Quotes about curiosity
page 4

“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)

Search, Understanding, Question, Knowledge

“The interval during which a painting is mistaken for the real thing, or a real thing for a painting, is the triumphant moment of trompe l'oeil art. The artist appears to be potent as nature, if not superior to it. Almost immediately, though, the spectator's uncertainty is eliminated by his recognition that the counterfeit is counterfeit. Once the illusion is dissolved, what is left is an object that is interesting not as a work of art but as a successful simulation of something that is not art. The major response to it is curiosity: "How did he do it?"”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 237-9, "Reality Again: The New Photorealism"

Art, Nature, Appearance, Success

“Science is a special kind of explanation of the things we see around us. It starts with a problem and curiosity. Something strikes the scientist as odd. It doesn’t fit in with the usual explanation. Maybe harder thinking or more careful observation will resolve the problem. If it remains apuzzle, it stimulates the scientist’s imagination.”

Tony Hey

Source: The New Quantum Universe (2003), Ch. 1 : Waves versus particles

Imagination, Problem, Thinking, Science

“In matters of science, curiosity gratified begets not indolence, but new desires.”

Stephen Baxter (1957) author

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 15, “The world was tired out with geological theories” (p. 153)

Science

“This book will not take as its province all kinds of cultural growth — artistic, philosophical, military — but will try to shed some light on a narrower problem, namely, the reasons for economic growth and decline. The way wealth is distributed is a matter of special interest, partly because it may well be basic to growth in other cultural areas and partly because it has become so uneven in the past century that curiosity has been aroused.”

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

Source: The Archiving Society, 1961, p. 1

Books, Way, Problem, Light

“We should make it a rule never to have half confidences. They always embarrass those who give them, and dissatisfy those who receive them. They shed an uncertain light on what we want hidden, increase curiosity, entitling the recipients to know more, giving them leave to consider themselves free to talk of what they have guessed. It is far safer and more honest to tell nothing than to be silent when we have begun to tell.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), I. On Confidence

Confidence, Light

“I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up, and they keep their curiosity.”

Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988) American physicist

As quoted in "The Atomic Scientists, the Sense of Wonder and the Bomb" by Mark Fiege in Enviornmental History, Vol. 12, Issue 3 (July 2007) http://envhis.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/3.toc.

Thinking

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

Jack Vance book The Five Gold Bands

Source: The Five Gold Bands (1950), Chapter 6 (p. 65)

“Francis realized he was afflicted with what his father used to term “an erection of the curiosity organ.””

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 11 (p. 132)

Affliction

“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)

Money, Idea, Fashion, Universe

“Science cannot satisfy his curiosity and Man searches for glimpses beyond the Sciences through the magic of emotional and imaginative world, where man feels self-satisfied as if he is near the truth.”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

कला र जीवन (Art and Life)
Art and Life

Truth, World, Feeling, Imagination

“Over 17 years I have played hockey, learned to row, I've been a dog, got blown up… It satisfies the 5 year-old intellectual curiosity, you know? Where I can do anything I want for six months and then move on.”

Joshua Jackson (1978) Canadian actor

As quoted in Entertainment Weekly (September 2nd, 2005)

Dogs, Learning, Hockey

“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.”

Charles Bowen (1835–1894) English judge

Lyell v. Kennedy (1884), L. R. 27 C. D. 31.

Knowledge

“But the amateur who reads poetry from love or curiosity does have at least one advantage over the trained specialist who reads it from professional obligation. Amateurs have not learned to shut off parts of their consciousness to focus on only the appropriate elements of a literary text. They respond to poems in the sloppy fullness of their humanity”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

19
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

Love, Learning, Reading, Parting

“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)

“In reading Jung's account of his cases, it is impossible not to be aware that his success was due partly to an element of ruthlessness; he was dominated by curiosity rather than compassion.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: C. G. Jung: Lord of the Underworld (1984), p. 36

Reading, Success

“All animals feel Wonder, and many exhibit Curiosity. They sometimes suffer from this latter quality, as when the hunter plays antics and thus attracts them.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter II: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals", page 42 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=55&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

Feeling, Suffering, Animals

“I wanted to learn about Christ – about the Old Testament, which had been his Bible, and the New Testament, which was the Bible about him; about the history of the church, which had been founded on the faith that through him God had not only revealed his innermost nature and his purpose for the world, but had released into the world a fierce power to draw people into that nature and adapt them to that purpose… No intellectual pursuit had ever aroused in me such intense curiosity, and much more than my intellect was involved, much more than my curiosity aroused. In the unfamiliar setting of a Presbyterian church, of all places, I had been moved to astonished tears which came from so deep inside me that to this day I have never fathomed them, I wanted to learn more about the source of those tears and the object of that astonishment.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)

God, People, World, Faith

“True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights—and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks, one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller, usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature, and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity. Do not the one in fifty deserve their institutions as well—magic places, like cabinet museums, that can spark the rare flames of genius?”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

"Cabinet Museums: Alive, Alive, O!", p. 246
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

Children, Age, Nature, Light

“There is a common response from people when they hear that in the absence of evidence to convince me otherwise I don’t have any particular belief in ghosts, psychic powers or an afterlife. It normally runs something along the lines of ‘So you think we just live, die and that’s it? Come on…’ There’s a clear implication there that this earthly life – the wonder of being human – is somehow worthless. That it’s cheap and disappointing enough to warrant that ‘just’ and the accompanying incredulous tone, which are usually reserved for sentences like ‘After all that it was just a little spider? Come on…’ I live, I am sure, in a fairly narrow band of life, and make an embarrassingly pitiful attempt to explore the world I find myself upon. I ache with guilt and conflict when I hear of people living as adventurers, abandoning mainstream lives and living each day with abandon. But I really hope I have a brighter vision for this life and a greater curiosity for its richness than one who can say, and mean, ‘You think we just live, die and that’s it?”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Life, People, World, Hope

“Anyone who consults a soothsayer on account of curiosity of the future will suffer capital punishment.”

Constantius II (317–361) Roman emperor

CT 9.16.4 released 25 June 357
Codex Theodosianus

Suffering, Future

“You have curiosity and you are stubborn. You do not accept rules. Therefore I t'ink you will either make a very good scientist or a very bad one, and if you are bad enough, you will be popular with the rich ladies who rule this city, New York, and you can gif lectures for a living or even become, if you get to be plausible enough, a college president. So anyvay, it will be interesting. ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 26”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925)

“But some years after, a letter, which he received from Dr. Hooke, put him on inquiring what was the real figure, in which a body let fall from any high place descends, taking the motion of the earth round its axis into consideration. Such a body, having the same motion, which by the revolution of the earth the place has whence it falls, is to be considered as projected forward and at the same time drawn down to the centre of the earth. This gave occasion to his resuming his former thoughts concerning the moon, and Picard in France having lately measured the earth, by using his measures the moon appeared to be kept in her orbit purely by the power of gravity; and consequently, that this power decreases, as you recede from the centre of the earth, in the manner our author had formerly conjectured. Upon this principle he found the line described by a falling body to be an ellipsis, the centie of the earth being one focus. And the primary planets moving in such orbits round the sun, he had the satisfaction to see, that this inquiry, which he had undertaken merely out of curiosity, could be applied to the greatest purposes. Hereupon he composed near a dozen propositions, relating to the motion of the primary planets about the sun. Several years after this, some discourse he had with Dr. Halley, who at Cambridge made him a visit, engaged Sir Isaac Newton to resume again the consideration of this subject; and gave occasion to his writing the treatise, which he published under the title of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. This treatise, full of such a variety of profound inventions, was composed by him, from scarce any other materials than the few propositions before mentioned, in the space of a year and a half.”

Henry Pemberton (1694–1771) British doctor

Republished in: Stephen Peter Rigaud (1838) Historical Essay on the First Publication of Sir Newton's Principia http://books.google.com/books?id=uvMGAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA49. p. 519 Preface to View of Newton's Philosophy, (1728)

Appearance, Time, Sun

“If poetry is emotion recollected in tranquility, then science is tranquility recollected in emotion: a struggle to think carefully in the swirl of passionate curiosity.”

George Musser

Spooky Action at a Distance (2015), Ch. 4 : The Great Debate

Thinking, Passion, Science

“The problem with the religious solution [to philosophical problems] was stated by Mencken when he wrote, 'Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.' For anyone with a persistent intellectual curiosity, religious explanations are not worth knowing because they pile equally baffling enigmas on top of the original ones. What gave God a mind, free will, knowledge, certainty about right and wrong? How does he infuse them into a universe that seems to run just fine according to physical laws? How does he get ghostly souls to interact with hard matter? And most perplexing of all, if the world unfolds according to a wise and merciful plan, why does it contain so much suffering? As the Yiddish expression says, If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 560

God, People, World, Law

“I fight, with myself in the ring of doubt and fear
The rain ain't gone, but I can still see clear
As a child, given religion with no answer to why
Just told believe in Jesus cause for me he did die
Curiosity killed the catechism
Understanding and wisdom became the rhythm that I played to
And became a slave to master self
A rich man is one with knowledge, happiness and his health
My mind had dealt with the books of Zen, Tao the lessons
of the Koran and Bible,
to me they all vital
And got truth within 'em, gotta read them boys
You just can't skim 'em, different branches of belief
But one root that stem 'em, but people of the venom try to trim 'em
And use religion as an emblem
When it should be a natural way of life
Who am I or they to say to whom you pray ain't right?
That's who got you doin' right and got you this far
Whether you say "in Jesus name" or "Al hum du'Allah"
Long as you know it's a being that's supreme to you
You let that show towards others in the things you do
Cause when the trumpets blowin', 24 elders surround the throne
Only 144,000 gon get home”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)" (Track 7)
Albums, One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997)

Life, Wisdom, Happiness, People

“It’s a good idea, when people are curious, to give them something to sustain that curiosity—and direct it.”

Samuel R. Delany book Neveryóna

Source: Neveryóna (1983), Chapter 3, “Of Markets, Maps, Cellars, and Cisterns” (p. 65)

People, Idea

“No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity, his sympathetically enthusiastic curiosity about us, and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves. He dreamed of much for us, and demanded much of himself, perhaps more than was possible for either in this time and place. But it is that quality of dreams and demands that makes the ones like Rod Serling rare …and always irreplaceable.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Eulogy for Rod Serling (1975) Rodserling.com http://www.rodserling.com/full_roddenberry_quote.html

Dreams, Understanding, Time, Reading

“The Reason of the present Animadversions. …How far Hevelius has proceeded. That his instruments do not much exceed Ticho. The bigness, Sights and Divisions, not considerably differing. Ticho not ignorant of his new way of Division. …That so great curiosity as Hevelius strives for is needless without the use of Telescopic Sights, the power of the naked eye being limited. That no one part of an Instrument should be more perfect than another. …
That if Hevelius could have been prevail'd on by the Author to have used Telescopic Sights, his observations might have been 40 times more exact than they are.
That Hevelius his Objections against Telescopic sights are of no validity; but the Sights without Telescopes cannot distinguish a less angle then half a Minute.
That an Instrument of 3 foot Radius with Telescopes, will do more then one of 3 score foot Radius with common Sights, the eye being unable to distinguish. This is proved by the undiscernableness of spots in the Moon, and by an Experiment with Lines on a paper, by which a Standard is made of the power of the eye. …
A Conclusion of the Animadversions. That the learn'd World is obllig'd to Hevelius for what he hath done, but would have more, if he had used other instruments.
That the Animadvertor both contrived some hundreds of Instruments, each of very great accurateness for taking Angles, Levels, &c.; and a particular Arithmetical lnstrument for performing all Operations in Arithmetick, with the greatest ease, swiftness and certainty imaginable.
That the Reader may be the more certain of this, the Author describes an Instrument for taking Angles in the Heavens…”

Robert Hooke (1635–1703) English natural philosopher, architect and polymath

Contents, Animadversions on the First Part of the Machina Coelestis of the Astronomer Johannes Hevelius https://books.google.com/books?id=KAtPAAAAcAAJ (1674)

World, Way, Imagination, Time

“Ridiculous as the idea may have been for her bluestocking mother to send brother and sister over alone like this, the fact was that Judy was protected as much by her curiosity as by her innocence. And then there was this other thing about her, too. You know all that razzle-dazzle about people being born in Original Sin and all that rot? Well, maybe it’s rot and maybe it isn’t. I mean I wouldn’t slit my throat from ear to ear, just because I’d found out for sure that most people are. But she wasn’t. That was the thing. She simply wasn’t.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

I’m positive of that.
Part One, Two
The Dud Avocado (1958)

People, Idea, Sister

“One of the curiosities of anger, of course, is that the more you focus it outward, firing it at the injustices of the world, the more it actually parses your own self-pity and resentment.”

Adam Roberts book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 2, Chapter 13, “Of Multitudes” (p. 238).
Jack Glass (2012)

World, Anger

“The assertion that “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s,” is true enough; but the assertion that “What is nobody’s business is everybody’s,” is still truer. Now, a love affair, for example, is, of all others, a thing apart--an enchanted dream, where “common griefs and cares come not.” It is like a matrimonial quarrel--never to be benefited by the interference of others: it is a sweet and subtle language, “that none understand but the speakers;” and yet this fine and delicate spirit is most especially the object of public curiosity. It is often supposed before it exists: it is taken for granted, commented upon, continued and ended, without the consent of the parties themselves; though a casual observer might suppose that they were the most interested in the business.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Love, Dreams, Understanding, Business

“[about his daughters and nieces having developed a natural curiosity about boys]
When I get in the shower, there is nobody else in the bathroom. Now, when I get out of the shower, there's five little girls just loitering. I finally confronted them. I said "Why are all five of you in the bathroom?" And my youngest one, who's really funny, she said "We're trying to see a hoo-hoo!" I said "Well, I'm gonna tell the five of you all you need to know about hoo-hoos. Hoo-hoos are extremely poisonous." And without missing a beat, she said "They are not, or the dog would be dead!"”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

I hate a smart child.
Have Your Loved Ones Spayed and Neutered (2004)

Hate, Dogs, Girl, Boy

“A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1735
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“At home you can never know what it is to be alone – absolutely alone, amidst thousands, as you can in a Chinese city, without one friend, one companion, everyone looking on you with curiosity, with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike. Thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men – of those you wish to benefit, your motives not understood... and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit... this is worth coming for.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Two: Over the Treaty Wall. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982, 363).

Love, Men, Home, Motivation

“This branch of economics has suffered from several intellectual mistakes. The major mistake has been the presumption that standard economic theory is inadequate for understanding low income countries and that a separate economic theory is needed. Models developed for this purpose were widely acclaimed until it became evident that they were at best intellectual curiosities.”

Theodore Schultz (1902–1998) American economist

"The Economics of Being Poor," (1979)

Understanding, Suffering, Country

“[A good teacher] brings knowledge and his pupil into a vital relationship; and the object of teaching is to establish that relationship on an intelligible basis. This can only be done … by appealing to two qualities which are at the bottom of all knowledge, curiosity and observation. They are born with us, every child naturally develops them, and it is the duty of the teacher to direct them to proper ends.”

Mandell Creighton (1843–1901) English historian and ecclesiastic

Thoughts on Education: Speeches and Sermons (1902)

Intelligence, Nature, Knowledge, Teachers

“Ahmud Shah having a great curiosity to see the hill-fort of Girnal pursued the rebel in that direction… After a short time, the Raja, having consented to pay an annual tribute, made a large offering on the spot. Ahmud Shah left officers to collect the stipulated amount, and returned to Ahmadabad; on the road to which place he destroyed the temple of Somapoor, wherein were found many valuable jewels, and other property.”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Ahmad Shãh I of Gujrat (AD 1411-1443)Sompur (Gujrat)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Time

“It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.”

Rudyard Kipling book The Jungle Book

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi http://www.gutenberg.org/files/236/236-h/236-h.htm#link2H_4_0009 The Jungle Book (1894)

World, Family

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.”

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

1940s, "Autobiographical Notes" (1949)

Search, Thinking, Sense, Freedom

“The numberless treatises of antiquities, philosophy, mathematics, natural and other history … written originally in, or translated to our tongue are sufficient to lead us a great way into any science our curiosity shall prompt us to. The greatest difficulty we struggled with, was the want of a good art of reasoning, which we had not, that I know of, till that defect was supplied by Locke, whose Essay on Human Understanding makes large amends for the want of all others in that kind.”

Mary Astell (1666–1731) English feminist writer

An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. P. 54 https://archive.org/details/essayindefenceof00aste

Art, Way, History, Mathematics

“Things that people learn purely out of curiosity can have a revolutionary effect on human affairs.”

Frederick Seitz (1911–2008) American physicist

In an interview for the George C. Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=21 (3 September 1997)

People, Learning

“[T]ime passed and there was really no romance in life anymore, only the tedious tranquility of marriage without excitement or curiosity, the dull routine of making a comfortable living with nothing to nourish the imagination.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

Life, Marriage, Imagination

“I was born to be an explorer. There never was any decision to make. I coudn't be anything else and be happy, the desire to see new places, to discover new facts- the curiosity of life always has been a resistless driving force to me.”

Roy Chapman Andrews (1884–1960) American explorer, adventurer and naturalist

'This Business of Exploring' pub, 1935

Life, Happiness, Decision

“He fell to condemning intelligence and to hating curiosity. He himself refused to learn anything more, for fear that in acquiring fresh knowledge he might let it be seen that he had not known everything at the very outset.”

Anatole France book The Revolt of the Angels

Source: The Revolt of the Angels (1914), Ch. XXXV
Context: Satan found pleasure in praise and in the exercise of his grace; he loved to hear his wisdom and his power belauded. He listened with joy to the canticles of the cherubim who celebrated his good deeds, and he took no pleasure in listening to Nectaire's flute, because it celebrated nature's self, yielded to the insect and to the blade of grass their share of power and love, and counselled happiness and freedom. Satan, whose flesh had crept, in days gone by, at the idea that suffering prevailed in the world, now felt himself inaccessible to pity. He regarded suffering and death as the happy results of omnipotence and sovereign kindness. And the savour of the blood of victims rose upward towards him like sweet incense. He fell to condemning intelligence and to hating curiosity. He himself refused to learn anything more, for fear that in acquiring fresh knowledge he might let it be seen that he had not known everything at the very outset. He took pleasure in mystery, and believing that he would seem less great by being understood, he affected to be unintelligible. Dense fumes of Theology filled his brain. One day, following the example of his predecessor, he conceived the notion of proclaiming himself one god in three persons. Seeing Arcade smile as this proclamation was made, he drove him from his presence. Istar and Zita had long since returned to earth. Thus centuries passed like seconds. Now, one day, from the altitude of his throne, he plunged his gaze into the depths of the pit and saw Ialdabaoth in the Gehenna where he himself had long lain enchained. Amid the ever lasting gloom Ialdabaoth still retained his lofty mien. Blackened and shattered, terrible and sublime, he glanced upwards at the palace of the King of Heaven with a look of proud disdain, then turned away his head. And the new god, as he looked upon his foe, beheld the light of intelligence and love pass across his sorrow-stricken countenance. And lo! Ialdabaoth was now contemplating the Earth and, seeing it sunk in wickedness and suffering, he began to foster thoughts of kindliness in his heart. On a sudden he rose up, and beating the ether with his mighty arms, as though with oars, he hastened thither to instruct and to console mankind. Already his vast shadow shed upon the unhappy planet a shade soft as a night of love.
And Satan awoke bathed in an icy sweat.
Nectaire, Istar, Arcade, and Zita were standing round him. The finches were singing.
"Comrades," said the great archangel, "no — we will not conquer the heavens. Enough to have the power. War engenders war, and victory defeat.
"God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by rapine.
Now, thanks to us, the god of old is dispossessed of his terrestrial empire, and every thinking being on this globe disdains him or knows him not. But what matter that men should be no longer submissive to Ialdabaoth if the spirit of Ialdabaoth is still in them; if they, like him, are jealous, violent, quarrelsome, and greedy, and the foes of the arts and of beauty? What matter that they have rejected the ferocious Demiurge, if they do not hearken to the friendly demons who teach all truths; to Dionysus, Apollo, and the Muses? As to ourselves, celestial spirits, sublime demons, we have destroyed Ialdabaoth, our Tyrant, if in ourselves we have destroyed Ignorance and Fear."
And Satan, turning to the gardener, said:
"Nectaire, you fought with me before the birth of the world. We were conquered because we failed to understand that Victory is a Spirit, and that it is in ourselves and in ourselves alone that we must attack and destroy Ialdabaoth."

Hate, Fear, Intelligence, Knowledge

“I think status is in fact a significant motivation even for me, and even the more "pure" motivations like intellectual curiosity can in some sense be traced back to status.”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In response https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a3aGosA987cZ4aRAB/online-discussion-is-better-than-pre-publication-peer-review#TkXmTc5Sxnt9GhyZS to someone suggesting that status is not a motivator for Dai, September 2017 Context: I think status is in fact a significant motivation even for me, and even the more "pure" motivations like intellectual curiosity can in some sense be traced back to status. It seems unlikely that [updateless decision theory] would have been developed without the existence of forums like extropians, everything-list, and LW, for reasons of both motivation and feedback/collaboration.

Motivation, Thinking, Sense

“So long as Geology had not lifted up a part of the veil… it was easy to treat these questions as too transcendental… But it is no longer possible to restrain curiosity from attempting to pry into the relations which connect the present state of the animal and vegetable worlds”

Charles Lyell (1797–1875) British lawyer and geologist

Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.20, p. 388
Context: So long as Geology had not lifted up a part of the veil... it was easy to treat these questions as too transcendental... But it is no longer possible to restrain curiosity from attempting to pry into the relations which connect the present state of the animal and vegetable worlds, as well as of the various races of mankind, with the state of the fauna and flora which immediately preceded.

World, Question, Animals, Parting

“Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown.”

Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) American electrical engineer and science administrator

Science - The Endless Frontier (1945)
Context: Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Freedom of inquiry must be preserved under any plan for Government support of science...

“The great problem with poisoning by Bitterness was that the passions — hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity — also ceased to manifest themselves.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Veronika Decides to Die (1998)
Context: The great problem with poisoning by Bitterness was that the passions — hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity — also ceased to manifest themselves. After a while, the embittered person felt no desire at all. They lacked the will either to live or to die, that was the problem.

Love, Problem, Passion, Despair

“Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would.”

Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Maxim 19 (p. 12)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
Context: Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would. This rule does not hold true for bad things: when an evil has been exaggerated, its reality makes people applaud. What was feared as ruinous comes to seem tolerable.

People, Reality

“The pain of sexual frustration, of repressed tenderness, of denied curiosity, of isolation in the ego, of greed, suppressed rebellion, of hatred poisoning all love and generosity, permeates our sexuality. What we love we destroy.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

"The Wet Dream Film Festival" (1971), p. 57
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)

Love, Pain

“The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book I, v, 11
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Context: The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.

Men, Error, Nature, Knowledge

“To learn in order to know is scandalous curiosity.”
Sunt qui scire volunt tantum, ut sciant, et turpis curiositas est.

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian

Translation from Etienne Gilson, The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard
Then you have some people who wish to know for the sake of knowing, and that is scandalous curiosity. (Translation from J. Van Herwaarden, Between Saint James and Erasmus: Studies in Late-Medieval Religious Life)
Sermones in Cantica XXXVI, Migne PL 183, col. 968-969

Learning

“The map, according to Vivekananda, can create only curiosity for first-hand knowledge of the place and can communicate only a vague conception of its reality. Maps are in no way equivalent to the direct knowledge of the country, gathered by actually being there.”

Anantanand Rambachan (1951) Hindu studies scholar

Source: The Nature and Authority of Scripture (1995), p. 23
Context: Vivekananda followed his teacher, Ramakrishna, in attributing a low value to scriptures and in upholding the supremacy of personal experience. The adequacy of scriptures is compared to the utility of a map to a traveller, before visiting a country. The map, according to Vivekananda, can create only curiosity for first-hand knowledge of the place and can communicate only a vague conception of its reality. Maps are in no way equivalent to the direct knowledge of the country, gathered by actually being there.

Way, Communication, Knowledge, Reality

“She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government.”

Thomas Pynchon Mason & Dixon

Source: Mason & Dixon (1997), Ch. 35
Context: Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power, — who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government.

“Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications. But intellectual satisfaction we obtain only from a connection of the whole, just from its conformity with law.”

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) physicist and physiologist

"On the Conservation of Force" (1862), p. 278
Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)
Context: Every great deed of which history tells us, every mighty passion which art can represent, every picture of manners, of civic arrangements, of the culture of peoples of distant lands or of remote times, seizes and interests us, even if there is no exact scientific connection among them. We continually find points of contact and comparison in our own conceptions and feelings; we get to know the hidden capacities and desires of the mind, which in the ordinary peaceful course of civilised life remain unawakened.
It is not to be denied that, in the natural sciences, this kind of interest is wanting. Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications. But intellectual satisfaction we obtain only from a connection of the whole, just from its conformity with law.

Law

“A consolatory letter of yours to a friend happened some days since to fall into my hands. My knowledge of the character, and my love of the hand, soon gave me the curiosity to open it.”

Heloise (1101–1164) French nun, writer, scholar, and abbess

Letter II : Heloise to Abelard
Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Context: A consolatory letter of yours to a friend happened some days since to fall into my hands. My knowledge of the character, and my love of the hand, soon gave me the curiosity to open it. In justification of the liberty I took, I flattered myself I might claim a sovereign privilege over every thing which came from you nor was I scrupulous to break thro' the rules of good breeding, when it was to hear news of Abelard. But how much did my curiosity cost me? what disturbance did it occasion? and how was I surprised to find the whole letter filled with a particular and melancholy account of our misfortunes? I met with my name a hundred times; I never saw it without fear: some heavy calamity always, followed it, I saw yours too, equally unhappy. These mournful but dear remembrances, puts my spirits into such a violent motion, that I thought it was too much to offer comfort to a friend for a few slight disgraces by such extraordinary means, as the representation of our sufferings and revolutions. What reflections did I not make, I began to consider the whole afresh, and perceived myself pressed with the same weight of grief as when we first began to be miserable. Tho' length of time ought to have closed up my wounds, yet the seeing them described by your hand was sufficient to make them all open and bleed afresh. Nothing can ever blot from my memory what you have suffered in defence of your writings.

Love, Knowledge

“The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers.”

Bryan Magee (1930–2019) British politician

Source: Confessions of a Philosopher (1997), p. 232
Context: The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers. Each of us emerges from the preconsciousness of babyhood and simply finds himself here, in it, in the world. That experience alone astonishes some people. What is all this — what is the world? And what are we? From the beginning of humanity some have been under a compulsion to ask these questions, and have felt a craving for the answers. This is what is really meant by any such phrase as "mankind's need for metaphysics."

World

“In most cases the scientist will be fully aware of the possibility of an abuse of his discoveries, but aside from his innate scientific curiosity he will be motivated by a deep-seated hope and belief that something of value for his fellow man may emerge from his labors.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

Comparable to remarks of William Masters, in "Two Sex Researchers on the Firing Line" LIFE magazine (24 June 1966), p. 49: "Science by itself has no moral dimension. But it does seek to establish truth. And upon this truth morality can be built."
Variants:
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
As quoted in Futurehype: The Myths of Technology Change (2009) by Robert B. Seidensticker
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently. Should the knife have not been developed?
As quoted in Science & Society (2012) by Peter Daempfle, Ch. 6, p. 97
Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application (1976)
Context: One of the most disconcerting issues of our time lies in the fact that modern science, along with miracle drugs and communications satellites, has also produced nuclear bombs. What makes it even worse, science has utterly failed to provide an answer on how to cope with them. As a result, science and scientists have often been blamed for the desperate dilemma in which mankind finds itself today.
Science, all by itself, has no moral dimension. The same poison-containing drug which cures when taken in small doses, may kill when taken in excess. The same nuclear chain reaction that produces badly needed electrical energy when harnessed in a reactor, may kill thousands when abruptly released in an atomic bomb. Thus it does not make sense to ask a biochemist or a nuclear physicist whether his research in the field of toxic substances or nuclear processes is good or bad for mankind. In most cases the scientist will be fully aware of the possibility of an abuse of his discoveries, but aside from his innate scientific curiosity he will be motivated by a deep-seated hope and belief that something of value for his fellow man may emerge from his labors.
The same applies to technology, through which most advances in the natural sciences are put to practical use.

Hope, Motivation

“He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XII: The Barbarism Of "Specialisation"
Context: He [the "specialist"] is one who, out of all that has to be known in order to be a man of judgment, is only acquainted with one science, and even of that one only knows the small corner in which he is an active investigator. He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge.

Knowledge

“Why is one of the most important words in any language. You have to know why the world is the way it is or you have to want to know. If you do not have this curiosity and if you do not have the intelligence in order to be able to express this curiosity in terms that others can understand than we will not be able to contribute to progress in our world.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)
Context: Why is one of the most important words in any language. You have to know why the world is the way it is or you have to want to know. If you do not have this curiosity and if you do not have the intelligence in order to be able to express this curiosity in terms that others can understand than we will not be able to contribute to progress in our world. How many of our people over these past few decades ever ask themselves why that had to submit to the authority of people who did not have the mandate of the general public. I do not think very many did. It was taken for granted that those who had power and authority could do exactly as they please. This was something that we could not accept.

World, Way, Intelligence, Understanding

“Obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

dig interview (2004)
Context: Obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some, and went seeking out the original artists, or in some cases searching up country music. I followed The Byrds a lot, and then when they did a country styled record it made me curious to know who these people were that they liked.

“My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

I Remember Creatore (1948).
Context: My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living skeleton were interesting for the same reason as was Creatore, or the resplendent Guardsmen of the bands — because such people did not often come my way, and I hoped that they might impart some great revelation to me, some insight which would help me to a clearer understanding of the world about me.

Way

“She watched him with cool green eyes and smiled innocently. The eyes were alert with wonder, curiosity, and — perhaps something else — but she could apparently not see that he was in pain.”

Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ch 29
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua
Context: She watched him with cool green eyes and smiled innocently. The eyes were alert with wonder, curiosity, and — perhaps something else — but she could apparently not see that he was in pain. There was something about her eyes that caused him to notice nothing else for several seconds. But then he noticed that the head of Mrs. Grales slept soundly on the other shoulder while Rachel smiled. It seemed a young shy smile that hoped for friendship. He tried again.
"Listen, is anyone else alive? Get —"
Melodious and solemn came her answer: "listen is anyone else alive — " She savored the words. She enunciated them distinctly. She smiled over them Her lips reframed them when her voice was done with them. It was more than reflexive imitation, he decided. She was trying to communicate something. By the repetition, she was trying to convey the idea: I am somehow like you.
But she had only just now been born.
And you're somehow different, too, Zerchi noticed with a trace of awe.

Pain, Smile

“What we do, if we are successful, is to stir interest in the matter at hand, awaken enthusiasm for it, arouse a curiosity, kindle a feeling, fire up the imagination.”

Julius Sumner Miller (1909–1987) American physicist

Julius Sumner Miller, in What Science Teaching Needs, Junior college journal, volume 38 (1967), by American Association of Junior Colleges, Stanford University.
Context: My view is this: We teach nothing. We do not teach physics nor do we teach students. (I take physics merely as an example.) What is the same thing: No one is taught anything! Here lies the folly of this business. We try to teach somebody nothing. This is a sorry endeavour for no one can be taught a thing.
What we do, if we are successful, is to stir interest in the matter at hand, awaken enthusiasm for it, arouse a curiosity, kindle a feeling, fire up the imagination. To my own teachers who handled me in this way, I owe a great and lasting debt.

Feeling, Imagination, Success

“He wants to do the right thing but has none of the tools to achieve it. Because he has no curiosity, he doesn't like to read and he won't listen anybody, except the voices in his head.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

On his character in The Colbert Report in an interview on Larry King Live (11 October 2007) http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/ Context: We worked very hard to keep him from being a jerk by keeping in mind he's well intentioned. Just poorly informed. He wants to do the right thing but has none of the tools to achieve it. Because he has no curiosity, he doesn't like to read and he won't listen anybody, except the voices in his head.

Reading

“Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections.”

Daniel Boone (1734–1820) American settler

As quoted in the opening lines of "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon; containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucke" in The Discovery, Settlement And present State of Kentucke (1784) http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/3/ by John Filson Context: Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven.

Soul, Nature

“Of course, we had no idea whatever that this would one day be applied to make hydrogen bombs. Our curiosity was just curiosity about the structure of the nucleus of the atom, and the discovery of these reactions was purely, as the Americans would put it, coincidental.”

Mark Oliphant (1901–2000) Governor of South Australia (1971-76)

On his research on atomic nuclei with Ernest Rutherford, p. 24
Portraits in Science interviews (1994)
Context: We were able to discover two new kinds of atomic species, one was hydrogen of mass 3, unknown until that time, and the other helium of mass 3, also unknown. … We were able to show that heavy hydrogen nuclei, that is to say the cores of heavy hydrogen atoms, could be made to react with one another to produce a good deal of energy and new kinds of atom. …Of course, we had no idea whatever that this would one day be applied to make hydrogen bombs. Our curiosity was just curiosity about the structure of the nucleus of the atom, and the discovery of these reactions was purely, as the Americans would put it, coincidental.

Idea

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Dedication address upon installing 32 solar panels on the roof of the White House (20 June 1979), as quoted in "Where Did the Carter White House's Solar Panels Go?" by David Biello, in Scientific American (6 August 2010) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/. The solar panels would later removed by Ronald Reagan and some eventually were displayed in museums, including the Smithsonian Institute, and the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China. Presidency (1977–1981) Context: In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy…. A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.

People, Parting

“Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry.”

John Paul Stevens (1920–2019) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Fear, Art, Motivation, Idea

“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.”

George Adamski (1891–1965) American ufologist

Inside the Spaceships

Truth, Personality

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Ch. 10 : Research, p. 143

Secret, World

“Death in your eyes, Earthman. Nothing in your mind but murder. Can that brain of yours comprehend nothing but battle? Is there no curiosity there? Have you no wonder of why I brought you here? Death awaits you, yes. But a not unpleasant death, and it awaits all, in one form or another. Listen, let me tell you—I have reason for desiring to break through that animal shell of self-defense that seals in your mind. Let me look deeper—if there are depths. Your death will be—useful, and in a way, pleasant. Otherwise—well, the black beasts hunger. And flesh must feed them, as a sweeter drink feeds me...Listen.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Black Thirst (1934); p. 63
Short fiction, Northwest of Earth (1954)

Death, Hunger, Way, Drink

“Experience each moment as if it were the first sensation of its kind ever. Bring childlike interest and curiosity to your present-time experience.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

Against the Stream (2007)

Time

“I try to root the language of my poetry in kindness, forgiveness, compassion and curiosity, that is the way I want to live, but of course that’s not to say anger and resentment and envy and other difficult emotions don’t make a noise in my work…”

Raymond Antrobus (1986)

On his preferred themes in “Deaf poetics: Conversation with Raymond Antrobus" https://poetryinternationalonline.com/conversation-with-raymond-antrobus/ (Poetry International; 2018 Oct 11)

Making love, Way, Forgiveness, Envy

“There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely.”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Introduction p. 8.
Initiation Into Hermetics (1956)

Wisdom, People, Truth, Books

“Jurek had a feature rarely seen in an older adult – an unrestrained, almost childish curiosity of the world that fueled his activity in everyday life and did not allow him to age mentally. He liked to be on the move all the time, to go on trips, so as not to sit idle.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Irena Nalepa, a psychopharmacologist and long-time collaborator of Jerzy Vetulani. Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017). O mentorze, przyjacielu i niepokornym wirtuozie naukowej narracji http://kosmos.icm.edu.pl/PDF/2018/233.pdf (in Polish), Kosmos, 67 (2), s. 233–244, 2018.

Life, Age, World, Time

“One can but look forward to the day when the matters discussed here by Bourne, Dos Passos, and Grieg are looked back upon as nothing but the curiosities and horrors of a pre-civilized society.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

Chaz Bufe, "Publisher's Notes" (December 1997) in Randolph Bourne's The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 6.

“Cognition is autonomous; it refuses to have any answers foisted on it from the outside. Yet it suffers without protest having certain questions prescribed to it from the outside (and it is here that my heresy regarding the unwritten law of the university originates). Not every question seems to me worth asking. Scientific curiosity and omnivorous aesthetic appetite mean equally little to me today, though I was once under the spell of both, particularly the latter. Now I only inquire when I find myself inquired of.”

Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) Jewish theologian and philosopher

Inquired of, that is, by men rather than by scholars. There is a man in each scholar, a man who inquires and stands in need of answers. I am anxious to answer the scholar qua man but not the representative of a certain discipline, that insatiable, ever inquisitive phantom which like a vampire drains whom it possesses of his humanity.
in Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (1961/1998), p. 97

Law, Question, Suffering, Universe

“When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message: If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs.”

David Ogilvy (1911–1999) Advertising executive

But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.
Ogilvy on Advertising, p. 47

People

“He thought human life a poor thing at best, after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by. This was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it may be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but when he did, it was with an air of settled and profound conviction. He would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/48/mode/1up p. 48

Life, Youth, Education, Personality

“I challenge you, instead of asking with an attitude of doubt, “If the Universe or God loved me, why would this bad thing have happened or be happening?” ask with an attitude of curiosity “Assuming the Universe or God loves me, why did this thing happen or why is it happening?””

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Love, God, Bad luck, Making love

“He wasn’t a man who reined in his curiosity well.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 47 (p. 476)

“"God is just and punishes us; that is all we need to know; as far as we are concerned the rest is merely curiosity." Such was the conclusion of Lamennais (Essai, etc., partie, chap. vii.), an opinion shared by many others. Calvin also held the same view. But is there anyone content with this? Pure curiosity!”

Miguel de Unamuno book The Tragic Sense of Life

to call this load that well nigh crushes our heart pure curiosity!
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis

God

“If necessity is the mother of invention, curiosity is the father. After all, you cannot produce something interesting if you are not interested in something. Outputs need inputs.”

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

Think Like an Artist (2015)

“Curiosity can be called a virtue or a vice, depending on what kind of elementary ethics one reads; in our house at Brekkukot, curiosity was considered on a par with thievishness.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Reading, Housing, Dependency

“We're all born with curiosity, but at some point, school usually manages to knock that out of us. ...[M]y main responsibility as a teacher isn't to convey facts, but to rekindle that lost enthusiasm for asking questions.”

Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)

School, Question, Teachers

“Curiosity is the will to experiment creativity.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

From the Aphorisms http://www.prevale.net/aphorisms.html page of the official website of Prevale Original: (it) La curiosità è la volontà di sperimentare creatività. Source: prevale.net

“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) 2021

Making love, Knowledge

“Building a personal brand requires curiosity, persistence, and consistency.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Personality

“Incomplete stories are make history of life. Their incompleteness makes them complete and generates curiosity in the readers, if the story is complete then it is read and kept aside, the incomplete story leaves its mark on the heart and mind of the reader and reader's start waiting for the end.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Life, History, Waiting, Reading

“One form of insanity bears the name curiosity.”

Charles Sheffield book Convergence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Convergence (1997), Chapter 18 (p. 433)

“People will always believe in something, without proof, just to feed their curiosity.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People

“An animal doesn’t need to develop curiosity and intelligence if it has no problems that need solving.”

Robert L. Forward book Dragon's Egg

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 1, “Prologue” Section 4 (p. 7)

Intelligence, Problem, Animals

“Growing older gracefully means having a keen curiosity about learning things about the world that you didn’t know yesterday, no matter how many yesterdays you've had.”

Padma Lakshmi (1970) Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer

Source: "Padma Lakshmi, 51, Shares Her Top Tip for ‘Growing Older Gracefully’" in Prevention https://www.prevention.com/beauty/a38151329/padma-lakshmi-aging-tip/ (4 November 2021)

World, Learning