Curiosity

"You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers."

If our knowledge is, as I believe, only an island in an infinite sea of ignorance, how can we in our short lifetime find satisfaction in exploring our little island? How can we persuade ourselves to be exhilarated by our meager knowledge and yet not be discouraged by the ocean vistas?

I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.

But whoever is a genuine follower of Truth, keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader.

A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist; it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.

In our time, what is at issue is the very nature of man, the image we have of his limits and possibilities as a man. History is not yet done with its exploration of the limits and meanings of 'human nature.

The mind is the man, and knowledge mind; a man is but what he knoweth.

"Of course, let us have peace," we cry, "but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties ... "

There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison, and death in its wake.

If you stop and confine yourself to one place, you will develop prejudices.

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.

Businessmen go down with their businesses because they like the old way so well they cannot change.

Few minds wear out; more rust out.

To be able to be caught up into the world of thought - that is educated.

Dullard: someone who looks up a thing in the encyclopedia, turns directly to the entry, reads it, and then closes the book.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!), but "that's funny..."

Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing.

Curiosity is thought on its entering edge.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.

 Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.

A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education.

As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.

Wonder implies the desire to learn.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

To know how to wonder and question is the first step of the mind toward discovery.

 Asking the proper question is the central act of transformation!

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