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“Science uncovers the universe one discovery at a time. Curiosity fuels inquiry, and persistence transforms questions into understanding. Every experiment contributes to the mosaic of human knowledge.”

Last update Sept. 26, 2026. History

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“A philosophy has no private store of knowledge or methods for attaining truth, so it has no private access to good. As it accepts knowledge and principles from those competent in science and inquiry, it accepts the goods that are diffused in human experience. It has no Mosaic or Pauline authority of revelation entrusted to it. But it has the authority of intelligence, of criticism of these common and natural goods.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Experience and Nature (1925)

“Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe… Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts (1924)

“That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)

“The seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo, even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous…”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Upanishads–II : Kena and Other Upanishads (2001), p. 355

“I leave knowing that one of the things that makes us human is our curiosity, and one of the things that is the record of our curiosity is our knowledge.”

Katherine Maher (1983) chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

Wikimedia CEO on facts, hoaxes and the promise of Wikipedians by Luke Ottenhof, Canada's National Observer https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/19/news/wikimedia-ceo-facts-wiki-hoaxes-and-promise-wikipedians, (19 March 2021) <br class="br">2021

“Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Pt. I, ch. 5
Confession (1882)

“That's my answer to the question what is your strongest emotion, if you ever want to ask me: Curiosity, old bean. Curiosity every time.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Source: The Dud Avocado

“The master key of knowledge is, indeed, a persistent and frequent questioning.”

Peter Abelard Sic et Non

Introduction as translated in Readings in European History, Vol. I (1904) edited by James Harvey Robinson, p. 451
Variant translation:
Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.
Prologue as translated in A History of Education During the Middle Ages and the Transition to Modern Times (1918) by Frank Pierrepont Graves; 2005 edition, p. 53
Sic et Non (1120)
Context: I have ventured to bring together various dicta of the holy fathers, as they came to mind, and to formulate certain questions which were suggested by the seeming contradictions in the statements. These questions ought to serve to excite tender readers to a zealous inquiry into truth and so sharpen their wits. The master key of knowledge is, indeed, a persistent and frequent questioning. Aristotle, the most clear-sighted of all the philosophers, was desirous above all things else to arouse this questioning spirit, for in his Categories he exhorts a student as follows: "It may well be difficult to reach a positive conclusion in these matters unless they be frequently discussed. It is by no means fruitless to be doubtful on particular points." By doubting we come to examine, and by examining we reach the truth.

“Science is […] a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4553, May 27, 1996. <br class="br">Context: Science is [... ] a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.

“Inquiry is the creation of knowledge or understanding; it is the reaching out of a human being beyond himself to a perception of what he may be or could be, or what the world could be or ought to be.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Cited in: John Zeisel (1984) Inquiry by design: tools for environment-behavior research. p. 3
1960s - 1970s, The Design of Inquiring Systems (1971)

“Science uncovers the universe one discovery at a time. Curiosity fuels inquiry, and persistence transforms questions into understanding. Every experiment contributes to the mosaic of human knowledge.”

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