Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Thomas Brooks

Curiosity is the spiritual adultery of the soul. Curiosity is spiritual drunkenness.

Adultery | Character | Curiosity | Soul |

Seymour Cohen, fully Seymour Jay Cohen

A modern commentator made the observation that there re those who seek knowledge about everything and understand nothing. It is wonder - not mere curiosity - a sense of enchantment, of respect for the mysteries of love for the other, that is essential to the difference between a knowing that is simply a gathering of information and techniques and a knowing that seeks insight and understanding. It is wonder that reveals how intimate is the relationship between knowledge of the other and knowledge of the self, between inwardness and outwardness.

Character | Curiosity | Insight | Knowing | Knowledge | Love | Nothing | Observation | Relationship | Respect | Self | Sense | Understanding | Wonder | Respect | Understand |

William Lyon Phelps

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.

Character | Curiosity | Life | Life |

Anthony Brooks, fully Major Anthony Morris “Tony” Brooks

Youth is young life plus curiosity minus understanding.

Curiosity | Life | Life | Understanding | Wisdom | Youth |

Clarence Shepard Day, Jr.

Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity will enjoy the accumulating of facts, far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts.

Curiosity | Will | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

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 every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Awe | Curiosity | Day | Enough | Eternity | Important | Life | Life | Little | Mystery | Reality | Reason | Wisdom |

Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault

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

Art | Awakening | Curiosity | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | Art |

John Locke

Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. One 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.

Appetite | Children | Curiosity | Knowledge | Reason | Time | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Zeal and curiosity are the twin scourges of the soul: the latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything; the former prevents our leaving anything in doubt or undecided.

Curiosity | Doubt | Soul | Wisdom | Zeal |

Frederick Seitz

A good scientist is a person in whom the childhood quality of perennial curiosity lingers on. Once he gets an answer, he has other questions.

Childhood | Curiosity | Good | Wisdom |

Victor Weisskopf, fully Victor "Viki" Frederick Weisskopf

Science is an important part of the humanities because it is based on an essential human trait: curiosity about the how and why of our environment. We must foster wonder, joy of insight.

Curiosity | Important | Insight | Joy | Science | Wisdom | Wonder |

Richard Whately

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention as attention is of memory; therefore the first business of a teacher - first not only in point of time, but of importance - should be to excite not merely a general curiosity on the subject of the study, but a particular curiosity on particular points in that subject. To teach one who has no curiosity to learn is to sow a field without ploughing it.

Attention | Business | Curiosity | Memory | Study | Teach | Time | Wisdom | Business | Learn | Parent | Teacher |