Curiosity Quotes

The life-changing encounters that John Quincy Adams made as an adolescent on his own in Stockholm began with a friendship he struck up at a bookstore.

~ Paul C. Nagel

The commonplace books of the old Puritans were invaluable to them. They would never have been able to compile such works as they did if they had not been careful in collecting and arranging their matter under different heads.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

God has made all things that are in the world to be our teachers.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

One of the peculiar children's perspective out of time allows him to take minute interest in every resident of the town and to chronicle everything we did for the entire day he lives over and over.

~ Ransom Riggs

Watch for subjects as you go but the city or the country. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you will hear and see angels.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Be interested yourself, and you will interest others.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When you don't have a job (requiring reading) and you are doing your own reading you've got deep psychological questions. As deep as those of a little boy.

~ Joseph Campbell

Reading what you want, and having one book lead to the next, is the way I found my discipline.

~ Joseph Campbell

Curiosity lies in a hidden corner of the scientific mind.

~ Eraldo Banovac

You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

~ Thomas L. Friedman

A Nobel Prize winner was asked how he became a scientist. He said that every day after school, his mother would ask him not what he learned but whether he asked a good question today. That, he said, was how he became a scientist.

~ Thomas L. Friedman

College is about exposing students to many things and creating an aphrodisiac atmosphere so that they might fall in lifelong love with a few.

~ David Brooks

If life were fattening, Walter Cronkite would weigh 500 pounds.

~ Douglas Brinkley

Theology must have the character of a living procession.

~ Karl Barth

The childish urge to understand everything doesn't necessarily fade when the time approaches for you to do the most adult thing of all: vanish.

~ Clive James

On a medical school professor noted for slowly, carefully interviewing the patient: He taught the love of truth.

~ David Mccullough

Guyal of Sfere had been born one apart from his fellows and early proved a source of vexation for his sire. Normal in outward configuration, there existed within his mind a void that ached for nourishment. It was as if a spell had been cast upon his birth, a harassment visited on the child in a spirit of sardonic mockery, so that every occurrence, no matter how trifling, became a source of wonder and amazement. Even as young as four he was expounding such inquiries as: ‘Why do squares have more sides than triangles?’‘How will we see when the sun goes dark?’‘Do flowers grow under the ocean?’‘Do stars hiss and sizzle when rain comes by night?

~ Jack Vance

Nature answers every question.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Elliston thought consistency less important than vitality and intelligence and passion.

~ David Halberstam

Remind yourself daily to spend more time being interested then interesting.

~ Jason Jennings

It was a wonderful combination for a reporter, the exterior so comforting, the interior so driven.

~ David Halberstam

He took the trolley instead of the bus because it was smoother and he could read on it.

~ Robert A. Caro

Goldwater's approach to any political problem invariably derived from the evidence of his own eyes.

~ Rick Perlstein

Children live life as a controlled experiment.

~ Jennifer Senior

All writers begin as readers, and the ones worth reading continue life as more prolific readers than writers.

~ Thomas Swick

Curiosity is the primary fuel that drives lifelong education.

~ Dhaval Gajera

Absence of questions is not proof of answers.

~ Sweety Shinde

Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table.

~ C.s. Lewis

Those that see too much quickly find themselves seeing nothing at all.

~ Jasper Fforde

Ten minutes later, I chance a second look. They say curiosity killed the cat. I wonder what that cat was looking at, and was it as interesting as this?

~ Sheena Hutchinson

Berg was proud of his storytelling to the point where he collected stories about telling stories.

~ Nicholas Dawidoff

Curiosity is a descending stair…that leads to only who-knows-where.

~ Jasper Fforde

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

~ Walt Disney Company

If we watch the interactions between human beings, we will receive a graduate-level education.

~ Richard J. Foster

A popular perception that political news is boring is no minor issue; for when news fails to harness the curiosity and attention of a mass audience through its presentational techniques, a society becomes dangerously unable to grapple with its own dilemmas and therefore to marshal the popular will to change and improve itself.

~ Alain De Botton

Important insights ought never to be limited to the group from which may arise.

~ Richard J. Foster

Curiosity also makes a great student.

~ Gemma Malley

She was never satisfied with anything less than perfection, but she was no grind. She was too interested in people.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Whereas Taft discouraged the young Yale student from extracurricular reading, fearful it would detract from required courses, Roosevelt read widely yet managed to stand near the top of his class. The breath of his numerous interests allowed him to draw on knowledge across various disciplines, from zoology in philosophy and religion, from poetry and drama to history and politics.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Why bother with fictional characters and plots when the world was full of more marvelous stories that were true, with characters so fresh, so powerful, so new, that they stepped from into the narratives under their own power?

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin