All quotes from
Brian & Charles’ book
Curiosity
presumes that there might be something new out there.
The only
way to persevere is to have the capacity to calmly separate yourself from what
is being done to you.
Manners
are really the basis for how we treat other people – manners are born out of
compassion, empathy, the “golden rule”.
Manners are, quite simply, making people feel welcome, comfortable, and
respected. Etiquette is the set of
techniques you use to have great manners.
Manners
are the way you want to behave, and the way you want to make people feel.
Etiquette is the granularization of the desire to treat people with grace and
warmth.
In every
case, the curiosity is all about the story.
In the
last decade of his life, Asimov wrote fifteen or more books a year. He was writing books faster than most people
can read them.
Curiosity
rewards persistence.
Persistence
without curiosity may mean you chase a goal that isn’t worthy of the effort –
or you chase a goal without adjusting as you learn new information. You end up way off course. Persistence is the drive moving you
forward. Curiosity provides the
navigation.
I feel
like we enter the world, newborn, and at the moment, the answer is “yes”. And it’s “yes” for a little while after
that. The world is openhearted to us. But at some point, the world starts saying
“no”, and the sooner you start practicing ways of getting around “no”, the
better.
Curiosity
is power for real people.
True love
requires curiosity, and sustaining that love requires sustaining your
curiosity.
To get at
the possibilities, you have to find out what ideas and reactions are in other
people’s minds. You have to ask them
questions.
Curiosity
is what creates empathy. To care about
someone, you have to wonder about them.
Familiarity
is the enemy of curiosity.
How many
marriages that drift into disconnection and boredom could be helped by the
revival of genuine curiosity on both sides?
We need these daily reminders that although I live with this person, I
don’t actually know her today – unless I ask about her today.
Developing
a sense of taste means exposing yourself to a wide range of something – a wide
range of music, a wide range of art – and not just exposing yourself, but
asking questions.
Curiosity
equips us with the skills for openhearted, openminded exploration.
Life
isn’t about finding the answers, it’s about asking the questions.
Curiosity
is hiding… almost everywhere you look – it’s presence or its absence proving to
be the magic ingredient in a whole range of surprising places.
For it to
be effective, curiosity has to be harnessed to at least two other key
traits. First, the ability to pay
attention to the answers to your questions – you have to actually absorb
whatever it is you’re being curious about…. The second trait is the willingness
to act.
Curiosity
starts out as an impulse, an urge, but it pops out into the world as something
more active, more searching: a question.
Curiosity
isn’t really celebrated and cultivated, it isn’t protected and encouraged. It’s not just that curiosity is
inconvenient. Curiosity can be
dangerous. Curiosity isn’t just impertinent, it’s insurgent. It’s
revolutionary.
Curiosity
isn’t just a great tool for improving your own life and happiness, your ability
to win a great job or a great spouse. It
is the key to the things we say we value most in the modern world:
independence, self-determination, self-government, self-improvement. Curiosity is the path to freedom itself.
The
ability to ask any question embodies two things: the freedom to go chase the
answer, and the ability to challenge authority.
We need
to be careful, individually, that the Internet doesn’t anesthetize us instead
of inspire us.
There are
two things you can’t find on the Internet… you can’t search for the answer to
questions that haven’t been asked yet.
And you can’t google for a new idea.
The Internet can only tell us what we already know.
We are
all trapped in our own way of thinking, trapped in our own way of relating to
people. We get so used to seeing the world our way that we come to think that
the world is the way we see it.
Being
able to imagine the perspective of others is also a critical strategic tool for
managing reality.
Successful
business people imagine themselves in their customers’ shoes. Like coaches or
generals, they also imagine what their rivals are up to, so they can be ready
for the competition.
Curiosity
is the tool that sparks creativity.
Curiosity is the technique that gets to innovation.
Questions
create a mind-set of innovation and creativity.