"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, "Le Discours de la Méthode", 1637)
"Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1669)
"In reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity which we discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such objects. And though none but a fool or madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life; it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least, as to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience, and makes us draw advantage from that similarity, which nature has placed among different objects. From causes, which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum of all our experimental conclusions." (David Hume, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", 1748)
"Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence." (David Hume, "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion", 1779)
"Curiosity is the aspect of the universe seeking to realise itself, and the fruit of such activity is new reality, stimulating to new research." (Cassius J Keyser, "The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking: Essays and Addresses", 1916)
"Questions are the engines of intellect, the cerebral machines which convert energy to motion, and curiosity to controlled inquiry." (David H Fischer, "Historians’ Fallacies", 1970)
"Learning emerges from discovery, not directives; reflection, not rules; possibilities, not prescriptions; diversity, not dogma; creativity and curiosity, not conformity and certainty; and meaning, not mandates." (Stephanie P Marshall, "The Power to Transform: Leadership That Brings Learning and Schooling to Life", 2006)
"The complexities of the universe are reflected in the complexities of our brains and in that natural, intimate and solitary activity that we call mind. In this process of matching up and representing, the inexhaustible human curiosity accepts the ancestral challenge of exploring the enormity of what we have yet to know." (Diego Rasskin-Gutman, "Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind", 2009)
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