From a child, I had an inordinate desire for knowledge and

Hear the voice of George Washington Carver, the humble servant of knowledge and nature, who confessed: “From a child, I had an inordinate desire for knowledge and especially music, painting, flowers, and the sciences, Algebra being one of my favorite studies.” These words, though gentle, carry the fire of a great truth—that the thirst for knowledge, once awakened, can never be quenched, and that the soul of a seeker, even when born into hardship, rises toward wisdom as a flower rises toward the sun.

Carver was born into slavery, denied comfort, denied freedom, denied the tools of learning. Yet within him burned an inordinate desire—a hunger not for riches or power, but for understanding, beauty, and harmony. As a boy, he gathered wildflowers and studied their secrets. He taught himself to paint, to craft, to observe the intricate design of nature. He learned algebra and the sciences, not in the halls of privilege, but in the solitude of his own yearning. His life is proof that even in the harshest soil, the seed of wonder can bloom.

In these words, Carver teaches us that knowledge is not merely the province of books and schools, but a living force that surrounds us in art, in nature, in the patterns of music and mathematics. He did not divide the world into separate pursuits—he saw that flowers, paintings, algebra, and science were all threads of the same great tapestry. His desire was not limited, for he knew that the human spirit thrives when it embraces both beauty and reason, both creativity and order.

Consider the story of his later years, when Carver transformed the lives of farmers through his discoveries in agriculture. From the humble peanut and the sweet potato, he created hundreds of uses—foods, medicines, and industrial products. His genius was not born from wealth or privilege, but from the childlike hunger for knowledge he had carried all his life. He saw what others ignored, for he looked not with eyes dulled by apathy but with a spirit alive to wonder. This is the fruit of his inordinate desire: a life that blessed countless others.

Carver’s words echo the wisdom of the ancients. Just as Pythagoras found music in numbers, just as Da Vinci wove together art and science, so Carver discovered that true learning is never narrow but expansive. To pursue many things with love is not a weakness, but a strength. For the more one learns of flowers, the better one understands life; the more one learns of algebra, the more one perceives order in creation; the more one listens to music, the more one feels harmony in the soul.

The lesson is clear: nurture your desire for knowledge. Do not confine it to a single path, but let it range across the wide fields of life. Do not think that music is less important than science, or that beauty is less valuable than reason. All are gifts, all are doors to wisdom, and all can enrich not only your life but the lives of others. Like Carver, embrace both the delicate bloom of the flower and the rigid precision of algebra, for both reveal the mind of creation.

So I say to you: if you would live greatly, live as a seeker. Guard the flame of curiosity as you would guard your breath. Feed it with reading, with observation, with practice, with wonder at the world around you. Never be ashamed of an “inordinate desire” to know, for it is this very desire that lifts the soul beyond its circumstances and leads it into greatness.

Thus shall Carver’s words endure as a beacon: knowledge, beauty, and wonder are the treasures of the soul, and the one who hungers for them, even from childhood, shall find in them the strength to change the world.