Quotes & Sayings About Busybodies

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

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

Busy mouths grow on idle heads — Agona Apell

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

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

The saying that people who have nothing to do become busybodies is not the only truth. Excitement is a drug, and people whose lives are filled with violence are always wondering where the next 'fix' is coming from. — Maya Angelou

Great mischief comes from attempts to steady other people's altars ... — Mary Baker Eddy

Teaching is so demanding, and you get so little support. That pinch will have done Olive no harm - probably a lot of good.'
'Do you really think so?'
'Yes,' said Matthew. But then he went on, rather sadly, 'But I suppose that's not the world we live in, with all these regulations and busybodies about.' He paused. 'I think you've struck a blow for sanity. Or rather, pinched one.'
She thought this very funny and laughed.
'I'm rather fed up with teaching anyway,' Elspeth said. — Alexander McCall Smith

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

Cruising along once again in this cesspool known as life, I realize that it is too late to make a detour. I will have to pass the anti-abortion pickets (50) outside of Planned Parenthood. Nothing gets on my nerves more than these pro-lifers. Not even astrology enthusiasts (51), Herman Hesse (52) or computer games (53). Look at these fools parading up and down! "Mind your own business," I yell. When one of these busybodies (a man, yet) approaches my car with literature, I lose control and scream, "I wish I was a girl so I could get an abortion!" Trembling with rage, I realize I'd better calm down before I get beat up, but can't resist one last taunt - "I hate the pope" (54), I yell to no one in particular. — John Waters

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

There is nothing more revolting than an old busybody. — Martial

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

Busy souls have no time to be busybodies. — Martin O'Malley

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

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. — Emil Cioran

Professional is an apt definition for me, professional slouch, that is. I can be very professional at seeming to do work, but the real work is trying to do as little as possible, without getting caught by Trip or any nosey busybodies. — J.C. Patrick

It is my conviction that we make ourselves who we want to be and not chain ourselves to the notions of busybodies who wish to judge us. — Matthew Pearl

Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you. — George Eliot

Busy people are never busybodies. — Ethel Mumford

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

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

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

When people say they're too busy, ask them If they'll have time to die, and see If dead's gonna give a damn. — Michael Bassey Johnson

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

Zeus hates busybodies and those who do too much. — Euripides

It may be better to live under robber barons than omnipotent moral busybodies. — C.S. Lewis

"Family" this and "family" that. If I had a family I'd be furious that moral busybodies are taking the perfectly good word family and using it as a code for censorship the same way "states' rights" was used to disguise racism in the mid-sixties. — John Waters

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

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

Even if sexual orientation were a choice, aren't we a country where we're supposed to be free to pursue our happiness, whether we're hetero-, homo-, bi-, trans-, or even a-sexual? To use [an analogy that homosexuality is a vice, like drinking], being antigay is like Prohibition, when a small group of busybodies thought no one should be allowed to drink. — Alex Sanchez

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