Quotes About Curiosity

A library is not to be read completely, but to be consulted. Here there are books which are around just in case. I have read all my life, but there are many things about which I know nothing. What's important is not to have everything in one's head but to know where to find it. The difference between someone who's vain and someone who's wise is that the vain man only appreciates what he already knows, and the wise man searches for what he doesn't yet know.

People are torn between the pathetic safety of not knowing, and the desire to know.

There are many countries where you can only believe more or you can believe less. But in the United States we have this incredible smorgasbord, and it really interests me why people are drawn to one faith rather than another, especially to a system of belief that to an outsider seems absurd or dangerous.

No man had ever heard a nightingale, When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define -- what is a bird.

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.

Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them.

If I had to pick a hero, it would be Charles Darwin--the size of his mind, which included all that scientific curiosity and knowledge seeking, and the ability to put it all together. There is a genuine spirituality about Darwin's thinking.

Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed.

We sleep researchers like cats, you know; they sleep a lot!

Every healthy person hungers. To know things for himself. Form his own questions, test his own ideas. Funny how a person's own family is often the first to punish him for that.

We will all satisfy our curiosity when we can, which is any time we think no one will catch us.

everything he learned about products he learned from Heathkits as a kid. Heathkits were popular kits for building electronics like ham radios, amplifiers, and oscillators. The kits taught Jobs that products were manifestations of human ingenuity, not magical objects dropped from the sky.

being excited about being wrong because that means you've discovered something new.

it's in those early stages when you're still very open to exploration, that you find opportunities.

Intelligence is power; it is the flame behind the spark of intrigue. Find out all the facts and stamp out the fire. Demystify.

[Children are] like talking animals. Their consciousness is so different from ours that they constitute a different species. They don't have to be particularly interesting children; just the fact that they are children is sufficient. They don't know what anything is, so they have to make it up. No matter how dull they are, they still have to figure things out for themselves.

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west, And my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, And the voices of those who standing looking. Ooh, it makes me wonder, Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

Nurture an appetite for being puzzled, for being confused, indeed for being openly stupid, and that - despite what you may think - is very difficult...We all know the cliche' that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It is also true that a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing as well...use your ignorance as well as your knowledge for creative means.

No man living in a world as interesting as this ever writes a book if he can help it.

When America has been discovered in America it will be discovered in Europe. They are looking for America now.

Without hesitating, he said, "Can you tell me something? These animals that are just running around out here . . . they couldn't be wild, could they, or you wouldn't just have them running around loose?

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, an evasion simply muddles 'em.

It was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.