Quotes about curiosity (402 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Overcome by that mix of cowardice and curiosity typical of 1980s horror movies, where we all knew the protagonists shouldn’t go that way, he knew he shouldn’t look—but he did.”

José Baroja book El hombre del terrón de azúcar y otros cuentos

Way

“It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.”

Tove Jansson book Fair Play

Source: Fair Play

Indifference

“We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Tree , Study , Universe

“As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe as measured from the beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole, life as we know it is only possible for one-thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, of a percent (10^-84). And that's why, for me, the most astonishing wonder of the universe isn't a star or a planet or a galaxy. It isn't a thing at all. It's an instant in time. And that time is now. Humans have walked the earth for just the shortest fraction of that briefest of moments in deep time. But in our 200,000 years on this planet we've made remarkable progress. It was only 2,500 years ago that we believed that the sun was a god and measured its orbit with stone towers built on the top of a hill. Today the language of curiosity is not sun gods, but science. And we have observatories that are almost infinitely more sophisticated than those towers, that can gaze out deep into the universe. And perhaps even more remarkably through theoretical physics and mathematics we can calculate what the universe will look like in the distant future. And we can even make concrete predictions about its end. And I believe that it's only by continuing our exploration of the cosmos and the laws of nature that govern it that we can truly understand ourselves and our place in this universe of wonders.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Conclusion in Wonders of the Universe - Destiny

Life , God , Law , Star

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Preface (December 1960) to The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961), p. xix

For women , Life

“The constant happiness is curiosity.”

Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist

Happy , Happiness

“I suppose nowadays it's all a question of surgery, isn't it? Of course the notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy and a child forever, and I think you can. I 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.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Children , People , Beauty , Boy

“I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
Context: I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.

Chapter 11, paragraph 59 http://www.uri.edu/library/inscriptions/almamater.html

Life , Reading

“There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.”

Yukio Mishima book Confessions of a Mask

Source: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 222.

“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Works of Samuel Johnson

Passion

“His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences; yet it was not a simple but rather a very complex passion.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love , Passion , Madness

“Curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back.”

Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature

Cats

“The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Understanding , Knowledge , Christ

“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

“Curiosity is more important than knowledge.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: Imagination is more imortant than Knowledge

Knowledge

“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

From article "In Defense of Curiosity" appearing in The Saturday Evening Post 208 (August 24, 1935); 8-9, 64-66. As cited in What I Hope to Leave Behind, The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt Edited by Alida M. Black, p 20.
As quoted in Todays Health (October 1966)

Birth , Thinking

“I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Life

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.
Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? “People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. “‘And satisfaction brought it back.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Trickster's Choice

People , Cats , Forgetting

“Our lives are one endless stretch of misery punctuated by processed fast foods and the occasional crisis or amusing curiosity.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Food

“I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Question

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and Selected Critical Prose

“Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

“his mysterious resources had awakened in her a curiosity that was difficult to resist, but she had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love , Imagination

“What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favorite perversion.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Love

“Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

As quoted in Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) by Azar Nafisi

“My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once.”

Henry Miller book Plexus

Source: The Rosy Crucifixion II: Plexus (1953), p. 61

Hunger

“Women are terrified of being raped, but somewhere in the back of the womb there is one rebellious nerve end that tingles with curiosity whenever the word is mentioned.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1960s, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966)

Women

“One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

As quoted in Hefley What's so great about the Bible (1969), p. 30
George Sweeting Living in a Dying World (1972), p. 59
Related: "...only 50 years after his death the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles."
Geisler, Norman L. and Nix, William E., A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago, Moody Press, 1968), p. 123-124. See also McDowell The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict http://www.gracechapelsomd.org/books/The_New_Evidence_That_Demands_A_Verdict.pdf (1999).
According to The Open Society, Vol. 77 (Autumn 2004) Voltaire's House and The Bible Society http://www.nzarh.org.nz/journal/2004v77n1aut.pdf, p. 14: "The myth seems to have originated from an 1849 Annual Report of the American Bible Society where the relevant section reads: Voltaire... predicted that in the nineteenth century the Bible would be known only as a relic of antiquity. He could say, while on this topic, that the Hotel Gibbon (so-called from that celebrated infidel) is now become the very depository of the Bible Society, and the individual who superintends the building is an agent for the sale and receipt of the books. The very ground this illustrious scoffer often paced, has now become the scene of the operation and success of an institution established for the diffusion of the very book against which his efforts were directed."
Sidney Collett, in The Scripture of Truth (1905), apparently misrepresents this report by stating: "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept into history. But what has happened? Only twenty-five years after his death the [British & Foreign Bible] Society was founded. His printing press, with which he printed his infidel literature, has since been used to print copies of the Word of God; and the very house in which he lived has been stacked with Bibles of the Geneva Bible Society."
Regarding Bible-printing in Voltaire's homes, Theodore Besterman (former director of the "Institut et Muse Voltaire" in Geneva) stated, "None of Voltaire's homes is or ever has been connected in any way with any Bible Society. This applies to all Voltaire's homes, whether in France, Germany, Switzerland, or anywhere else". http://www.nzarh.org.nz/journal/2004v77n1aut.pdf.
Misattributed
Variant: "Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!"

“The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Source: Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1912) The Soul of Man Under Socialism, London, Arthur L. Humphreys. Retrieved from University of California Libraries Archive.org https://archive.org 26 February 2018 https://archive.org/details/soulofmanunderso00wildiala

“I’m camera shy. But I had to do a portfolio for my world tour. So Karthik of Dreamcast and I worked in tandem and conceptualised the shoot. I wanted a rock star look. Possibly, with just a bit of the face showing. Since the show is full of surprises, I wanted the promo photos too to kindle curiosity.”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

World , Photo , Star

“There is another form of temptation, more complex in its peril. … It originates in an appetite for knowledge. … From this malady of curiosity are all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. Hence do we proceed to search out the secret powers of nature (which is beside our end), which to know profits not, and wherein men desire nothing but to know.”

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

X, 35
Confessions (c. 397)

Men , Secret , Search , Nature

“Curiosity is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

Wisdom

“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?””

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Death , Law , Forgiveness

“All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.”

Mark Twain book Roughing It

On the Book of Mormon, Roughing It (published 1872), pp. 58-59
Roughing It (1872)

Men , Books , Way , Reading

“"But we've got passengers aboard," our skipper shouted through the darkness. "Prisoners?" the deck called; with a note of curiosity. "Stand by to bring the prisoners aboard." I climbed a rope ladder up the Augusta's side and crawled over the rail, cold, wet, hungry, and tired. The crew pressed forward to see its "prisoners". "Oh, hell," a sailor grunted, "it's only General Bradley."”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. 278.

Hell

“Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen.
Dilletantenaufdringlichkeiten.
Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.
These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them marching majestically across the page,—and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. "Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen.
Alterthumswissenschaften.
Kinderbewahrungsanstalten.
Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen.
Wiederherstellungsbestrebungen.
Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.
Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape,—but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help; but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere,—so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

Music , Way , Imagination , Mountain

“Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when it becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil in this respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances, the society in which he moves, the position in which he may find himself, etc. Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference between the sexes till he is sixteen, take care you teach him before he is ten.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book IV

Children , Age , Sex , Learning

“I can hardly understand the importance given to the word research in connection with modern painting. In my opinion to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing. Nobody is interested in following a man who, with his eyes fixed on the ground, spends his life looking for the purse that fortune should put in his path. The one who finds something no matter what it might be, even if his intention were not to search for it, at least arouses our curiosity, if not our admiration.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Source: 1920s, "Picasso Speaks" (1923), p. 315

Life , Search , Understanding , Painting

“It is by a blend of lively curiosity and intelligent selfishness that the artists who wish to mature late, who feel too old to die, the Goethes, Tolstoys, Voltaires, Titians and Verdis, reach a fruitful senescence. They cannot afford to associate with those who are burning themselves up or preparing for a tragedy or whom melancholy has marked for her own. Not for them the accident-prone, the friend in whom the desire for self-destruction keeps blistering out in broken legs or threatening them in anxiety-neuroses. Not for them the drumming finger, the close-cropt nail, the chewed glasses, the pause on the threshold, the wandering eye, or the repeated ‘um’ and ‘er.”

Cyril Connolly book Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise (1938), Part 2: The Charlock’s Shade, Ch. 16: Outlook Unsettled (p. 137)

Feeling , Intelligence , Selfishness

“The apartments of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: a conglomeration of classical antiquity, gothic, renaissance; Louis XIII… Something from every century but our own, a predicament that has arisen in no other period… so that we seem to be subsisting on the ruins of the past, as if the end of the world were near.”

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857) French writer

This quotation is useful for explanations of the period of art nouveau, and the causes of the art movement.
Confession d'un Enfant du Siécle (1836)(translation)

World , Past

“You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 189.

Men , Pleasure

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

Truth , World , History , Courage

“[T]he philosophy of Plotinus has the defect of encouraging men to look within rather than to look without: when we look within we see nous, which is divine, while when we look without we see the imperfections of the sensible world. This kind of subjectivity was a gradual growth; it is to be found in the doctrines of Protagoras, Socrates, and Plato, as well as in the Stoics and Epicureans. But at first it was only doctrinal, not temperamental; for a long time it failed to kill scientific curiosity. […] Plotinus is both an end and a beginning—an end as regards the Greeks, a beginning as regards Christendom.”

Bertrand Russell book A History of Western Philosophy

[Russell, Bertrand, w:Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, https://books.google.com/books?id=iQZ6Xk9VdtAC&pg=PA296, 2008, Simon and Schuster, 978-1-4165-9915-9, 296–297, 1945]
1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Men , World , Time

“My curiosity sister of larks.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 219
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A minha curiosidade irmã das cotovias

Sister

“…Everybody likes sex. The world would be a better place if people just engaged in sex and didn’t worry about it. But what I prefer is that even if someone feels hedonistic, they don’t look it. Curiosity about sex is much more interesting to me than domination. Like, Britney and Paris and Pamela might be someone’s definition of sexy, but they’re not mine. My clothes are not hot. Never. Never.”

Marc Jacobs (1963) American fashion designer

Larocca, Amy (2005). "Marc Jacobs' Paradoxial Triumph" http://www.nymag.com/nymetro/shopping/fashion/12544/ NYMag.com (accessed April 19, 2007)

People , World , Sex , Feeling

“It must be recognized that the real truths of history are hard to discover. Happily, for the most part, they are rather matters of curiosity than of real importance.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Truth , History , Parting

“I doubt not but one great reason why many children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports, and trifle away all their time insipidly, is, because they have found their curiosity baulk'd, and their inquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and respect, and their questions answered, as they shuold, to their satisfaction; I doubt not but that they would have taken more pleasure in learning, and improving their knowledge, wherein there would still be newness and variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same play and play-things.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 118
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Children , Pleasure , Question , Knowledge

“A book in which there were no lies would be a curiosity.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Books

“He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. II, Ch. 1 : Introduction, concerning the time when the Apocalypse was written
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.
The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence. For, as the few and obscure Prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming were for setting up the Christian religion, which all nations have since corrupted; so the many and clear Prophecies concerning the things to be done at Christ’s second coming, are not only for predicting but also for effecting a recovery and re-establishment of the long-lost truth, and setting up a kingdom wherein dwells righteousness. The event will prove the Apocalypse; and this Prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old Prophets, and all together will make known the true religion, and establish it. For he that will understand the old Prophets, must begin with this; but the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly, because the main revolution predicted in them is not yet come to pass. In the days of the voice of the seventh Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the Prophets: and then the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever, Apoc. x. 7. xi. 15. There is already so much of the Prophecy fulfilled, that as many as will take pains in this study, may see sufficient instances of God’s providence: but then the signal revolutions predicted by all the holy Prophets, will at once both turn men’s eyes upon considering the predictions, and plainly interpret them. Till then we must content ourselves with interpreting what hath been already fulfilled.
Amongst the Interpreters of the last age there to scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing; and thence I seem to gather that God is about opening these mysteries. The success of others put me upon considering it; and if I have done any thing which may be useful to following writers, I have my design.

Men , World

“Being of opinion that the doctrine and history of so extraordinary a sect as the Quakers were very well deserving the curiosity of every thinking man, I resolved to make myself acquainted with them”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The History of the Quakers (1762)
Context: Being of opinion that the doctrine and history of so extraordinary a sect as the Quakers were very well deserving the curiosity of every thinking man, I resolved to make myself acquainted with them, and for that purpose made a visit to one of the most eminent of that sect in England, who, after having been in trade for thirty years, had the wisdom to prescribe limits to his fortune, and to his desires, and withdrew to a small but pleasant retirement in the country, not many miles from London. Here it was that I made him my visit. His house was small, but neatly built, and with no other ornaments but those of decency and convenience.

History , Thinking

“What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that flickered out.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Mother Night

Mother Night (1961), p. 232

Dead

“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.”

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.

Love , Life , Patience

“The true function of phantasy is to give the imagination a ground for limitless expansion, and to satisfy aesthetically the sincere and burning curiosity and sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind feel toward the alluring and provocative abysses of unplumbed space and unguessed entity which press in upon the known world from unknown infinities and in unknown relationships of time, space, matter, force, dimensionality, and consciousness.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (17 October 1930), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S.T. Joshi, p. 213
Non-Fiction, Letters
Context: My conception of phantasy, as a genuine art-form, is an extension rather than a negation of reality. Ordinary tales about a castle ghost or old-fashioned werewolf are merely so much junk. The true function of phantasy is to give the imagination a ground for limitless expansion, and to satisfy aesthetically the sincere and burning curiosity and sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind feel toward the alluring and provocative abysses of unplumbed space and unguessed entity which press in upon the known world from unknown infinities and in unknown relationships of time, space, matter, force, dimensionality, and consciousness. This curiosity and sense of awe, I believe, are quite basic among the sensitive minority in question; and I see no reason to think that they will decline in the future—for as you point out, the frontier of the unknown can never do more than scratch the surface of eternally unknowable infinity. But the truly sensitive will never be more than a minority, because most persons—even those of the keenest possible intellect and aesthetic ability—simply have not the psychological equipment or adjustment to feel that way. I have taken pains to sound various persons as to their capacity to feel profoundly regarding the cosmos and the disturbing and fascinating quality of the extra-terrestrial and perpetually unknown; and my results reveal a surprisingly small quota. In literature we can easily see the cosmic quality in Poe, Maturin, Dunsany, de la Mare, and Blackwood, but I profoundly suspect the cosmicism of Bierce, James, and even Machen. It is not every macabre writer who feels poignantly and almost intolerably the pressure of cryptic and unbounded outer space.

World , Feeling , Imagination , Sense

“I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.”

Linus Pauling (1901–1994) American scientist

Lecture at Yale University, "Chemical Achievement and Hope for the Future." (October 1947) Published in Science in Progress. Sixth Series. Ed. George A. Baitsell. 100-21, (1949).
1940s-1960s
Context: Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences – and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on — whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can be made and will be made… But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

Imagination

“Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 108
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: They should always be heard, and fairly and kindly answer'd, when they ask after any thing they would know, and desire to be informed about. Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.

Children

“I really agree that Yog-Sothoth is a basically immature conception, & unfitted for really serious literature. The fact is, I have never approached serious literature yet. But I consider the use of actual folk-myths as even more childish than the use of new artificial myths, since in the former one is forced to retain many blatant peurilities & contradictions of experienced which could be subtilised or smoothed over if the supernaturalism were modelled to order for the given case. The only permanently artistic use of Yog-Sothothery, I think, is in symbolic or associative phantasy of the frankly poetic type; in which fixed dream-patterns of the natural organism are given an embodiment & crystallisation... But there is another phase of cosmic phantasy (which may or may not include frank Yog-Sothothery) whose foundations appear to me as better grounded than those of ordinary oneiroscopy; personal limitations regarding the sense of outsideness. I refer to the aesthetic crystallisation of that burning & inextinguishable feeling of mixed wonder & oppression which the sensitive imagination experiences upon scaling itself & its restrictions against the vast & provocative abyss of the unknown. This has always been the chief emotion in my psychology; & whilst it obviously figures less in the psychology of the majority, it is clearly a well-defined & permanent factor from which very few sensitive persons are wholly free.... Reason as we may, we cannot destroy a normal perception of the highly limited & fragmentary nature of our visible world of perception & experience as scaled against the outside abyss of unthinkable galaxies & unplumbed dimensions—an abyss wherein our solar system is the merest dot... The time has come when the normal revolt against time, space, & matter must assume a form not overtly incompatible with what is known of reality—when it must be gratified by images forming supplements rather than contradictions of the visible & measurable universe. And what, if not a form of non-supernatural cosmic art, is to pacify this sense of revolt—as well as gratify the cognate sense of curiosity?”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 293
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Time , Imagination , Personality , Dreams

“I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Chapter 11, paragraph 59 http://www.uri.edu/library/inscriptions/almamater.html
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

Reading , Life , Books , Time

“I am a free man-and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion. I need sunshine and paving tones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me. Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to anyone, I would've responsible to God alone-if he exited!”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter Four, Pappin

Despair , God , Freedom , Heart

“Your curiosity is your greatest gift. Use it to expand your scope. Ordinary people won't understand your insatiable thirst for excellence. They won't bother to keep striving because it's too onerous, too difficult.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

“Usually, I'm attracted by screenplays that stir my curiosity. I try to ask myself why the writer wants to tell this story.”

Gong Yoo (1979) South Korean actor

"Star actor Gong Yoo hopes his filmography can show who he is" in Yonhap https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210414006600315 (14 April 2021)

“Demons are wary of talking and must be forced to speak. When demons are voluntarily chatty it's a trick to distract the exorcist. We must never ask useless questions out of curiosity. We but must interrogate with care. We always begin by asking for the demon's name.”

Gabriele Amorth (1925–2016) Italian Roman Catholic priest and exorcist

Source: "An Interview With Fr Gabriele Amorth - The Church's Leading Exorcist" (2001)

Question

“Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Deep

“You cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time…”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Life , Time

“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 142

Life , Truth , Search , Time

“I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas.”

Dan Rather (1931) Journalist, Anchor

Confidence

“I secretly wondered if Dimitri's problem might be that he was jealous. He hadn't pulled Lissa aside to yell at her. The thought made me slightly happy, but then I remembered my earlier curiosity about why Dimitri had even wandered by.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Problem , Happiness

“She likes to try everything, out of curiosity, but she'll be sorry if she isn't guided by her heart.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Heart

“As a reader I loathe introductions… Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Pleasure , Joy

“Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Comment on "I am Neil deGrasse Tyson -- AMA", November 13, 2011 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mateq/i_am_neil_degrasse_tyson_ama/c2zg3g6,
2010s
Variant: Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults.

Problem