Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Curiosity
Each window like a pill’ry appears,
With heads thrust through nail’d by the ears.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto III. L. 391.
I loathe that low vice—curiosity.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 23.
The poorest of the sex have still an itch
To know their fortunes, equal to the rich.
The dairy-maid inquires, if she shall take
The trusty tailor, and the cook forsake.
Dryden—Sixth Satire of Juvenal. L. 762.
Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no fibs.
Goldsmith—She Stoops to Conquer. Act III.
Percunctatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem est.
Shun the inquisitive person, for he is also a talker.
Horace—Epistles. I. 18. 69.
Rise up, rise up, Xarifa! lay your golden cushion down;
Rise up! come to the window, and gaze with all the town!
John G. Lockhart—The Bridal of Andella.
I saw and heard, for we sometimes,
Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth
To town or village nigh, nighest is far,
Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear,
What happens new; fame also finds us out.
Milton—Paradise Regained. Bk. I. L. 330.
Platon estime qu’il y ait quelque vice d’impiété à trop curieusement s’enquerir de Dieu et du monde.
Plato holds that there is some vice of impiety in enquiring too curiously about God and the world.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. II. Ch. XII.
Zaccheus, he
Did climb the tree,
His Lord to see.
New England Primer. 1814.
Incitantur enim homines ad agnoscenda quæ differuntur.
Our inquisitive disposition is excited by having its gratification deferred.
Pliny the Younger—Epistles. IX. 27.
’Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 1.
I have perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness.
King Lear. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 73.
They mocked thee for too much curiosity.
Timom of Athens. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 302.