People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.
Interpretation
Curiosity is an active pursuit of knowledge, not something that can be passive or idle.
This quote emphasizes that true curiosity drives individuals to seek out knowledge and understanding actively, rather than merely existing without purpose. Leo Rosten's assertion that curiosity cannot be idle highlights the importance of engagement and the relentless pursuit of discovery, suggesting that a genuine curiosity always propels us towards exploration and learning.
In practice
Using this quote during a motivational speech about the importance of lifelong learning.
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.
Mistakes are a drag, because you get in the area of regret and self-pity.
I'm a woman of very few words, but lots of action.
I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.
Walden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this is mine. It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest, and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for relief in moments of defluxion or despair.
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.
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