Busybodies Quotes

• People should always mind their own business. More trouble is caused in this world by interference than any other single thing.

  Charlotte Lamb

  People, Mind, World

  Charlotte Lamb (1981). “Stranger in the night”, Harlequin Books, 1981

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• Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wisdom, Religious, Freedom

  "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment". "God in the Dock". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1970.

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• The goat's business is none of the sheep's concern.

  Edna Ferber

  Sheep, Goats, Concern

  Edna Ferber (1941). “Saratoga Crunk”

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• A busybody's work is never done.

  A. N. Wilson

  Done

  79 Copy quote

• Do I look like someone who has something to do here on earth?' —That's what I'd like to answer the busybodies who inquire into my activities.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Looks, Answers, Earth

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

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• Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you.

  George Eliot

  GEORGE ELIOT (1860). “ADAM BEDE”, p.435

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• You know how some people are - they always feel they have to do things for other people's good, no matter what happens to the other people in the process!

  Frances Parkinson Keyes

  People, Matter, Process

  Frances Parkinson Keyes (1968). “Dinner at Antoine's”

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• Busy souls have no time to be busybodies.

  Martin O'Malley

  Inspirational, Soul, Busy

  65 Copy quote

• There was nothing more dangerous than people convinced of their own good intentions.

  Laura Lippman

  People, Good Intentions, Dangerous

  Laura Lippman (2015). “The Last Place”, p.44, Faber & Faber

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• It is personal vanity of the most flagrant type which intrudes itself, unasked, into other people's affairs. There are few of us who do not feel capable of ordering the daily lives of others, down to the most minute detail.

  Myrtle Reed

  Vanity, People, Details

  Myrtle Reed, Mary Badollet Powell (1911). “The Myrtle Reed Year Book: Epigrams and Opinions from the Writings and Sayings of Myrtle Reed”

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• It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

  C. S. Lewis

  Libertarian Party, Democracies Have, Government

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.324, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Busy people are never busybodies.

  Ethel Mumford

  Inspirational, People, Busy

  56 Copy quote

• There is nothing more revolting than an old busybody.

  Martial

  54 Copy quote

• It's a mystery to me how anyone ever gets any nourishment in this place. They must eat their meals standing up by the window so as to be sure of not missing anything.

  Agatha Christie

  Missing, Meals, Mystery

  Agatha Christie (2010). “Miss Marple 3-Book Collection 1: The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the Library, The Moving Finger”, p.43, HarperCollins UK

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• Once you assume your right to interfere in other people's problems they become in some ways more of a worry than your own, for with your own you can at least do what you think best, but other people always show such a persistent tendency to do the wrong thing.

  Marion Milner

  Thinking, People, Worry

  Marion Milner (2011). “A Life of One's Own”, p.154, Taylor & Francis

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• God save us from the people who want to do what's best for us.

  Sue Grafton

  People, Want, Interference

  Sue Grafton (2006). “S is for Silence: A Kinsey Millhone Novel”, p.366, Penguin

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• We are living in the era of the busybody. In ancient Greece, if a person wanted guidance, it involved a long, arduous expensive journey to consult the oracle at Delphi. Today, if you want guidance, all you have to do is unplug your ears.

  Margo Kaufman

  Journey, Long, Advice

  15 Copy quote

• Great mischief comes from attempts to steady other people's altars.

  Mary Baker Eddy

  People, Mischief, Steady

  Mary Baker Eddy (1944). “Christian Science Sentinel”

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• People who seek political power are, with exceptions too rare to matter, never to be trusted; at best, such people are vain and officious busybodies. People who actually achieve political power are to be trusted even less than those who seek it without success; winning elections requires a measure of deceitfulness and Machiavellian immorality that no decent person comes close to possessing.

  Donald J. Boudreaux

  Winning, People, Political

  38 Copy quote

• Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional "public morals experts" in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.

  Samuel Gompers

  People, Done, Fads

  Samuel Gompers, John McBride, William Green (1922). “The American Federationist”

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• Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

  C. S. Lewis

  Tyrants, Libertarian Party, Democracies Have

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.324, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• People used to complain about 'the idle rich.' But the idle rich did not do the kind of harm being done by today's busybody rich, who feed their own egos by bankrolling political crusades on the left which hurt the very people that the left claims to care about -- working people, minorities, and children.

  Thomas Sowell

  Hurt, Children, People

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• Insistent advice may develop into interference, and interference, someone has said, is the hind hoof of the devil.

  Carolyn Wells

  Advice, Devil, May

  Carolyn Wells (1937). “The Rest of My Life”

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• Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Selfish, Refinement, Deck

  "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Book III, (5), (c. 161 - 180 AD).

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• Critics, mathematicians, scientists and busybodies want to classify everything, marking the boundaries and limits... In art, there is room for all possibilities.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Want, Limits

  20 Copy quote