Curiosity Quotes - Page 36

• Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties. He who easily comprehends all that is before him, and soon exhausts any single subject, is always eager for new inquiries; and in proportion as the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety, by more rapid flights and bolder excursions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Passion, Eye, Intellectual

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: with Murphy's essay”, p.135

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• Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Desire, Pleasure

  Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1787). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, to which are Now Added, Biographical Anecdotes of the Doctor, Selected from the Late Productions of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Boswell, ...”, p.54

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• I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of mind set upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriage taught others the way to success.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Miscarriage, Necessary Use

  Samuel Johnson (1889). “Select Essays”

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• But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Mean, Mislead Us

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1792). “The rambler”, p.233

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• Those who have past much of their lives in this great city, look upon its opulence and its multitudes, its extent and variety, with cold indifference; but an inhabitant of the remoter parts of the kingdom is immediately distinguished by a kind of dissipated curiosity, a busy endeavour to divide his attention amongst a thousand objects, and a wild confusion of astonishment and alarm.

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Cities, Confusion

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.41

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• Curiosity is more flexible and practical than belief.

  Steve Pavlina

  Belief, Practicals, Flexible

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• And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric.

  Samuel Beckett

  Knowledge, Thinking, Needs

  Samuel Beckett (2009). “Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable”, p.288, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• While we are born with curiosity and wonder and our early years full of the adventure they bring, I know such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind.

  Sigurd F. Olson

  Adventure, Flames, Years

  Sigurd F Olson (2012). “LISTENING POINT”, p.10, Knopf

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• I have no problem with religion, and I grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journey. Before my recovery began, I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter.

  Eric Clapton

  Music, Spiritual, Art

  Eric Clapton (2007). “Clapton: The Autobiography”, Broadway

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• I am not myself; I am the potential of myself.

  Anna Deavere Smith

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• To decide upon the answer is not scientific. In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar ajar only.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Science, Doors, Decide Upon

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• ...it's the process of losing oneself in the jungle that makes science worth doing.

  Joao Magueijo

  Science, Losing, Physics

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• Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I.

  William Oldys

  Alcohol, Busy, Drink

  William Oldys, “On A Fly Drinking Out Of His Cup”

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• ... indeed, what reason may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants, and spiders? What wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us? Ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, whales, elephants, dromedaries, and camels; these, I confess, are the colossuses and majestick pieces of her hand; but in these narrow engines there is more curious mathematieks; and the civility of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of their Maker.

  Thomas Browne

  Wise, Nature, Hands

  "Sir Thomas Browne's Works: Including His Life and Correspondence".

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• I now want to tell three stories about advances in twentieth-century physics. A curious fact emerges in these tales: time and again physicists have been guided by their sense of beauty not only in developing new theories but even in judging the validity of physical theories once they are developed. Simplicity is part of what I mean by beauty, but it is a simplicity of ideas, not simplicity of a mechanical sort that can be measured by counting equations or symbols.

  Steven Weinberg

  Beauty, Art, Mean

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• As Tammie glow'red, amazed and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.

  Robert Burns

  Fun, Red, Mirth

  "Tam o' Shanter" l. 143 (1791)

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• The curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness.

  Robert Browning

  Flower, Wickedness, Crime

  Robert Browning, Ian Jack, Margaret Smith, Rowena Fowler (2004). “The Poetical Works of Robert Browning”, p.122, Oxford University Press

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• We're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live.

  Richard Bach

  Love, Fun, Learning

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• Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Pain, Pleasure

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Self-Reliance and Other Essays”, p.42, Courier Corporation

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• Oh, the world's a curious compound, with its honey and its gall, With its cares and bitter crosses, but a good world after all. And a good God must have made it-leastways, that is what I say, When a hand is on my shoulder in a friendly sort of way.

  James Whitcomb Riley

  Hands, Friendly, World

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• At last some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Baalbec and Palmyra.

  Horace Walpole

  Giving, Lasts, Ruins

  Letter to Horace Mann, 24 Nov. 1774 See Macaulay 9

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• An idea is a curious thing. It will not work unless you do.

  Hannah Whitall Smith

  Work, Ideas, Action

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• I am a sort of collector of religions: and the curious thing is that I find I can believe in them all.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Believe, Religion, Belief

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.2317, e-artnow

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• An educated man must have a "curiosity in exploring the unfamiliar and unexpected, an open-mindedness in entertaining opposing points of view, tolerance for the ambiguity that surrounds so many important issues, and a willingness to make the best decisions he can in the face of uncertainty and doubt".

  Derek Bok

  Men, Views, Issues

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• With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.

  Charles Churchill

  Art, Brain, Curious

  Charles Churchill, William Tooke (1844). “The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill”, p.252, London : W. Pickering

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