"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)
"A strong curiosity has prompted men in all times to study nature; every useful art has some connexion with the science; and the unexhausted beauty and variety of things makes it ever agreeable, new and surprising." (Colin Maclaurin, "An Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries", 1748)
"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)
"In geometry, as in most sciences, it is very rare that an isolated proposition is of immediate utility. But the theories most powerful in practice are formed of propositions which curiosity alone brought to light, and which long remained useless without its being able to divine in what way they should one day cease to be so. In this sense it may be said, that in real science, no theory, no research, is in effect useless." (Voltaire, "A Philosophical Dictionary", 1764)
"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)
"Every stage of science has its train of practical applications and systematic inferences, arising both from the demands of convenience and curiosity, and from the pleasure which, as we have already said, ingenious and active-minded men feel in exercising the process of deduction."
"The determination of the average man is not merely a matter of speculative curiosity; it may be of the most important service to the science of man and the social system. It ought necessarily to precede every other inquiry into social physics, since it is, as it were, the basis. The average man, indeed, is in a nation what the centre of gravity is in a body; it is by having that central point in view that we arrive at the apprehension of all the phenomena of equilibrium and motion." (Adolphe Quetelet, "A Treatise on Man and the Development of his Faculties", 1842)
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