Curiosity

Quotes regarding curiousity:

Sourced

• 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, Pensées

• Curiosity killed the cat
  • Saying [1]

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 153-54.

• Each window like a pill'ry appears,
  With heads thrust through nail'd by the ears.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto III, line 391.

• I loathe that low vice—curiosity.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 23.

• The poorest of the sex have still an itch
  To know their fortunes, equal to the rich.
  The dairy-maid inquires, if she shall take
  The trusty tailor, and the cook forsake.
  • John Dryden, Sixth Satire of Juvenal, line 762.

• Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act III.

• Percunctatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est.
  • Shun the inquisitive person, for he is also a talker.
  • Horace, Epistles, I. 18. 69.

• Rise up, rise up, Xarifa! lay your golden cushion down;
  Rise up! come to the window, and gaze with all the town!
  • John G. Lockhart, The Bridal of Andella.

• I saw and heard, for we sometimes,
  Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth
  To town or village nigh, nighest is far,
  Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear,
  What happens new; fame also finds us out.
  • John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671), Book I, line 330.

• Platon estime qu'il y ait quelque vice d'impiété à trop curieusement s'enquerir de Dieu et du monde.
  • Plato holds that there is some vice of impiety in enquiring too curiously about God and the world.
  • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, Chapter XII.

• Zaccheus, he
  Did climb the tree,
  His Lord to see.
  • New England Primer (1814).

• Incitantur enim homines ad agnoscenda quæ differuntur.
  • Our inquisitive disposition is excited by having its gratification deferred.
  • Pliny the Younger, Epistles, IX. 27.

• 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act V, scene 1.

• I have perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act I, scene 4, line 73.

• They mocked thee for too much curiosity.
  • William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act IV, scene 3, line 302.

Unsourced

• "Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures." ~ Lovelle Drachman
• "To be curious about that which is not one's concern while still in ignorance of oneself is ridiculous." ~ Plato
• "Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect." ~ Steven Wright
• "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." ~ Albert Einstein
• "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." ~ Albert Einstein
• "Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not." ~ Isaiah Berlin
• "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." ~ Albert Einstein
• "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
• "When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do." ~ Walt Disney
• "Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes, indeed." Albus Dumbledore
• "Curiousity is one of Satan's favorite paths, to lead man to sin." ~ Anonymous
• "Curiousity killed the cat, yet the cat had nine lives.. thus.. curiousity killed it eight times more." ~ John Albert Halili
• "Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back." ~ Eugene O'Neill
• "Curiosity killed the cat, but I'm much bigger than a cat." ~ Kedd Burmeister
• "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
  • Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker and to Ellen Parr, but the origin is unknown.
• "Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. ~ Samuel Johnson