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Thirst for knowledge   /θərst fɔr nˈɑlədʒ/   Listen
Thirst for knowledge

noun
1.
Curiosity that motivates investigation and study.  Synonyms: desire to know, lust for learning.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Thirst for knowledge" Quotes from Famous Books



... There were the bankers and the rest of them, just as Semple had said, and Clark, surveying them from the platform with steady gray eyes, knew what make of men they were and knew also that they had come there not so much with a thirst for knowledge about their own country as that they might coldly analyze him and that vast undertaking of which they had, as yet, but a ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... in the few years past. I have known many children well, have been surrounded by them all my life, and love nothing better than to talk with them, amuse them, and quietly notice their traits of mind and character; but I do not recollect more than one girl of Helen's age who had the love and thirst for knowledge, and the store of literary and general information, and the skill in composition, which Helen possesses. She is indeed a 'Wonder-Child.' Thank you very much for the Report, Gazette, and Helen's Journal. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... character it is pleasing to observe an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the relations of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to behold her continual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... and perfection in its original shape. Cotton had all the sagacity and judgment of Lord Coke, with a more beautifully polished mind, and a more benevolent heart. As to books, and book men, he was the Mecaenas[334] of his day. His thirst for knowledge could never be satiated; and the cultivation of the mind upon the foundation of a good heart, he considered to be the highest distinction, and the most permanent delight, of human beings. Wealth, pomp, parade, and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home —the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... his mad thirst for knowledge, even the university classes, difficult as they were proving, failed to satisfy him. He purchased an expensive "system" in fifteen volumes, by means of which, the prospectus assured him, he could easily ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... have been Kentucky's greatest curses, especially among the people of the mountains. I would lay down my life, if necessary, for mountain folks, but I long instead to spend it for them in replacing the pistol and the knife with the book and the pen, and in cultivating among them a thirst for knowledge instead of drink," said Steve with quiet passion which held Mr. Follet's ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... him to be everywhere sought after; but the pleasures of the world had for him no attractions. Though young and possessed of every personal advantage, he was ever grave—sombre even—devoured by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and cherishing in the recesses of his heart the hope that he might become a great and powerful ruler of a ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... wonderful memory, is enabled to retain the bulk of the information which he has acquired by wide reading. There is a story told of a certain don at one of our older universities who, being possessed of an insatiable thirst for knowledge coupled with an excellent memory and an inexhaustible capacity for work, passed as a well-read if not a very learned man. There seemed to be few topics upon which he could not discourse on equal terms even with those who had made ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... about the thirst for knowledge from people keen to quench it. Dr. Edward L. Keyes, president of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, advocates the teaching of sex-hygiene to children, because he thinks that it is the kind of information ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... feared not the strong. For every harsh word, Harry gave a kind one in return. I have known him to carry more than half his breakfast to a little lame boy whose mother was very poor. Harry was brave and true; he would confess his own faults, he would hide those of others. He had a thirst for knowledge. He got all his lessons well at school, and he stood high in his class. But what he was particularly remarkable for, was his love of all beautiful things, and most especially of wild flowers. He would make wreaths of them and give them to his mother, ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen

... folio bigger than the table," one of his family says of the boy Motley that "if there were five minutes before dinner, when he came into the parlor he always took up some book near at hand and began to read until dinner was announced." The same unbounded thirst for knowledge, the same history of various attempts and various failures, the same ambition, not yet fixed in its aim, but showing itself in restless effort, belong to the hero of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... even nowadays the Israelites are very desirous of the honor of marrying their daughters to the sons of Rabbis or scholars. But the meditative youth, whose mind was far above anything corporeal, and possessed by the thirst for knowledge, stealthily left his home and joined the caravans going ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... officer in command, he would defend Leyden from attack by an overwhelming force. Very soon Van de Werff saw that he was a capable soldier who had studied his profession, and being himself a capable civilian with a thirst for knowledge pressed the argument from point ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... twilight deepened, she closed the book, and having again concealed it, sat watching the stars just beginning to appear, one by one, and musing, as she often did, on her own life. Why had she not, with her passionate love of the beautiful and her thirst for knowledge, been given the birth and training, the social advantages of any one of that little group below? Or, if the fates had decreed that she must be born in such ignorance and degradation, and spend her life ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... had an established reputation for ability, industry, and fidelity to duty. He had been trained in the school of poverty, making his own way in the world, gathering knowledge by the wayside. He labored for several years at his trade as a mechanic, but, prompted by a restless thirst for knowledge, studied law, and for several years practiced the legal profession. In due time he became a judge and served as such for ten years, so that when he entered public life as a Member of the House he was a trained lawyer, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... country. At that time these attributes were expected in the President, and none were acceptable without them. Mr. Lowndes in very early life gave evidence of future usefulness and distinction. His thirst for knowledge, intense application, and great capacity to acquire, made him conspicuous at school, and in college. He entered manhood already distinguished by his writings. While yet very young he travelled in Europe, and for the purpose of mental improvement. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... you will not do any of these things unless you have much leisure, and an eager thirst for knowledge. Some new fascination— society and pleasures—or special duties and pressing occupations will drive the fervid desires of your school-days quite from your hearts, or make it impossible for you to gratify them. At any rate, in ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... a good school-master since he caused the thirst for knowledge to overcome fear and thus laid the foundation- stone of all human progress. That allegory may be read two ways, as one of a rise from ignorance instead of a fall ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... at any time seen in him that she did not like, was out of sight; pleasant, gentle, intelligent, grave, he was constantly supplying ear and mind with words and things that were worth the having. Probably he had discovered her eager thirst for knowledge; for he furnished her daintily with bits of many a kind, from his own stores which were large. She did not know there was any design in this; she knew only that the steps were taken very easily in that walk. So pleasant it was that Faith was in ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... unchanged 'intellectual' character, too—which may also be a necessity, though not a comforting one. I ask myself to what purpose have I lived as a philosopher, if, possessed as you are of no mean intelligence and a genuine thirst for knowledge, all the years you have spent in my company have left no deeper impression upon you. At present you are behaving as if you had not even heard the cardinal principle of all culture, which I went to such pains to inculcate upon you ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... to which she was sent until she was about thirteen years of age. After this period, she was put out to work to earn her own living. She had many trials to endure which she would fain forget; but in the midst of them all she had an ardent thirst for knowledge and a remarkable talent for composition, as she evinced at the age of fourteen in an article which attracted the attention of the lady in whose family she was employed, and others. In this situation she was taught sewing, took ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... however, was not lost or misapplied. He had an inexhaustible thirst for knowledge, and therefore read, with ardour and industry, every book he could lay his hands upon; and he has told this writer, that if reading had been painful to him, his ambition was so ascendant, and his determination to rise in the world so unalterable, that he would not have read less. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... read the life of Lincoln, see his earnest thirst for knowledge, the sacrifice he was willing to pay for it, his consecration to his ideals of truth, the transparent honesty of the man, the supreme contempt with which he could look down upon anything poor or mean or low, the firmness and simplicity ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... like Benjamin than other boys in Boston, and he was his most intimate companion. John was talented, and a great reader. He had a craving thirst for knowledge, and used his leisure moments to improve his mind. He frequently discussed profitable subjects with Benjamin, who enjoyed his company very much for this reason. In their tastes, love of books, and high aims, they were suited to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... gratification is limited to a few:—he who fails may become a discontented misanthrope; and he who succeeds may be a scourge to his species. The desire of superiority or of praise may be misdirected in the same manner, leading to insolent triumph on the one hand, and envy on the other. Even the thirst for knowledge may be abused, and many are placed in circumstances in which it cannot be gratified. But the desire of moral improvement commends itself to every class of society, and its object is attainable by all. In proportion to its intensity and its steadiness, it tends ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... must either rest or begin upon something new Idleness had long since grown to be the occupation of his life If one only knew who it is all for Ill-judgment to pronounce a thing impossible In order to find himself for once in good company—(Solitude) Incomprehensible set no limits to his thirst for knowledge It was such a comfort once more to obey an order Love laughs at locksmiths More to the purpose to think of the future than of the past Never speaks a word too much or too little Philosophers who wrote of the vanity of writers So ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger

... insatiable thirst for knowledge which held to his task, through poverty and discouragement, John Leyden, a Scotch shepherd's son. Barefoot and alone, he walked six or eight miles daily to learn to read, which was all the schooling he had. His desire for an education defied the extremest poverty, and no obstacle could ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... time, the priest, poor man, had earned a moment of mental rest; but Paul's thirst for knowledge was insatiable. He began to ply him with questions about the Queen. And though Andre could tell him very little, and though he had heard all that the night before from Manuela, it interested him ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland



Words linked to "Thirst for knowledge" :   wonder, lust for learning, curiosity, desire to know



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