curiosity killed a cat

A distracted mother having answered a half a hundred queries in half an hour, at last implored her bright little eight-year-old to desist for a while. “Curiosity killed a cat, you know, dear,” she explained with half humorous philosophy. The little boy’s tongue was still for perhaps the space of three minutes. Then came a childish voice, low and gentle, but eager: “Motherkins, please tell me! What was it the cat wanted to know?”

1911 November 5, “Those Fool Questions—and Some Fool Retorts […]”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

When you give somebody a present from a foreign land, you’d think that would provoke some questions, even if only “How much?” Curiosity killed a cat, Aunt Harriet used to say, but she never failed to ask me where I’d been, and with whom.

1951 October, William Edman Massee, “Great to Be Home”, in The Atlantic Monthly, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 May 2022