Busybodies Quotes - Page 2

• Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.

  Samuel Gompers

  People, Dangerous, Experiments

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

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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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• 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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• The one prediction that never comes true is, 'You'll thank me for telling you this.

  Judith Martin

  Predictions, Conversation

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• Every person - whether Greek or Barbarian - who is in training for wisdom, leading a blameless, irreproachable life, chooses neither to commit injustice nor return it unto others, but to avoid the company of busybodies, and hold in contempt the places where they spend their time - courts, councils, marketplaces, assemblies - in short, every kind of meeting or reunion of thoughtless people. ... People such as these, who find their joy in virtue, celebrate a festival their whole life long.

  Pierre Hadot

  Long, People, Joy

  "La Philosophie comme manière de vivre: Entretiens avec Jeannie Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson" by Pierre Hadot, Jeannie Carlier, Arnold I. Davidson, Paris: Albin Michel, translated by Michael Chase, (p. 264), 2001.

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• The weather is nature's disruptor of human plans and busybodies. Of all the things on earth, nature's disruption is what we know we can depend on, as it is essentially uncontrolled by men.

  Criss Jami

  Men, Weather, Earth

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.38, Criss Jami

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• Making those we love happy sounds innocent as a dove, but it can be as destructive as a lion.

  Florida Scott-Maxwell

  Sound, Lions, Innocent

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• It's dangerous business, thinking you can make people over.

  Lenora Mattingly Weber

  Thinking, People, Dangerous

  Lenora Mattingly Weber (1950). “Leave it to Beany!”

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• Zeus hates busybodies and those who do too much.

  Euripides

  Hate, Too Much, Action

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• I, who fall short in managing my own affairs, can see just how it would profit my neighbor if I managed his.

  Anne Ellis

  Fall, Affair, Neighbor

  Anne Ellis (1997). “Plain Anne Ellis: More about the Life of an Ordinary Woman”, p.67, U of Nebraska Press

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• A writer's occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Thinking, Hazards, Eavesdropping

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• Nest of Soviet fellow travelers clacking busybodies in a Soviet jellyfish front, sitting here in Leesburg oozing out their funny little propaganda and making nuisances of themselves.

  Lyndon LaRouche

  Nuisance, Sitting, Nests

  "Ex-Aide: LaRouche Extravagant". Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1988.

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• there is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by-the-by - for such wisdom is wholly wasted.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Wise, Advice, Easy

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1852). “Romance and reality”, p.87

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• The busybodies have begun to infect American society with a nasty intolerance - a zeal to police the private lives of others and hammer them into standard forms - A Nation of Finger Pointers.

  Lance Morrow

  America, Police, Hammers

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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

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• The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are ruinous prices - paid by others.

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, Decision, Fatal Attraction

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.225, Hoover Press

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• Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

  C. S. Lewis

  Peace, War, Government

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has no duty to the masses or society, and ethical or moral pronouncements added by busybody critics are of no concern to the writer.

  Gao Xingjian

  Literature, Moral, Ethical

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• Think about it: What the busybodies are saying is that third parties like themselves -- who are paying nothing to anybody -- should be determining how much somebody else should be paying those who work for them.

  Thomas Sowell

  Party, Thinking, Should

  "The Latest Liberal Crusade" by Thomas Sowell, www.realclearpolitics.com. May 10, 2005.

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• There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Thinking, People

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.540, Routledge

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• There are plenty of people, in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend closely to their neighbours' business by dint of neglecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  People, Neglect, Concern

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “ANNE OF GREEN GABLES - Complete Collection: ALL 14 Books in One Volume (Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Rainbow Valley, The Story Girl, Chronicles of Avonlea and more): Including Letters and Autobiography of Lucy Maud Montgomery”, p.7, e-artnow

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• Fairness' is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties -- busybodies -- can prevent mutual accommodations by others.

  Thomas Sowell

  Party, Mean, Equality

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.225, Hoover Press

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• Usually, so far as improvement in the people's economic conditions is concerned, humanitarians simply play the role of the busybody.

  Vilfredo Pareto

  Play, People, Roles

  Vilfredo Pareto (1971). “Manual of political economy”, Augustus m Kelley Pubs

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• Jane had that happy disposition which would like to imagine that every one really wishes the well-being of his neighbour and struggles, though sometimes rather disastrously, to help him towards it.

  Phyllis Bottome

  Struggle, Wish, Helping

  Phyllis Bottome (1930). “Tatter'd Loving”

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• But when no risk is taken there is no freedom. It is thus that, in an industrial society, the plethora of laws made for our personal safety convert the land into a nursery, and policemen hired to protect us become selfserving busybodies.

  Alan Watts

  Taken, Law, Land

  Alan Watts (2010). “Tao: The Watercourse Way”, p.43, Souvenir Press

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