Quotes About Curiosity

The lure of seeing new places, different ways of life, has been almost irresistible.

Above all, Leonardo's relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.

If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.

Leonardo had almost no schooling and could barely read Latin or do long division. His genius was of the type we can understand, even take lessons from. It was based on skills we can aspire to improve in ourselves, such as curiosity and intense observation. He had an imagination so excitable that it flirted with the edges of fantasy, which is also something we can try to preserve in ourselves and indulge in our children.

But I did learn from Leonardo how a desire to marvel about the world that we encounter each day can make each moment of our lives richer.

His lack of reverence for authority and his willingness to challenge received wisdom would lead him to craft an empirical approach for understanding nature that foreshadowed the scientific method developed more than a century later by Bacon and Galileo. His method was rooted in experiment, curiosity, and the ability to marvel at phenomena that the rest of us rarely pause to ponder after we've outgrown our wonder years.

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom

Leonardo da Vinci liked to boast that, because he was not formally educated, he had to learn from his own experiences instead

Leonardo's relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.

So did Einstein, who wrote to another friend, "You and I never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born."5 We should be careful to never outgrow our wonder years, or to let our children do so.

That goes a step too far, I think. Leonardo did not invent the scientific method, nor did Aristotle or Alhazen or Galileo or any Bacon. But his uncanny abilities to engage in the dialogue between experience and theory made him a prime example of how acute observations, fanatic curiosity, experimental testing, a willingness to question dogma, and the ability to discern patterns across disciplines can lead to great leaps in human understanding.

He showed me the rudiments of electronics, and I got very interested in that." Even more interesting were the trips to scavenge for parts.

Seek knowledge for its own sake. Not all knowledge needs to be useful. Sometimes it should be pursued for pure pleasure. Leonardo did not need to know how heart valves work to paint the Mona Lisa, nor did he need to figure out how fossils got to the top of mountains to produce Virgin of the Rocks. By allowing himself to be driven by pure curiosity, he got to explore more horizons and see more connections than anyone else of his era.

He had an imagination so excitable that it flirted with the edges of fantasy, which is also something we can try to preserve in ourselves and indulge in our children.

I think my blunt and contrary nature helps my science, because I don't simply accept things just because other people believe it

Now kids get a MacBook and regard it as an appliance. They treat it like a refrigerator and expect it to be filled with good things, but they don't know how it works. They don't fully understand what I knew, and my parents knew, which was what you could do with a computer was limited only by your imagination."8

Growing up, I got inspired by the history of the place," Jobs said.

I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that's what I wanted to do.

macrocosm analogy began with his curiosity about why water, which should in theory tend to settle on the earth's surface, emerges from springs and flows into rivers at the top of mountains. The veins of the earth, he wrote, carry "the blood that keeps the mountains alive.

The skeptical Silberstein came up to Eddington and said that people believed that only three scientists in the world understood general relativity. He had been told that Eddington was one of them. The shy Quaker said nothing. "Don't be so modest, Eddington!" said Silberstein. Replied Eddington, "On the contrary. I'm just wondering who the third might be."30

We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

Great inventions come from understanding basic science. Nature is beautiful that way.

service, which would relay messages to his mother. Ron Wayne drew a logo, using the ornate line-drawing style of Victorian illustrated fiction, that featured Newton sitting under a tree framed by a quote from Wordsworth: "A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone." It was a rather odd motto, one that fit Wayne's self-image more than Apple Computer. Perhaps

l'immaginazione è più importante della conoscenza.