Last Updated: December 20, 2022 by Quote.cc Team
Curiosity is the ability to seek and acquire new knowledge, skills, and ways of understanding the world. It is at the heart of what motivates young people to learn and keeps them learning throughout their lives. Curiosity makes our minds stronger and brings excitement into our lives. The life of curious people is open to see new worlds and possibilities. They are more optimistic, happier and successful.
Being curious is the desire of a person to know something, which is a critical factor for learning. There are many things to learn from this world, and the more curious you become, the more potential knowledge you can acquire that can be useful to you on the items you want to accomplish. Curiosity, at its root, is the desire to learn. Learning more about our world helps us make decisions and ultimately even control our destiny. From the two-year-old incessantly inquiring, “Why?” to NASA launching a rover named Curiosity to Mars when something piques our curiosity, we can achieve beautiful things.
Here are 300 of the most legendary curiosity quotes I could find. These curiosity quotes will inspire you to learn more about the world around you. May these quotes about curiosity help you understand the importance of interest, make you try and discover new things, and learn from them. Share these quotes on curiosity with your friends, family, and loved ones to inspire them as well.
300 Curiosity Quotes
Top 10 Curiosity Quotes
“No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” – Golda Meir
“Curiosity is the hunger of the human mind.” – Rose Wilder Lane
“Curiosity is the essence of human existence. ‘Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?’… I don’t know. I don’t have any answers to those questions. I don’t know what’s over there around the corner. But I want to find out.” – Gene Cernan
“It’s sort of a mental attitude about critical thinking and curiosity. It’s about mindset of looking at the world in a playful and curious and creative way.” – Adam Savage
“Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all the deadly sins.” – Edith Wharton
“Curiosity is one of those insatiable passions that grow by gratification.” – Sarah Scott
“Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.” – Alain De Botton
“I have always had a sense of curiosity and aspiration.” – Waris Ahluwalia
“Genuine learning is impossible without curiosity.” – Naval Ravikant
What Is Curiosity?
“Curiosity is the superpower for the second half of our lives — it keeps us learning, it keeps us asking questions, and it increases our self-awareness.” – Brené Brown
“Curiosity is the engine of achievement.” – Ken Robinson
“Curiosity is more important than IQ.” – Ana Lorena Fabrega
“Curiosity is one of the most valuable characteristics one can possess. When coupled with fearlessness and determination, that’s freedom.”
“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.” – Samuel Johnson
“Curiosity is what keeps me open to a sense of hope. It staves off negativity.” – Carrie Brownstein
“Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.” – Richard Whately
“Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.” – Freya Stark
“Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.” – Victor Hugo
“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.” – Samuel Johnson
“Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.” – Blaise Pascal
“Curiosity is life.” – Mark Parker
“Curiosity is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Françoise Sagan
“Curiosity is innate, but smothered via socialization and distractions. Spend enough time alone and it will return.” – Naval Ravikant
“Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.” – Vladimir Nabokov
“Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.” – Arnold Edinborough
“Curiosity is the single most important attribute with which humans are born. More than a simple desire to discover or know things, curiosity is a powerful tool, like a scalpel or a searchlight. Curiosity changes us. It is also a way to effect change, perhaps even on a global level.” – Loren Rhoads
“Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.” – Bryant H. McGill
“Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.” – Michael Korda
“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” – William Arthur Ward
“Curiosity is the real teacher.” – Thibaut
“Curiosity is the fuel for discovery, inquiry, and learning.” – Anonymous
“Curiosity is a mind in search of knowledge.” – Thibaut
“Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.” – Blaise Pascal
“Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It’s accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.” – David McCullough
“Curiosity is a willing, a proud, and eager confession of ignorance.” – S. Leonard Rubinstein
“Curiosity is unruly. It doesn’t like rules, or, at least, it assumes that all rules are provisional, subject to the laceration of a smart question nobody has yet thought to ask. It disdains the approved pathways, preferring diversions, unplanned excursions, impulsive left turns. In short, curiosity is deviant.” – Ian Leslie
“Curiosity is essential for progress. Only when we look to worlds beyond our own can we really know if there’s room for improvement.” – Simon Sinek
“Curiosity is a muscle — use it or lose it. It’s something that we consciously have to nurture in ourselves, in our families, in classrooms, at work.” – Georgina Venning
“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.” – Thomas Hobbes
“Curiosity is more flexible and practical than belief.” – Steve Pavlina
“Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Famous Curiosity Quotes
“The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions.” – Bishop Mandell Creighton
“If you are curious, you’ll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.” – Erno Rubik
“Replace judgment with curiosity.” – Lynn Nottage
“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
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.” – Albert Einstein
“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” – Mae Jemison
“Take all the courses in your curriculum. Do the research. Ask questions. Find someone doing what you are interested in! Be curious!” – Katherine Johnson
“The whole art of teaching is the only art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; and curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contented and happy.” – Anatole France
“Be ambitious, but more than that, be inquisitive and curious. The day your curiosity dies, you may as well retire.” – Thibaut
“Enjoy every step you take. If you’re curious, there is always something new to be discovered in the backdrop of your daily life.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.” – John Burroughs
“Progress is born of doubt and inquiry.” – Robert G. Ingersoll
“Learning is the art of asking why until it all makes sense.”
“You can find a mentor; you have to ask questions, you have to show interest in what the other person is doing. You have to have curiosity, I think that people appreciate that and will want to help you.” – Nina Garcia
“I don’t know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” – Richard Feynman
“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.” – Anatole France
“I’m curious about other people. That’s the essence of my acting. I’m interested in what it would be like to be you.” – Meryl Streep
“Awaken the curiosity within you.” – ATGW
“I’m naturally curious, and I’ve always been driven by my curiosity. Curiosity gets people excited. Curiosity leads to new ideas, new jobs, new industries.” – Anne Sweeney
“There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.” – Enrico Fermi
“In modern society, most people have access to the same information. People are distinguished much more by the questions they ask than by the answers they have access to.” – James Pierce
“Don’t try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won’t live long enough to find out about, but I’m still curious about them. You know people who are already saying, ‘I’m going to be 30 – oh, what am I going to do?’ Well, use that decade! Use them all!” – Betty White
“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.” – James Stephens
“Exploration is curiosity put into action.” – Don Walsh
“Intelligence follows curiosity.” – James Clear
“Healthy curiosity is a great key in innovation.” – Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
“A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.” – Chinese Proverb
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” – Marie Curie
“When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.” – Irvin D. Yalom
“From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man – the function of his reasoning mind.” – Ayn Rand
“Skepticism is the first step towards truth.” – Denis Diderot
“Curiosity, curiosity, curiosity, is an imperious tyrant, and it will be obeyed.”
“We are all lifelong learners, from day one to twenty-thousand-and-one, and that’s why we keep exploring, wondering and discovering, yearning and learning, reaching with more than just our hands… The future belongs to the curious.”
“The secret of success is an absolute ungovernable curiosity.” – Larry King
“Be very wary of any attempt, by anybody or anything, to limit the ultimate human right and duty to question and verify the truth.”
“We’re born with a curiosity about the universe. Those people who don’t have a curiosity don’t have it because it’s gotten beaten out of them in some way.” – Kip Thorne
“I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best.” – Michael J Fox
“Love is curiosity sometimes. Concentrated wondering about the other one.” – Kij Johnson
“You can’t just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them.” – Ken Robinson
“There are different kinds of curiosity: one springs from interest, which makes us desire to know everything that may be profitable to us; another from pride, which springs from a desire of knowing what others are ignorant of.”
“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.” – George Eliot
“Knowledge is cheap, curiosity is priceless.” – Thibaut
“Curiosity … endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and a serenity in cheerful willingness to let life take the form it will.” – Alistar Cooke
“Pay attention to those employees who respectfully ask why. They are demonstrating an interest in their jobs and exhibiting a curiosity that could eventually translate into leadership ability.” – Harvey Mackay
“Success in anything is just a byproduct of learning, and learning is a byproduct of curiosity. Ultimately, if you are curious about something, you will be successful at it, and the more curious you are about it, the more successful you will be at it.” – Naval Ravikant
“I had discovered that learning something, no matter how complex, wasn’t hard when I had a reason to want to know it.” – Homer Hickam
“Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity an intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” – Steve Jobs
Funny Curiosity Quotes
“What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.” – Norton Juster
“I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.” – Michel de Montaigne
“When curiosity is alive, we are attracted to many things; we discover many worlds.” – Eric Booth
“Never lose your curiosity.”
“When education is seen as simply a means to an end, curiosity fades.”
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” – Friedrich August von Hayek
“Stay human, stay curious and let the entire world know that you are.” – Micheal Stevens
“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett
“Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.” – Linus Pauling
“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” – Stephen Hawking
“I’ve always been really curious about things and slightly confused by the world, and I think someone who feels that way is in a good position to be the one asking questions.” – Terry Gross
“Where the apple reddens never pry — lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.” – Robert Browning
“What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.” – David Bowie
“Your curiosity is your growth point always.” – Danielle LaPorte
“Ideas come from curiosity.” – Walt Disney
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” – Voltaire
“An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment.” – David Attenborough
“Remember that things are not always as they appear to be. Curiosity creates possibilities and opportunities.” – Roy T. Bennett
“If you can let go of passion and follow your curiosity, your curiosity just might lead you to your passion.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
“Your soul is infinitely creative. It is alive and expansive in nature. It is curious and playful, changing with the tides of time.” – Debbie Ford
“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.” – Oscar Wilde
“They know enough who know how to learn.” – Henry Adams
“If you’re curious, you’ll probably be a good journalist because we follow our curiosity like cats.” – Diane Sawyer
“Less certainty. More curiosity.” – Neil Strauss
“A tree you pass by every day is just a tree. If you are to closely examine what a tree has and the life a tree has, even the smallest thing can withstand a curiosity, and you can examine whole worlds.” – William Shatner
“If you are hungry for food, you are prepared to hunt high and low for it. If you are hungry for information, it is the same. Information is all around us, now more than ever before in human history. You barely have to stir or incommode yourself to find things out. The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.” – Stephen Fry
“What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats.” – Paulo Coelho
“Creativity flows when curiosity is stoked.” – Neil Blumenthal
“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will.” – Vernon Howard
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” – Henry Ford
“The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.” – Albert Einstein
“You’re never going to learn something as profoundly as when it’s purely out of curiosity.” – Christopher Nolan
“There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.” – Charles Proteus Steinmetz
“Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.” – Petrarch
“Follow your own curiosity, and start looking internally instead of externally for the answers. Be honest with yourself about the intersection of your skills, your passions, and what the world values.” – Sam Altman
“Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.” – Steven Wright
“A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected.” – Reif Larsen
“I have a certain curiosity for life that drives me and propels me forward.” – Rachel McAdams
“The love of knowledge is a kind of madness.” – C.S. Lewis
“Be curious, not judgmental.” – Walt Whitman
“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” – Mae Jemison
“All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.” – Martin H. Fischer
Science Curiosity Quotes
“Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It’s posing questions and coming up with a method. It’s delving in.” – Sally Ride
“The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“What is the intersection between technology, art and science? Curiosity and wonder, because it drives us to explore, because we’re surrounded by things we can’t see.” – Louie Schwartzberg
“No matter how he may think himself accomplished, when he sets out to learn a new language, science or the bicycle, he has entered a new realm as truly as if he were a child newly born into the world.” – Frances Willard
“Curiosity, the rover, and the concept is what science is all about: the quest to reveal the unknown.” – Ahmed Zewail
“Beyond all sciences, philosophies, theologies, and histories, a child’s relentless inquiry is truly all it takes to remind us that we don’t know as much as we think we know.” – Criss Jami
“The enemy of science is not religion. Religion comes in endless shapes and forms… The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.” – Frans de Waal
“We should not teach children the sciences but give them a taste for them.” – Jean Jacques Rosseau
“I happen to love science… Scientists are all slightly mad. There is truth in the stereotype of the mad scientist. They are mad with curiosity.” – Richard Preston
“Science means constantly walking a tightrope between blind faith and curiosity; between expertise and creativity; between bias and openness; between experience and epiphany; between ambition and passion; and between arrogance and conviction – in short, between an old today and a new tomorrow.” – Heinrich Rohrer
“This delicate little plant [curiosity], aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.” – Albert Einstein
“I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.” – Franklin P. Adams
“Curious people are interesting people; I wonder why that is.” – Bill Maher
“My favourite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity. I think if you are curious, you create opportunities, and then if you open the doors, you create possibilities.” – Mario Testino
“Curiosity + Focus + Intention = a gateway to growth.” – Shane Parrish
“A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky
“What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be curiosity.” – Eve Arnold
“Curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney
“Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour. Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.” – Ian Russell
“Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.” – Richard Branson
“If one has curiosity, then one stands the chance of attain a high level of scientific inquiry.” – Ada Yonath
“A sense of curiosity is nature’s original school of education.” – Smiley Blanton
“Every single day, I’m curious about everything. Curiosity is finding answers to things.” – Mickey Drexler
“The human brain had a vast memory storage. It made us curious and very creative. Those were the characteristics that gave us an advantage – curiosity, creativity and memory. And that brain did something very special. It invented an idea called ‘the future.’” – David Suzuki
“Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear and superstition.” – Bernard Beckett
“As long as you’re interested in people and things, that curiosity propels you forward.” – Joanna Coles
“There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Ignorance is a choice. Curiosity is a cure. It motivates people to educate themselves.” – Adam Grant
“To improve your judgment, learn how to feel intrigued instead of defensive when we encounter new information that contradicts your beliefs.” – Thibaut
“The worst decision most adults make is to stop asking questions — trading their curiosity for the appearance of competence.” – Sven Schnieders
“May you always have a beautiful soul with a fierce demeanor and a curiosity to know.”
“I love learning, and I think that curiosity is a wonderful gift.” – Andie MacDowell
“The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
“Questions show the mind’s range and answers its subtlety.” – Joseph Joubert
“Critical thinking and curiosity are the key to creativity.” – Amala Akkineni
“We must dare to think about ‘unthinkable things’ because when things become ‘unthinkable’, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.” – J. William Fulbright
“Human curiosity, the urge to know, is a powerful force and is perhaps the best secret weapon of all in the struggle to unravel the workings of the natural world.” – Aaron Klug
“Standardized testing is at cross purposes with many of the most important purposes of public education. It doesn’t measure big-picture learning, critical thinking, perseverance, problem solving, creativity or curiosity, yet those are the qualities great teaching brings out in a student.” – Randi Weingarten
“If you open your hand, you may receive everything.” – Dogen
“Free curiosity is of more value than harsh discipline.” – Augustine of Hippo
“The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.” – Edmund Burke
Intellectual Curiosity Quotes
“I want people to believe in themselves. I want intellectual curiosity. I want someone who realizes that they don’t know it all and that they’re dying to learn.” – Kevin Plank
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” – Albert Einstein
“It is very hard to do good work without being optimistic, exceptionally determined, and intellectually curious.” – Sam Altman
“People don’t always realize that my parents shared a sense of intellectual curiosity and a love of reading and of history.” – Caroline Kennedy
“Follow your intellectual curiosity over whatever is “hot” right now. If your curiosity ever leads you to a place where society eventually wants to go, you’ll get paid extremely well.” – Tim Ferriss
“I do have a peripatetic and active intellectual curiosity.” – Guy Kawasaki
“I’ve always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.” – Renee Fleming
“Intellectually curious people — people who are capable of learning throughout their career, of asking questions (good questions), of adapting and collaborating with others from different disciplines; people who are capable of really thriving in this world of non-routine work, in other words — are the people who are going to do better.” – Georgina Venning
“Actually, I’ve never thought myself as being a particularly hard worker. I’ve always worked, and I guess my mind is busy all the time. I’ve been in a lot of things just because of my own intellectual curiosity.” – Sam Wyly
“Intellectual curiosity drove Einstein to some of the world’s most important discoveries.” – Gordon Gee
“One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.” – William Lyon Phelps
“Intellectual curiosity is a superpower.” – Anthony Pompliano
“Following your genuine intellectual curiosity is a better foundation for a career than following whatever is making money right now.” – Naval Ravikant
“One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.” – Daniel Handler
“One can remain alive … if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity interested in big things and happy in small ways.” – Edith Wharton
“Education was the most important value in our home when I was growing up. People don’t always realize that my parents shared a sense of intellectual curiosity and a love of reading and of history.” – Caroline Kennedy
“Along with intellectual curiosity, we need interpersonal curiosity. Taking an interest in other people is the beginning of empathy.” – Adam Grant
“Live a life full of humility, gratitude, intellectual curiosity, and never stop learning.” – Gza
“Intellectual curiosity about one’s own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery. If I couldn’t cure myself, perhaps I could at least begin to understand myself.” – Siri Hustvedt
“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?” – Simon Hoggart
“Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?” – George R.R. Martin
“I’m talking about enjoying and finding pleasure and interest and happiness and curiosity every moment.” – Valerie Harper
“I know you were just wondering, but sometimes wondering is better than knowing.” – Christopher Scotton
“If knowledge is power, then curiosity is the muscle.” – Danielle LaPorte
“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.” – Albert Einstein
“Knowledge is the compound interest of curiosity.” – James Clear
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” – Albert Einstein
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” – Mark Twain
“I have always had a curious nature; I enjoy learning, but I dislike being taught.” – Winston Churchill
“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.” – James Cameron
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that curiosity might kill cats, but it doesn’t kill people.” – Tracy Morgan
“Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why.” – Bernard Baruch
“A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.” – Alexander Pope
“Read to satisfy your own natural curiosity, not to impress or accomplish.” – Naval Ravikant
“If I know what I shall find, I do not want to find it. Uncertainty is the salt of life.” – Erwin Chargaff
“Schools are about teaching compliance not fostering curiosity.” – Shane Parrish
“I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” – Zora Neale Hurston
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
“The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.” – E. M. Forster
“It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent, lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It’s as simple as that.” – Tove Jansson
“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.” – Roy T. Bennett
“The focus is what is right before you–to give it your best. It sows the seeds of tomorrow.” – Kiran Bedi
“Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.” – Billy Cox
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” – John Muir
“A lack of gratitude and a lack of curiosity are two of the most dangerous gaps in life. Fill them in and life changes for the better.” – Thibaut
“I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.” – Charles Baudelaire
“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” – Albert Einstein
“Some advice: keep the flame of curiosity and wonderment alive, even when studying for boring exams. That is the well from which we scientists draw our nourishment and energy. And also, learn the math. Math is the language of nature, so we have to learn this language.” – Michio Kaku
“Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity enjoy the accumulating of facts far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts.” – Clarence Day
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein
“People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.” – Leo Rosten
“God spare me sclerosis of the curiosity, for the curiosity which craves to keep us informed about the small things no less than the large is the mainspring, the dynamo, the jet propulsion of all complete living.” – John Mason Brown
“If you read someone else’s diary, you get what you deserve.” – David Sedaris
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
“Stay curious and stay joyful.”
“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.”
“Lean into your curiosity about any issue, and there will likely be people to share a little bit more of their knowledge and insight and give you ideas on how to make change.” – Opal Tometi
“I think that we all absolutely have curiosity. It brings about knowledge. It’s energizing. It’s spiritually empowering. It makes us more interesting as people.” – Brian Grazer
“It’s sort of a mental attitude about critical thinking and curiosity. It’s about mindset of looking at the world in a playful and curious and creative way.” – Adam Savage
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers
“You’ll never be exceptional at something unless you think about it all the time.” – Shane Parrish
“The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.” – Anatole France
“The more you know, the more you want to know. Not only that, but the more you know, the more connections you can make between the different bits of knowledge that you have in your head and therefore the more ideas you have, which is why curiosity is really the wellspring of creativity.” – Georgina Venning
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – E. E. Cummings
“Curiosity takes ignorance seriously, and is confident enough to admit when it does not know. It is aware of not knowing, and it sets out to do something about it.” – Alain de Botton
“At the heart of great leadership is a curious mind, heart, and spirit.” – Chip Conley
“The power to question is the basis of all human progress.” – Indira Gandhi
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” – Richard Feynmann
“To be curious about that which is not one’s concern while still in ignorance of oneself is absurd.” – Plato
“As a documentarian, you think, ‘Follow your curiosity.’” – Ron Howard
“It is a shameful thing to be weary of inquiry when what we search for is excellent.” – Cicero
“The best in business have boundless curiosity and open minds.” – Robin Sharma
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates
“Boredom leads to one of these two things: more boredom or more creativity.” – Matthew Kobach
“The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity, empty of dreams.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Learning is by nature curiosity, prying into everything, reluctant to leave anything, material or immaterial, unexplained.” – Philo
“The knowledge of all things is possible.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“I’m naturally curious, and I’ve always been driven by my curiosity. Curiosity gets people excited. Curiosity leads to new ideas, new jobs, new industries.” – Anne Sweeney
“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer
“Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance.” – William Wirt
“I’m curious. Period. I find everything interesting. Real life. Fake life. Objects. Flowers. Cats. But mostly people. If you keep your eyes open and your mind open, everything can be interesting.” – Agnes Varda
“I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.” – Albert Einstein
“When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.” – Walt Disney
“Increasingly, I feel curiosity and an eagerness to learn is the most crucial skill in life. If you’re not curious, I’m not sure if there is much others can do to help you. But if you’re eager to learn, even if you aren’t particularly talented, then so much is possible.” – James Clear
“Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it.” – Sudie Back
“I shall always be grateful for this curious love of history, allowing me to spend a lifetime looking back into the past, allowing me to learn from these large figures about the struggle for meaning for life.” – Doris Kearns Goodwin
“I’m so curious about knowing the unknown; it can be scary, but I see it as a game.” – Hrithik Roshan
“The open mode is a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate, because we’re not under pressure to get a specific thing done properly. We can play.” – John Cleese
“Let your curiosity lead you down a road that is less traveled.” – ATGW
“Learn with curiosity, not with ego.” – Thibaut
“The human brain is capable of only one strong emotion at a time, and if it be filled with curiosity or scientific enthusiasm, there is no room for fear.” – Arthur Conan Doyle
“No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.” – B.F. Skinner
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead.” – Susan Sontag
“Stay curious! Life is simple but mysterious.”
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
“Those with less curiosity or ambition just mumble that God works in mysterious ways. I intend to catch him in the act.” – Damien Echols
“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.” – Charlie Munger
“All knowledge is connected to all other knowledge. The fun is in making the connections.” – Arthur Aufderheide
“It would be better for us to have some doubts in an honest pursuit of truth, than it would be for us to be certain about something that was not true.” – Daniel Wallace
“The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers.” – Bryan Magee
“The hallmark of curiosity is a thirst for knowledge that has no obvious utility. Being a lifelong learner is taking joy in exploration regardless of whether the discovery has immediate relevance. The goal is to understand for the sake of understanding.” – Adam Grant
Child Curiosity Quotes
“Childhood and genius have the same master-organ in common inquisitiveness.” – Edwin Bulwar-Lytton
“We read our children stories starring elephants and monkeys and bears to teach them about nobility, curiosity and courage, to warn them against selfishness and stubbornness.” – Lydia Millet
“Kids are born curious about the world. What adults primarily do in the presence of kids is unwittingly thwart the curiosity of children.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.” – Henry L. Doherty
“All children are born with stars in their eyes, and they are curious. It is important for teachers to be careful not to kill this curiosity. A lot can go wrong. Children can be teased, even by teachers.” – May-Britt Moser
“It is so important to allow children to bloom and to be driven by their curiosity.” – May-Britt Moser
“Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge. The great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.” – John Locke
“Knowledge gained through curiosity is way different than knowledge gained through obligation. Do not stand in the way of a child’s curiosity. It is her greatest asset.” – Thibaut
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso
“Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.” – Aldous Huxley
“As children we all possess a natural uninhabited curiosity, a hunger for explanations, which seems to die slowly as we age–suppressed, I suppose by the need not to appear ignorant.” – Mahlon Hoagland
“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.” – Thomas Huxley
“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Children are not only innocent and curious but also optimistic and joyful and essentially happy. They are, in short, everything adults wish they could be.” – Carolyn Haywood
“Question like a child, reason like an adult, and write like a sage.” – Criss Jami
“Kids are naturally curious about what they don’t know, or don’t understand, or what is foreign to them. They only learn to be frightened of those differences when an adult influences them to behave that way and censors that natural curiosity.” – Aimee Mullins
“The future belongs to the curious.”
“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.” – Lloyd Alexander
“Creativity grows out of two things: curiosity and imagination.” – Benny Goodman
“I’m always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken.” – Jenny Han
“Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“I am generally fascinated by what are the big, challenging questions, and that’s behind my curiosity.” – Paul Allen
“The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” – Ralph W. Sockman
“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” – Albert Einstein
“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. I think a lot of what people call intelligence boils down to curiosity.” – Aaron Swartz
“Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.” – Anne Lamott
“Knowing the answers will help you in school. Knowing how to question will help you in life.” – Warren Berger
“Your greatest teachers aren’t the ones who know the most. They’re the ones who want to know the most.” – Adam Grant
“When people express opinions that differ from yours, take it as a chance to grow. Seek to understand over being understood. Be curious, not defensive. The only way to disarm another human being is by listening.” – Glennon Doyle Melton
“Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them.” – Carl Sagan
“Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.” – Pema Chodron
“In school and in life, success depends less on how much we know than on how much we want to learn. The purpose of education is not just to impart knowledge; it’s to instill curiosity. Intrinsic motivation is fueled by mystery, exploration, and meaning.” – Adam Grant
“The best students in school seek to satisfy their teachers. The best students in life seek to satisfy their curiosity.” – Johnny Uzan
Final Thoughts
A sense of curiosity is a fantastic skill to have and it must come from the right intention to understand, learn, or know more about someone or something. Basically, it is a strong desire to learn and know somethings. Those who are curious actively seek out new ways to broaden their horizons.
Since the mind of curious people is active, you start to ask questions, learn from others, and look for ways to live better. Life is better when you’re curious. It might be in your career, your studies, or your personal life. Maybe you are an artist or an athlete, and pursuing your curiosity will help you develop a new technique or explore a new concept.
How do you develop curiosity? Open your mind, ask questions, be enthusiastic and read. Wherever your curiosity leads you, remember to always listen to the inner voice that asks, “Why?” and seek enlightenment in the areas where you wonder. Listen to the questions others ask and allow your own curiosity to be piqued as well.
What’s your biggest takeaway from these curiosity quotes and sayings? Do you have any other insightful quotes to add? Let us know in the comment section below.