70 Curiosity-Inspiring Quotes

Curiosity has long been the spark that ignites the flame of innovation and exploration. It drives us to ask questions, seek answers, and delve deeper into the world around us. Whether it leads to scientific breakthroughs, artistic discoveries, or personal growth, this intrinsic desire to know more propels humanity forward. In this blog post, we’ve gathered a curated collection of 70 quotes that capture the essence of curiosity. These words of wisdom, from some of history's greatest thinkers and visionaries, are sure to inspire and reignite your own passion for knowledge and discovery. So, join us as we explore these thought-provoking quotes that celebrate the endless journey of wonder and learning.

1. “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” - Albert Einstein

2. “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 would be curiosity.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

3. “Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” - Walt Disney

4. “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

5. “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” - Plutarch

6. “She had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.” - Henry James

7. “It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. ” - Colette

8. “Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.” - Samuel Johnson

9. “It's not a silly question if you can't answer it.” - Jostein Gaarder

10. “Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.” - Samuel Johnson

11. “So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…” - Jostein Gaarder

12. “Curiosity is a good thing, like onion soup. But too much onion soup makes your breath smell terrible. And too much curiosity can make your whole body smell terrible, if it causes you to be dead. ” - Michael Reisman

13. “My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.” - Dylan Thomas

14. “The love of knowledge is a kind of madness.” - C.S. Lewis

15. “Inventory:"Four be the things I am wiser to know:Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.Four be the things I'd been better without:Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.Three be the things I shall never attain:Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.Three be the things I shall have till I die:Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.” - Dorothy Parker

16. “Why? is the boy's motto, why does, why is, why not? Food, weather, time, fires, sea and season, clothes and cars and people; it's all grist to the mill of why.” - Keri Hulme

17. “He likes to know things. He checks out book and record collections when he visits people, looks in medicine cabinets, takes inventory in refrigerators. He eaves drops on conversations at public phone booths. He reads murder victims' mail.” - John Sayles

18. “Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.” - Wendell Berry

19. “The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions - simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before. If we are to follow them we too must be childishly simple in our questions - and maturely wise in our replies..” - Mortimer J. Adler

20. “Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.” - Freya Stark

21. “It's daring to be curious about the unknown, to dream big dreams, to live outside prescribed boxes, to take risks, and above all, daring to investigate the way we live until we discover the deepest treasured purpose of why we are here.” - Luci Swindoll

22. “I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best.” - Michael J. Fox

23. “Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like? Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a good-looking fellow, eh?...When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me.She loves me forever! I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!...Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant! -Erik in The Phantom of the Opera” - Gaston Leroux

24. “If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.” - Holly Black

25. “the worst thing said about him is that he was "uncurious.” - Yvon Chouinard

26. “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

27. “The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity and the desire to do good. The latter is put high above the former, and yet it is the former that moves one of the most useful men the human race has yet produced: the scientific investigator. What actually urges him on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes.” - H.L. Mencken

28. “Mermon's tiny black dot eyes managed to widen into larger black dots. "No, no, no, Sir. I was just... curious." "Curiosity is a good thing, like onion soup. But too much onion soup makes you breath smell terrible. and too much curiosity can make your whole body smell terrible, if it causes you to be dead." Veenie nodded carefully; it was a strange threat, but a threat nonetheless.” - Michael Reisman

29. “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

30. “Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity enjoy the accumulating of facts far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts.” - Clarence Day

31. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” - Albert Einstein

32. “Curiosity is a call from knowledge.” - Toba Beta

33. “No, by God, he had no intention of going on like a blind man, plodding down a path of brainless, fruitless existence until old age or accident took him. Either he found the answer or he ditched the whole mess, life included.” - Richard Matheson

34. “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

35. “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

36. “A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.” - Umberto Eco

37. “I'm fat because I'm greedy, and if my mind is fat it's because I'm curious.” - Stephen Fry

38. “We men are fascinated by the things we don't really understand. It gives us something to think and talk about: like females, they drive us nuts.” - Criss Jami

39. “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

40. “There are young men and women up and down the land who happily (or unhappily) tell anyone who will listen that they don’t have an academic turn of mind, or that they aren’t lucky enough to have been blessed with a good memory, and yet can recite hundreds of pop lyrics and reel off any amount of information about footballers. Why? Because they are interested in those things. They are curious. 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

41. “Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.” - David McCullough

42. “... what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.” - Norton Juster

43. “The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest. God has given us more than we know what to do with.” - Sydney J. Harris

44. “I tried to explain again. 'Perhaps it would have been easier if I said that not being able to find something is like suddenly not remembering the words to your favourite song that you knew off by heart. It's like suddenly forgetting the name of someone you know really well and see every day, or the name of a group who sang a famous song. It's something so frustrating that it plays on your mind over and over again because you know there's an answer but no one can tell you it. It niggles and niggles at me and I can't rest until I know the answer.''I Understand,' he said softly.” - Cecelia Aherna Ahern

45. “Truly, Mallow yearned to know everything. Curiosity was part of her, like her short blond hair and bitten fingernails.” - Catherynne M. Valente

46. “Me and my insatiable curiosity. If there's any justice in the world, I was a very good cat in a past life.” - Rhi Etzweiler

47. “The sensory misers will inherit the earth, but first they will make it not worth living on. When you consider something like death, after which we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably won’t matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly.” - Diane Ackerman

48. “If we had known everything in this universe, we would have had to find another universe to feed our curiosity, because what keeps alive man is the curiosity!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

49. “there is no reason why anyone should understand how it works… and of course no reason why anyone should care … unless you are curious, in which case I love you, for curiosity about the world and all its corners is a beautiful thing.” - Stephen Fry

50. “My body is tired as worn out rug, but my brain (if i had) is always full of curiosity, jumping around for seeking new funs. If they could learn how to be cooperative each others, my life could be way easier... sigh*” - Hiroko Sakai

51. “The shiny paint laid on by curiosity's hand has worn off. What thing better can a man know than the love of Christ, which passes knowledge?” - Jim Elliot

52. “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

53. “You will allow that one's curiosity must be aroused when one learns that a lady is prepared to elope to escape from advances one had not the least intention of making!” - Georgette Heyer

54. “I don't know what is behind the curtain; only that I need to find out.” - Richard Paul Evans

55. “Are you missing the library again?" Seth asked, startling her as he walked into the room.Kendra turned to face her brother. "You caught me," she congratulated him. "I'm reading.""I bet the librarians back home are panicking. Summer vacation, and no Kendra Sorenson to keep them in business. Have they been sending you letters?""Might not hurt you to pick up a book, just as an experiment."Whatever. I looked up the definition for 'nerd' in the dictionary. Know what it said?""I bet you'll tell me."" 'If you're reading this, you are one.' "You're a riot." Kendra turned back to the journal, flipping to a random page.Seth took a seat on his bed across from her. "Kendra, seriously, I can sort of see reading a cool book for fun, but dusty old journals? Really? Has anybody told you there are magical creatures out there?" He pointed out the window."Has anybody told you some of those creatures can eat you?" Kendra responded. "I'm not reading these just for fun. They have good info.""like what? Patton and Lena smooching?"Kendra rolled her eyes. "I'm not telling. You'll end up in a tar pit.""There's a tar pit?" he said, perking up. "Where?” - Brandon Mull

56. “That's always the worst: the not knowing. Because then you're stuck with a hundred questions no one can answer.” - Marni Bates

57. “From time to timeI once wondered how one wanders from time to timeAnd think up the paradox lineSpeak of Epoch's crimeOh I lied, it hasn't happened yetBut bet you better believe it's such a habit thatI just said that in a past mindset” - Criss Jami

58. “It's a good sign but rare instance when, in a relationship, you find that the more you learn about the other person, the more you continue to desire them. A sturdy bond delights in that degree of youthful intrigue. Love loves its youth.” - Criss Jami

59. “A warm feeling fell over the boy. A mix of security and comfort, as if a blanket were wrapping its soft layers around his heart and nuzzling him snuggly. Gavin loved his mother, and he would be forever grateful to his father for protecting her. The whole mystery behind it made him itch with curiosity, however.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

60. “but curiosity is a restless and scrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another.” - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

61. “These are the few ways we can practice humility:To speak as little as possible of one's self.To mind one's own business.Not to want to manage other people's affairs.To avoid curiosity.To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.To pass over the mistakes of others.To accept insults and injuries.To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.To be kind and gentle even under provocation.Never to stand on one's dignity.To choose always the hardest.” - Mother Teresa

62. “So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.” - René Descartes

63. “Curiosity did not kill the cat all by itself.” - Laird Barron

64. “If the spirit of wonder & curiosity stays alive in us, then surely we will always have new questions, and always expand our creativity in response?” - jay woodman

65. “I wanted to be curious and smart and unappeasable until I got a sentence to mean exactly what I ordered it to mean.” - Pat Conroy

66. “I have a tendency to want to understand everything people say and everything I hear, both at work and outside, even at a distance, even if it’s one of the innumerable languages I don’t know, even if it’s in an indistinguishable murmur or imperceptible whisper, even if it would be better that I didn’t understand and what’s said is not intended for my ears or is said precisely so I won’t understand it.” - Javier Marías

67. “We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.” - Margaret Atwood

68. “I don't need you to agree with me," she said quietly." I'll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It's an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion - and action.” - Jasper Fforde

69. “Father had stretched out his long legs and was tilting back in his chair. Mother sat with her knees crossed, in blue slacks, smoking a Chesterfield. The dessert dishes were still on the table. My sisters were nowhere in evidence. It was a warm evening; the big dining-room windows gave onto blooming rhododendrons. Mother regarded me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and father were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming down. She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits (coffee?) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself. I had essentially been handed my own life. In subsequent years my parents would praise my drawings and poems, and supply me with books, art supplies, and sports equipment, and listen to my troubles and enthusiasms, and supervise my hours, and discuss and inform, but they would not get involved with my detective work, nor hear about my reading, nor inquire about my homework or term papers or exams, nor visit the salamanders I caught, nor listen to me play the piano, nor attend my field hockey games, nor fuss over my insect collection with me, or my poetry collection or stamp collection or rock collection. My days and nights were my own to plan and fill.” - Annie Dillard

70. “I believe in always being open to learning more through exploration of everything available and following one's sense of curiosity, creativity, and playfulness.” - jay woodman