Curiosity, earnest research ...

Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.
Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

More phrases

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Quotes from the same author

Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man.
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
We could almost believe that we are destined by Providence to an unsettled position on the globe, so invariably is a love of change implanted in the young. It seems as if the eternal Lawgiver intended that, at a certain age, man should leave father, mother, and the dwelling of his infancy, to seek his fortunes over the wide world.
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
His conversation was marked by its happy abundance.
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley