36. Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.

37. Secrets of the cosmos will begin to unravel. I, for one, can't wait.

38. Some on commission, some for the love of learning, Some because they have nothing better to do Or because they hope these walls of books will deaden The drumming of the demon in their ears.

39. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

40. Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

41. I want to understand everything,' said Miro. 'I want to know everything and put it all together to see what it means.' 'Excellent project,' she [Jane] said. 'It will look very good on your resume. (Speaker for the Dead) Conversation between Miro and Jane.

42. I have to understand the world, you see.

43. The message I stress: to make it stop study your lessons/Don't settle for less - even the genius asks-es questions

44. Isn't it funny How a bear likes honey? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I wonder why he does?

45. I experienced as a child at the age of four or five when my father showed me a compass. That this needle behaved in such a determined way was all out of place concerning the manner of the events which could find a place in the unconscious vocabulary of concepts: I still remember today: that this experience has left a permanent impression with me.

46. Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower - but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.

47. I'm a hacker at heart and I like finding different ways of doing things because in doing so, I find new ways of examining the job at hand.

48. Are we having a relationship - or just doing research on each other?

49. Unos principios de credito sirven de despertar la curiosidad, no de empenar el objecto. Mejor sale quando la realidad excede al concepto y es mas de lo que se creyo. Faltara esta regla en lo malo, pues le ayuda la mesma exageracion; desmientela con aplauso, y aun llega a parecer tolerable lo que se temio extremo de ruin.

50. I have always wanted to know why, wherever archaeologists dig, do they always find red and white poles?

51. Webb, if I put you over at Justice I want you to find the answers to two questions for me. One, who killed JFK? And two, are there UFOs?

52. Curiosite n'est que vanite. Le plus souvent, on ne veut savoir que pour en parler. (152)

53. Curiosity: 'Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.'

54. Reading: 'I have never read for entertainment, but rather for understanding and to satisfy my eager curiosity.'

55. People: 'There are amazingly wonderful people in all walks of life; some familiar to us and others not. Stretch yourself and really get to know people. People are in many ways one of our greatest treasures.'

56. People: 'People are really amazing when you sit back and think about it. They are funny, curious, and never seem to stop amazing me with the clever things they come up with. I have met a lot of people in the world. I can say from my experience that most people are good.'

57. Education: 'Our understanding of the world around us is constantly being redefined and expanded, and so therefore, it is wiser to be passionate about seeking for truth than knowing it.'

58. Education: 'True education is limited to those people who would die without knowing, whereas the masses in the institutions are merely going through the motions, for education is a way of living.'

59. 'I want to know what it says,' he answered, looking steadily in her face. 'The sea Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?'

60. I can't think of better ways to learn than through pleasure and curiosity. I guess the reason these two qualities play so small a role in formal education is that they are so subjective and individual. Curiosity and delight can't be institutionalized. Childhood and adolescence form our sensibilities. By the time I arrived in college, I had already developed a deep suspicion of all theories of art that did not originate in pleasure.

61. He was the perfect autodidact. He wanted to know it all.

62. He was simply unable to let things be foggy. Since they always are, this kept him pretty active.

63. You're a historian. Tell me if there are any bath-tubs in history. I think they've been frightfully neglected.

64. 'Explanations are never the most interesting part of science.'

65. If I should be out driving around looking for a little fun and I see an accident, one that I am not involved in, I stop immediately! Well, I want to get a good look at what's going on. I'm never too busy that I can't stop to enjoy someone else's suffering.

66. If my car should be in such a position where I can't quite see what's going on, can't get a good enough look, I'm not the least bit shy about asking the police to bring the bodies over a little closer to the car. 'Pardon me, officer, would you mind dragging that twisted-looking chap over here a little closer to the car, please? My wife has never seen anyone shaped quite like that. Look at that, Sugar Lips! That's his ribcage sticking out the glove compartment. That will be all, officer. You can throw him back on the pile.'

67. It was his enormous curiosity that kept him alive so long. He had an enormous interest in the world, and I remember, even toward the end, he would get so angry at the paper, angry at the TV.

68. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it did alright by me.

69. We must see all life as if we were children.

70. The creature displayed the qualities reminiscent of both coelenterate and echinoderm. A terrene nudibranch? A mollusc deprived of its shell? More importantly, was the creature edible?

71. Interviewer: 'What's the weirdest question you've ever been asked?'

72. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are, Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky!

73. Joe Bob says check it out.

74. These two guys in the front yard-- Are they here to help?

75. 'Think,' I told him, 'what may be waiting for you. You may discover the meaning of Spirit. You may open up a new world, as rich as the old one, but imperishable. You may prove to mankind their immortality and deliver them for ever from the fear of death. Why, man, you are picking at the lock of all the world's mysteries.'

76. Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world.

77. I need to explore and discover and so that has given me, really, to some what seems like courage, but really it's just in my stars, there's nothing I can do about it . . . . I guess I'll just take my award and run now.

78. It's fascinating to watch a show develop from a script to a 22-minute comedy. I try to learn as much, and ask as many questions, as I can without being annoying.

79. See how the child reaches out instinctively To feel how fire will feel. See how the man reaches out instinctively For what he cannot have. The pull and the push of it all.

80. Who is that girl? Do I know her face?

81. My first near-death experience was an accident, a botched anesthesia during a triple bypass. I had listened to several people on TV talk shows who had gone down the blue tunnel to the Pearly Gates, and even beyond the Pearly Gates, or so they said, and then come back to life again. But I certainly wouldn't have set out on such a risky expedition on purpose, without first having survived one ... To go through the Pearly Gates, no matter how tempting the interviewee on the other side, as I myself discovered the hard way, is to run the risk that crotchety Saint Peter, depending on his mood, may never let you out again. Think of how heartbroken your friends and relatives would be if, by going through the Pearly Gates to talk to Napoleon, say, you in effect committed suicide.

82. During my controlled near-death experiences, I've met Sir Isaac Newton, who died back in 1727 as often as I've met Saint Peter. They both hang out at the Heaven end of the blue tunnel of the Afterlife. Saint Peter is there because it's his job. Sir Isaac is there because of his insatiable curiosity about what the blue tunnel is, how the blue tunnel works. It isn't enough for Newton that during his eighty-five years on Earth he invented calculus, codified and quantified the laws of gravity, motion and optics, and designed the first reflecting telescope. He can't forgive himself for having left it to Darwin to come up with the theory of evolution, to Pasteur to come up with the germ theory, and to Albert Einstein to come up with relativity. 'I must have been deaf, dumb, and blind not to have come up with those myself,' he said to me. 'What could have been more obvious?'

83. To seek, always to seek... (Tolstoy's final words).

84. I have an aversion to closed doors anyway. You never know what's on the other side.

85. A question isn't an argument, unless you think you know my answer.

86. How can I figure out something that isn't just the logical conclusion of things that human beings have already figured out and written somewhere? You think of things all the time I'm trying to conceive of something inconceivable. I'm trying to find answers to questions that humans beings have never even tried to ask.

87. Coincidence is just the word we use when we have not yet discovered the cause. It's an illusion of the human mind, a way of saying, 'I don't know why this happened this was, and I have no intention of finding out.'

88. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can't figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.

89. He came to ask what he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round.

90. I arrive at the end of this review having done my duty as a critic. I have described the movie accurately and you have a good idea what you are in for if you go to see it. Most of you will not. I cannot argue with you. Some of you will--the brave and the curious. You embody the spirit of the man who first wondered what it would taste like to eat an oyster.

91. I would personally endure a good deal of pain just to live long enough to read tomorrow's newspaper.

92. He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.

93. I am by the law of my nature a reasoner. A person who should suppose I meant by that word, an arguer, would not only not understand me, but would understand the contrary of my meaning. I can take no interest whatever in hearing or saying any thing merely as a fact - merely as having happened. It must refer to something within me before I can regard it with any curiosity or care. My mind is always energic - I don't mean energetic; I require in every thing what, for lack of another word, I may call propriety, - that is, a reason why the thing is at all, and why it is there or then rather than elsewhere or at another time.

94. I like everything. You know everything? I like it. You know all books? I like them all.

95. In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.

96. What is particularly delightful about Steve's writing is the virtuosity with which he connects seemingly unrelated subjects to illuminate and strengthen his arguments. Whether right or wrong, Steve is always stimulating, and this is perhaps where he has made his greatest contribution-in awakening in thousands, if not millions, of his readers an enthusiasm for the secrets of this wonderful world of ours.

97. (a few minutes later) I bought one of those little glass ball things with the snow in it... Just checking.

98. In my new house there's a switch on the wall that doesn't do anything, so for fun I'd just flick it up and down, over and over. Then one day I got a letter from a woman in Germany. It just said, 'Cut it out.'

99. I had no idea Gwendolen knew any foreign languages, and I am not sure that I approve. It's the sort of thing that can only broaden a girl's mind.

100. 'I always wondered how Tom Waits would sing 'Greensleeves'....' --Loreena McKennitt, 'The Visit'