“Research is formalized curiosity.”

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

“A collection of records may be the result of professional knowledge, research, and skill, just as a collection of curiosities is the result of the skill and knowledge of the antiquarian or virtuoso.”

“Let the critics ask! Their very opposition may serve as a stimulant for their own curiosity, causing them to enter into a deeper research or analysis. The truth will always prevail in spite of personal or limited opinions.”

“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.”

“Every curiosity is in need of the curiosity of speech.”

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

“People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.”

“Decision theory, as it has grown up in recent years, is a formalization of the problems involved in making optimal choices. In a certain sense — a very abstract sense, to be sure — it incorporates among others operations research, theoretical economics, and wide areas of statistics, among others.”

“Damned meddlers. It’s hard to know when their curiosity is official and when it’s just curiosity.”