Curiosity Quotes to Make You Wonder

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Do you always want to know more? These curiosity quotes show the benefits of an inquiring mind and where it can lead you.

Curiosity may be historically bad for cats, but it is a driving force behind human ingenuity, creativity, and progress.

Humans wouldn’t have been from the depths of the oceans to the surface of the moon without being curious. Nearly all our endeavors begin with someone bold enough to question and then seek answers.

So encourage yourself and others to be more curious with the best curiosity quotes and keep being curious today.

Top 10 Curiosity Quotes

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

James Stephens

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

Thomas Hobbes
Lynn Nottage quote "Replace judgment with curiosity"Pin
“Replace judgment with curiosity.” – Lynn Nottage

As long as you’re interested in people and things, that curiosity propels you forward.

Joanna Coles

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Samuel Johnson

Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.

Bryant H. McGill

When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.

Irvin D. Yalom
Anatole France quote "The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity"Pin
“The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.” – Anatole France

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

Richard Whately

Quotes about Curiosity

What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats.

Paolo Coelho

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.

Leo Burnett

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Edmund Burke

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

E. E. Cummings

Creativity flows when curiosity is stoked.

Neil Blumenthal

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

Zora Neale Hurston
Thibaut quote "Curiosity is a mind in search of knowledge"Pin
“Curiosity is a mind in search of knowledge.” – Thibaut

I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.

Charles Baudelaire

Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.

Freya Stark

What I have is a malevolent curiosity.

David Bowie

Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.

Linus Pauling

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

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

Samuel Johnson

Curiosity is the hunger of the human mind.

Rose Wilder Lane

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

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

Exploration is curiosity put into action.

Don Walsh
Ken Robinson quote "Curiosity is the engine of achievement"Pin
“Curiosity is the engine of achievement.” – Ken Robinson

Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.

Billy Cox

Your curiosity is your growth point always.

Danielle LaPorte

Curiosity is the real teacher.

Thibaut

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

Curiosity is more flexible and practical than belief.

Steve Pavlina

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

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

The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

E. M. Forster

Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.

Pema Chödrön

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
James Cameron quote "Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own"Pin
“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.” – James Cameron

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

Plutarch

The secret of success is an absolute ungovernable curiosity.

Larry King

Curiosity is one of those insatiable passions that grow by gratification.

Sarah Scott

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 the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

Michael Korda

Curiosity is life.

Mark Parker

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

Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

Golda Meir

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

Learning is by nature curiosity… prying into everything, reluctant to leave anything, material or immaterial, unexplained.

Philo
Vladimir Nabokov quote "Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form"Pin
“Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.” – Vladimir Nabokov

Ignorance is a choice. Curiosity is a cure. It motivates people to educate themselves.

Adam Grant

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

I’ve always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.

Renee Fleming

As a documentarian, you think, ‘Follow your curiosity.’

Ron Howard

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

Benefits of Curiosity

Curiosity is what keeps me open to a sense of hope. It staves off negativity.

Carrie Brownstein

I’m talking about enjoying and finding pleasure and interest and happiness and curiosity every moment.

Valerie Harper

Curiosity is what keeps me open to a sense of hope. It staves off negativity.

Carrie Brownstein

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

When curiosity is alive, we are attracted to many things; we discover many worlds.

Eric Booth
James Clear quote "Intelligence follows curiosity"Pin
“Intelligence follows curiosity.” – James Clear

Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Albert Einstein

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

Healthy curiosity is a great key in innovation.

Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Curiosity gets people excited. Curiosity leads to new ideas, new jobs, new industries.

Anne Sweeney

If you can let go of passion and follow your curiosity, your curiosity just might lead you to your passion.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity an intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Steve Jobs

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry.

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

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

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
"Knowledge is the compound interest of curiosity"Pin
“Knowledge is the compound interest of curiosity.” – James Clear

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

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.

Edith Wharton

Intellectual curiosity is a superpower.

Anthony Pompliano

Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

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 and Learning

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

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

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

Aldous Huxley

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
"Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning"Pin
“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” – William Arthur Ward

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.

Michio Kaku

I love learning, and I think that curiosity is a wonderful gift.

Andie MacDowell

No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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

I have always had a curious nature; I enjoy learning, but I dislike being taught.

Winston Churchill

Read to satisfy your own natural curiosity, not to impress or accomplish.

Naval Ravikant

Following your genuine intellectual curiosity is a better foundation for a career than following whatever is making money right now.

Naval Ravikant

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

William Lyon Phelps

I don’t know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

Richard Feynman

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
Ana Fabrega quote "Curiosity is more important than IQ"Pin
“Curiosity is more important than IQ.” – Ana Lorena Fabrega

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.

Richard Feynman

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

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

The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions.

Bishop Mandell Creighton

Your greatest teachers aren’t the ones who know the most. They’re the ones who want to know the most.

Adam Grant

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

Schools are about teaching compliance not fostering curiosity.

Shane Parrish

What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.

Norton Juster

You’re never going to learn something as profoundly as when it’s purely out of curiosity.

Christopher Nolan
"All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind"Pin
“All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.’ – Martin H. Fischer

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

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

Curiosity Sayings

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.

John Burroughs

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

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

Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.

Petrarch

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

Along with intellectual curiosity, we need interpersonal curiosity.

Adam Grant

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

Blaise Pascal

The worst decision most adults make is to stop asking questions — trading their curiosity for the appearance of competence.

Sven Schnieders
Socrates curiosity quote "The unexamined life is not worth living"Pin
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

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

Love is curiosity sometimes. Concentrated wondering about the other one.

Kij Johnson

Boredom leads to one of these two things: more boredom or more creativity.

Matthew Kobach

There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I have always had a sense of curiosity and aspiration.

Waris Ahluwalia

If you are curious, you’ll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.

Erno Rubik

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.

François de La Rochefoucauld

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

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 do have a peripatetic and active intellectual curiosity.

Guy Kawasaki
Victor Hugo quote "Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery"Pin
“Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.” – Victor Hugo

Stay human, stay curious and let the entire world know that you are.

Micheal Stevens

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

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

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

Intellectual curiosity drove Einstein to some of the world’s most important discoveries.

Gordon Gee

Being Curious

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

Albert Einstein

Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.

Aaron Swartz

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

I have always had a sense of curiosity and aspiration.

Waris Ahluwalia

To be curious about that which is not one’s concern while still in ignorance of oneself is absurd.

Plato
"Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations"Pin
“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” – Mae Jemison

I am generally fascinated by what are the big, challenging questions – that’s behind my curiosity.

Paul Allen

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

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

William Lyon Phelps

Be ambitious, but more than that, be inquisitive and curious. The day your curiosity dies, you may as well retire.

Thibaut

Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.

Charlie Munger

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

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

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

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

Voltaire

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

If you’re curious, you’ll probably be a good journalist because we follow our curiosity like cats.

Diane Sawyer

The best in business have boundless curiosity and open minds.

Robin Sharma
"I'm always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken"Pin
“I’m always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken.” – Jenny Han

Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.

Linus Pauling

I’m naturally curious, and I’ve always been driven by my curiosity.

Anne Sweeney

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’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

Curiosity is innate, but smothered via socialization and distractions. Spend enough time alone and it will return.

Naval Ravikant

Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead.

Susan Sontag

It is very hard to do good work without being optimistic, exceptionally determined, and intellectually curious.

Sam Altman

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

Amusing Curiosity Quotes

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

Oscar Wilde

The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.

Stephen Wright

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Albert Einstein
Danielle LaPorte quote "If knowledge is power, then curiosity is the muscle"Pin
“If knowledge is power, then curiosity is the muscle.” – Danielle LaPorte

There is truth in the stereotype of the mad scientist. They are mad with curiosity.

Richard Preston

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It’s accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

David McCullough

To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Free curiosity is of more value than harsh discipline.

Saint Augustine

There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz

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

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

Carl Rogers

The best students in school seek to satisfy their teachers. The best students in life seek to satisfy their curiosity.

Johnny Uzan

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them.

Carl Sagan

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

Blaise Pascal
Bernard Baruch quote "Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why"Pin
“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why.” – Bernard Baruch

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Ellen Parr

Knowledge is cheap, curiosity is priceless.

Thibaut

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

People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.

Leo Rosten

The best curiosity quotes may leave you with more questions than answers. That’s the point!

Whether you’re naturally curious or want to be, we hope you found a curious quote or two that encourage your pioneering spirit.

Wondering more about ourselves, others, and the world around us is what makes life fun and exciting. Even when we “stand on the shoulders of giants,” we always have the potential to make the world a better place when we satisfy our curiosity through creativity and innovation.

So keep wondering, keep seeking, and keep being curious until you find what you’re looking for.

Quincy Seale

Quincy is KIM's editor, and has collected and shared inspiring quotes and stories since 2005. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie, son Alex, and his dog Oban.