"In how many of the most minute and trivial things my curiosity is still daily tempted, and who can keep the tally on how often I succumb? How often, when people are telling idle tales, we begin by tolerating them lest we should give offense to the sensitive; and then gradually we come to listen willingly! I do not nowadays go to the circus to see a dog chase a rabbit, but if by chance I pass such a race in the fields, it quite easily distracts me even from some serious thought and draws me after it—not that I turn aside with my horse, but with the inclination of my mind. And unless, by showing me my weakness, thou dost speedily warn me to rise above such a sight to thee by a deliberate act of thought—or else to despise the whole thing and pass it by—then I become absorbed in the sight, vain creature that I am."
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Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, as translated by A. Outler, Book 10, Chapter 35.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curiosity
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Curiosity
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