Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.But wait a second! - does it mean that it's a noble pastime to immerse oneself in gossip to discover in detail whether one's favorite actor's relationship is in crisis? I don't want to think so: rather, I think there are two kinds of curiosity. François de la Rochefoucauld tells us in this way:
There are different kinds of curiosity: one springs from interest, which makes us desire to know everything that may be profitable to us; another from pride, which springs from a desire of knowing what others are ignorant of.Now, rather, I mean that the two kinds of curiosity can be described as constructive and destructive curiosity - or perhaps rather as craving for knowledge and prying, respectively. For there is no doubt that it is not fair to let the things that people have an interest in being secret about, which any idea of privacy give them the right to keep for themselves, be the topic of one's curiosity. But the constructive curiosity; the craving for knowledge, which makes us all smarter, and which does not hurt anyone, we cannot get too much of.
On a different note, I'm not entirely aware of where that cat lived when curiosity killed it. But it was not the blacksmith's cat - an old Danish saying has that it was killed by thanks. Although it's noble enough to be thankful, you cannot live off thanks alone...
(Translated from Giv den kat en statsbegravelse, originally published November 28th, 2010.