Quotes About Curiosity

I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant.

Education should have two objects: first, to give definite knowledge—reading and writing, languages and mathematics, and so on; secondly, to create those mental habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgments for themselves.

It is quite impossible to guess in advance what will interest a man, but most men are capable of a keen interest in something or other, and when once such an interest has been aroused their life becomes free from tedium.

In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics.

William James used to preach the 'will to believe.' For my part, I should wish to preach the 'will to doubt' ... what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Galileo and Kepler had dangerous thoughts (as they are called in Japan), and so have the most intelligent men of our own day.

When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.

The affection of parents makes infants feel safe in this dangerous world, and gives them boldness in experimentation and in exploration of their environments.

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves.

Why do people read? The answer, as regards the great majority, is: 'They don't.

Rahasia kebahagiaan adalah, biarkan minat anda berkembang seluas mungkin. Dan biarkan reaksi anda pada orang-orang dan benda-benda yang menarik perhatian anda bersifat bersahabat, bukan memusuhi.

Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

Il mondo non ha bisogno di dogmi, ha bisogno di libera ricerca.

Querría ver un mundo en el que la educación tendiese a la libertad mental en lugar de encerrar la mente de la juventud en la rígida armadura del dogma, calculado para protegerla durante toda su vida contra los dardos de la prueba imparcial.

To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.

This seems plainly absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities. One

To such a man [without philosophy] the world tends to become definite, finite, and obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected.

Ich hätte gern eine Welt, in der das Ziel der Erziehung geistige Freiheit wäre und nicht darin bestünde, den Geist der Jugend in eine Rüstung zu zwängen, die ihn das ganze Leben lang vor den Pfeilen objektiver Beweise schützen soll. Die Welt braucht offene Herzen und geistige Aufgeschlossenheit, und das erreichen wir nicht durch starre Systeme, mögen sie nun alt oder neu sein.