Quotes: Curiosity
3 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“A man who says I have learned enough and will learn no further should be considered as knowing nothing at all.”
Source: Important Utterances of H. I. M. Emperor Haile Selassie I, 1963–1972, 1972 · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is reproduced in the 1972 compilation Important Utterances of H. I. M. Emperor Haile Selassie I, 1963–1972, but the original speech, language, date, and passage context are not documented.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is disputed: available evidence doesn't confirm a primary source and the English wording may be an editorial rendering rather than Selassie's verbatim words.
The line champions epistemic humility: claiming you will learn no more signals genuine ignorance. It fits Haile Selassie’s public emphasis on education and modernization, but the exact wording appears in a 1972 English anthology and lacks a verified original speech, date, or language.
“Everyone starts at the beginning of the road, and the world is in an endless state of childhood.”
Source: Season of Migration to the North, p. 88 (Heinemann, 1991) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- Verified as a line from Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, spoken by the unnamed narrator and cited in the Heinemann English edition (1991).
- What remains uncertain
- Page numbers differ across English editions; the line is a narrator's utterance in the novel rather than a standalone authorial maxim.
In Season of Migration to the North the line captures a central ambivalence: travel opens learning and possibility, yet humanity remains unfinished—childlike, prone to repetition and misjudgment. It is spoken by the novel's unnamed narrator and carries the book's ironic tension about wanderlust.
“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.”
Source: Fair Play (Rent spel), 1989 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording appears in Fair Play and is spoken in the novel by a character named Wladyslaw.
Jansson asserts that curiosity is a basic condition of being alive: losing interest or growing indifferent is a real kind of dying. The line appears in her novel Fair Play and reads as plain, intimate advice rather than abstract theory.