“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer
Source: Works of Samuel Johnson
“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer
Source: Works of Samuel Johnson
“Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.”
Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Ephrem the Syrian (306–373) Syriac deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century
"Prayer of Ephrem" as translated in The Lenten Triodion (1978) by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, p. 69
Variant translations:
O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power and idle talk, but give to me, your servant, a spirit of soberness, humility, patience and love. O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother: for you are blessed for ever and ever. Amen. O God, cleanse me, a sinner.
As translated in Who's Holding the Umbrella (1984) by William E. Yaeger, p. 70
Context: O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power and idle talk, but give to me, Thy servant, a spirit of soberness, humility, patience and love. O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother: for blessed art Thou to the ages of ages. Amen. O God, cleanse me, a sinner.
“The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity.”
Edmund Burke book A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Part I Section I
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
Swami Adbhutananda Disciple
Reply when a devotee asked, "How can one overcome lust?"
Source: God Lived with Them, p.428
Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
L'art d'enseigner n'est que l'art d'éveiller la curiosité des jeunes âmes pour la satisfaire ensuite.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)