Terry Pratchett Quotes

By nature, men love newfangledness.

I think being fascinated by others is just who we are; we're curious creatures.

You can't forbid children to do things that are available to them at every turn. God told Eve, 'Don't give the apple to Adam,' and look what happened. It's in our nature to want the things we see.

I just like being a social experiment sometimes. I really should not be allowed in public. But I just go out into the public just to see people's reaction. The thing is, I can do anything I want, virtually, within reason, just to see people's reaction.

I do really crazy things all the time, but I can't think of anything offhand.

By the time I was a teenager, my desire to be daring and taste everything got me in trouble. Too often, I was in the company of kids my parents would call 'wild.'

I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.

I'm still passionately interested in what my fellow humans are up to. For me, a day spent monitoring the passing parade is a day well-spent.

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.

Humans have a tendency towards short-term thinking.

Men often act knowingly against their interest

People are wired for lots of things. We're wired for novelty. We're wired for humor. We're wired for new pieces of information that surprise us in some way or add value to our lives. We're wired for fear.

I think, by nature, human beings are curious. And I think that's only amplified as an artist.

I might not do it again and again, but I would like to test waters which are considered forbidden for me. It is a human tendency.

I really believe that, as human beings, we have an innate need to explore, to see what's around the corner.

So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.

If you know a little bit the psychology of human beings, you have to understand that if you say something you should not do, then everybody wants to do it.

If 'why' was the first and last question, then because I was curious to see what would happen was the first and last answer. A version of it had been spoken to God Himself in the Garden of Eden, and it was destined to be the reason for the end of things at the hands of man.

Curiosity is the essence of human existence and exploration has been part of humankind for a long time. The exploration of space, like the exploration of life, if you will, is a risk. We've got to be willing to take it.

A friend of mine, the most innocuous dreamer who ever lived, once set a forest on fire to see, as he said, if it would catch as easily as people said. The first ten times the experiment was a failure; but on the eleventh it succeeded all too well.

As a species, we are forever sticking our finger into the electric socket of the universe to see what will happen next.

There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong. 'Why did you climb the mountain?' 'I climbed the mountain because it was there.' That's utter nonsense...You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.

When my generation was your age, we took crazy risks. The wildest thing was - prepare to be shocked - we deliberately ingested carbohydrates!

I've always had a feeling that any time you can experiment, you ought to do it. Because you never know what will happen.