Curiosity Quotes - Page 23

• I have always lived with the awareness of the impossibility of living. And what has made existence endurable to me is my curiosity as to how I would get from one minute, one day, one year to the next.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Years, One Day, Next

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• A god who gave us everything we wanted would be the most malevolent god of all. With an infantile curiosity, we insist on tasting the cockroach on the floor while our father is preparing a magnificent feast for us.

  Criss Jami

  Father, Cockroaches, Would Be

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.9, Criss Jami

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• He [the "specialist"] is one who, out of all that has to be known in order to be a man of judgment, is only acquainted with one science, and even of that one only knows the small corner in which he is an active investigator. He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Lying, Men, Order

  "The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel". Book by Jose Ortega y Gasset, chapter XII: The Barbarism Of "Specialisation", 1925.

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• I have always thought that clarity is a form of courtesy that the philosopher owes; moreover, this discipline of ours considers it more truly a matter of honor today than ever before to be open to all minds ... This is different from the individual sciences which increasingly [interpose] between the treasure of their discoveries and the curiosity of the profane the tremendous dragon of their closed terminology.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Discovery, Dragons, Discipline

  "What is Philosophy?". Book by Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1964.

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• Curiosity, which may or may not eventuate in something useful, is probably the most outstanding characteristic of modern thinking ... Institutions of learning should be devoted to the cultivation of curiosity, and the less they are deflected by the consideration of immediacy of application, the more likely they are to contribute not only to human welfare, but to the equally important satisfaction of intellectual interest, which may indeed be said to have become the ruling passion of intellectual life in modern times.

  Abraham Flexner

  Passion, Thinking, Intellectual

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• Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Country, Home, Heart

  Oliver Goldsmith (1854). “The works of Oliver Goldsmith. 2: Enquiry into the present state of polite learning; The citizen of the world”, p.106

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• Our culture is obsessed with youth because we have lost the ancient knowledge that growth never stops. We are not transient, momentary mistakes in
  the cosmos- evolutionary curiosities that rise like mayflies, swarm for a day, and are gone. We are players who are here to stay, and the universe was built with us in mind. We reflect it, with our deepest loves and loftiest aspirations, just as it reflects us.

  Eben Alexander

  Mistake, Player, Mind

  Eben Alexander (2014). “The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife”, p.113, Simon and Schuster

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• Unfortunately, the only recognized relics of yesterday's farmers are obsolete curiosities when the greatest relic, their philosophy of living, is seldom considered.

  Eric Sloane

  Philosophy, Yesterday, Obsolete

  Eric Sloane (2004). “Our Vanishing Landscape”, p.15, Courier Corporation

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• Perhaps I am just a hopeless rationalist, but isn't fascination as comforting as solace? Isn't nature immeasurably more interesting for its complexities and its lack of conformity to our hopes? Isn't curiosity as wondrously and fundamentally human as compassion?

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Nature, Compassion, Interesting

  "Eight Little Piggies". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "Tires to sandals", 1993.

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• The pain of sexual frustration, of repressed tenderness, of denied curiosity, of isolation in the ego, of greed, suppressed rebellion, of hatred poisoning all love and generosity, permeates our sexuality. What we love we destroy.

  Germaine Greer

  Pain, Frustration, Generosity

  Germaine Greer (1990). “The Madwoman's Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings”, p.57, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

  Karl Kraus

  Erotic, Meals, Dessert

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• A bright eye indicates curiosity; a black eye, too much.

  Evan Esar

  Eye, Black, Too Much

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• What conservation education must build is an ethical underpinning for land economics and a universal curiosity to understand the land mechanism. Conservation may then follow.

  Aldo Leopold

  Land, May, Conservation

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.114, Oxford University Press

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• The apartments of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: a conglomeration of classical antiquity, gothic, renaissance; Louis XIII... Something from every century but our own, a predicament that has arisen in no other period... so that we seem to be subsisting on the ruins of the past, as if the end of the world were near.

  Alfred de Musset

  Past, World, Renaissance

  "Confession d'un Enfant du Siécle". Book by Alfred de Musset, 1836.

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• There are dons who care for the intellect and the imagination, and there are priests who care for the spirit; but broadly speaking the function of universities and churches alike is to trim and tame enthusiasm, to suppress curiosity, and, in short, to whittle immortal souls into serviceable props of the established order.

  Hugh Kingsmill

  Order, Imagination, Soul

  Hugh Kingsmill (1949). “The Progress of a Biographer”

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• I'm an actor, and part of my joy and my curiosity about the job that I do, is that actors have the privilege of exploring human nature in different ways.

  Tom Hiddleston

  Jobs, Joy, Different

  "Marvel Avengers Assemble - Tom Hiddleston interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• I always wanted to see what America was like. I had that curiosity in my 20s when I was working in the theatre here [ in London]... there was the mystery of LA and I wondered what happened over there. I wanted to go and check it out and I'm pleased that I have.

  Tom Hiddleston

  America, Theatre, London

  "Marvel Avengers Assemble - Tom Hiddleston interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• China is an old nation with a colourful history. Its booming economy has triggered an appetite and a curiosity around the world for its art and culture, one that continues to grow. I can, however, tell people that it is a show with no actor.

  Ai Weiwei

  Art, People, Actors

  "Ai Weiwei: 'China's Art World Does Not Exist'". www.theguardian.com. September 10, 2012.

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• With respect to the development of powers devoted to coping with specific scientific and economic problems we may say that the child should be growing in manhood. With respect to sympathetic curiosity, unbiased responsiveness, and openness of mind, we may say that the adult should be growing in childlikeness.

  John Dewey

  Children, Mind, Development

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.41, 谷月社

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• My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living skeleton were interesting for the same reason as was Creatore, or the resplendent Guardsmen of the bands - because such people did not often come my way, and I hoped that they might impart some great revelation to me, some insight which would help me to a clearer understanding of the world about me.

  Robertson Davies

  Skeletons, Interesting, People

  "I Remember Creatore". Essay by Robertson Davies, 1948.

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• Energy and curiosity are the lifeblood of universities; the desire to find out, to uncover, to dig deeper, to puzzle out obscurities, is the spirit of the university, and it is a channelling of that unresting curiosity that holds mankind together.

  Robertson Davies

  Desire, Together, Obscurity

  Robertson Davies (1992). “The Cornish Trilogy”, Penguin Group USA

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• 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.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Hero, Thinking, Mind

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• True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks , one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller , usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature, and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity. Do not the one in fifty deserve their institutions as well magic places, like cabinet museums, that can spark the rare flames of genius?

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lonely, Children, Museums

  Stephen Jay Gould (1995). “Dinosaur in a haystack: reflections in natural history”, Harmony

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• Avoid all refined speculations; confine yourself to simple reflections, and recur to them frequently. Those who pass too rapidly from one truth to another feed their curiosity and restlessness; they even distract their intellect with too great a multiplicity of views. Give every truth time to send down deep root into the heart.

  Francois Fenelon

  Heart, Reflection, Simple

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• The slaving Poor are incapable of any Principles: Gentlemen may be converted to true Principles, by Time and Experience. The middling Rank of Men have Curiosity and Knowledge enough to form Principles, but not enough to form true ones, or correct any Prejudices that they may have imbib'd: And 'tis among the middling Rank, that Tory Principles do at present prevail most in England.

  David Hume

  Men, Gentleman, Principles

  David Hume (1826). “The philosophical works of David Hume”, p.80

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