Quotes About Curiosity

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything, closes the door to finding out what's really there.

Robots are important also. If I don my pure-scientist hat, I would say just send robots; I'll stay down here and get the data. But nobody's ever given a parade for a robot. Nobody's ever named a high school after a robot. So when I don my public-educator hat, I have to recognize the elements of exploration that excite people. It's not only the discoveries and the beautiful photos that come down from the heavens; it's the vicarious participation in discovery itself.

There's no shame in admitting what you don't know. The only shame is pretending you know all the answers.

Still, our knowledge of the planets was meager, and where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination.

Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist.

The cosmic perspective opens our minds to extraordinary ideas but does not leave them so open that our brains spill out, making us susceptible to believing anything we're told. The

True science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.

And behold the greatest mystery of them all: an unopened can of diet Pepsi floats in water while an unopened can of regular Pepsi sinks.

Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science. —EDWIN P. HUBBLE (1889–1953), The Nature of Science

As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance.

Science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.

the only people who should have their head examined are those who never ask questions.

I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard—explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species.

Everyone should have their mind blown once a day.

To declare that Earth must be the only planet in the universe with life would be inexcusably big-headed of us.

If I live a day and I don't know a little more than I did the day before, I think I wasted that day.

If all mass has gravity, does all gravity have mass? We don't know.

What are the chances that this first and only smart species in the history of life on Earth has enough smarts to completely figure out how the universe works? Chimpanzees

While most branches of science have ascended in this era, the field of astrophysics persistently rises to the top. I think I know why. At one time or another every one of us has looked up at the night sky and wondered: What does it all mean? How does it all work? And, what is my place in the universe?

exploration is hardly ever motivated by the desire to explore. Part the curtains of curiosity, and you'll find individuals hungry for political, cultural, or economic dominion funding the expedition.

Explore the universe for what it is, rather than for what it seems.

I do not know what I appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on a seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me. (Brewster 1860, p. 331)

Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.

You can not become a scientist if you require that every question has an answer because its the very questions that have no answer that attract you to a laboratory every single day.