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.
Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Remember who you are and whose you are.
I felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.
So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.
Maybe that's why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.
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