Quotes About Curiosity

The first thinker was, without a doubt, the first man obsessed by why. An unaccustomed mania, not at all contagious: rare indeed are those who suffer from it, who are a prey to questioning, and who can accept no given because they were born in consternation.

The most effective way to avoid dejection, motivated or gratuitous, is to take a dictionary, preferably of a language you scarcely know, and to look up word after word in it, making sure they are the kind you will never use.

The first thinker was, without a doubt, the first man obsessed by why. An unaccustomed mania, not at all contagious: rare indeed are those who suffer from it

Every anomaly seduces us, Life in the first place, that anomaly par excellence.

I am stirred, even overwhelmed each time I happen upon an innocent person. Where does he come from? What is he after? Doesn't such an apparition herald some disaster? It is a very special disturbance we suffer in the presence of someone there is no way of calling our kind.

A civilization develops from agriculture to the paradox. Between these two extremities occurs the struggle between barbarism and neurosis: resulting in the unstable equilibrium of creative epochs. This struggle is reaching its end: All horizons are opening without any being able to excite a curiosity at once weary and awakened. It is then up to the disabused individual to flourish in the void, up to the intellectual vampire to lap up the tainted blood of civilizations.

We are enriched only by frequenting disciplines remote from our own.

When there is no other aim but to outstrip constantly the point arrived at, how painful to be thrown back!...Since imagination is hungry for novelty, and ungoverned, it gropes at random

The willingness to keep learning is, I think, the most important thing about trying to be good at anything. You never want to stop learning.

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

As long as one remains curious, one makes progress; it is when you think you know everything that you are actually out of date.

Although I don't know much about anything, I know that I have a story. I know that it is not over. There are shades and shadows of adventures and people and wild new places. Whatever Paris might turn out to be, and whatever Dr. Epstein is able to do, I want to be there to find out.

Have you seen this cat?

I like a good murder that can't be found out. That is, of course it is very shocking, but I like to hear about it.

I like to see it lap the Miles—And lick the Valleys up—

A narrow Fellow in the GrassOccasionally rides—

Some inquire from genuine love of knowledge, or from a real wish to improve what they ask about; others to see their name in the papers.

I don't think that loneliness is necessarily a bad or unconstructive condition. My own skill at jamming time may actually be dependent on some fluid mixture of emotions, among them curiosity, sexual desire, and love, all suspended in a solvent medium of loneliness.

Why are things beautiful? I don't know. That's a good question. Isn't it pleasing when you ask a question of a person, a teacher, or a speaker, and he or she says, That's a good question? Don't you feel good when that happens?

Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford.

I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.

Scientific curiosity hungers for a knowledge of causes; causes which are physical, and, if possible, measurable.

What at first was the delight of nations declines by slow but inevitable gradation into the luxury, or the business, or even the vanity of a few. What once spoke in accents understood by all is now painfully spelt out by a small band of scholars. What was once read for pleasure is now read for curiosity. It becomes "an interesting illustration of the taste of a bygone age," a "remarkable proof of such and such a theory of aesthetics."

Sadly, crime is the only spur that rouses us. We're fascinated by that "other world" where everything is possible.