Meddle Quotes & Sayings

A PRAYER The supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous, powerful, or "good," but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected - ready to say "I do not know," if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality - to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid. I wish others to live their lives, too - up to their highest, fullest and best. To that end I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference, and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. — Elbert Hubbard

Sin is too great an evil for man to meddle with. His attempts to remove it do but increase it, and his endeavours to approach God in spite of it aggravate his guilt. — Horatius Bonar

I mark my years or parenting by the people who stepped in and forced me to abandon my inclination to meddle, micromanage, and coddle, beginning with my children's father, who sat me down and told me in year two that I was going to create a little monster if I continuted to act as though "no" and "I don't love you" were synonomous. — Anna Quindlen

Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand! — E. M. Forster

According to the Asiatics, Cupid's bow is strung with bees which are apt to sting, sometimes fatally, those who meddle with it. — Maria Edgeworth

Who was I to meddle in people's love lives? Mine was a mess. My heart
wanted the one thing it wasn't allowed to have - love with someone besides my
cupid-appointed soul mate. I was so screwed up, I made the dysfunctional
relationships on Jerry Springer look wholesome. — Jenn Windrow

If the gods actually know our fates and still try to meddle and wage their wars in us, then there must be some purpose in our choosing one of the many paths to that end. Man must have free will, or else why would the gods themselves bother? — Kristopher Jansma

Jesus doesn't come asking if He can hang out with us. He commands us to follow Him. He has total authority and will settle for nothing less; He won't settle for being an accessory, an add- on, or a peaceful accompaniment to a nice life. No, He will rule and He will meddle. — Justin Buzzard

Older sisters are far more powerful than vampires. Not even garlic or a crucifix will keep us away when we're determined to meddle in your affairs. — Teresa Medeiros

Industry cannot flow unless cpaital is confident, and capital will not be confident as long as it fears that Parliament will meddle with it and walk off with its profits. — Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess Of Salisbury

There's no more happiness," Leo said roughly. "There's no peace in any damn corner of my life. She took it all with her. For pity's sake, Amelia ... go meddle in someone else's affairs, and leave me the hell alone. — Lisa Kleypas

The world is a sacred vessel. It should not be meddled with. It should not be owned. If you try to meddle with it you will ruin it. If you try to own it you will lose it — Laozi

It is too dangerous to meddle in the marriage of princes,' he muttered as he withdrew. Arundel made a joke at his expense, saying 'He lost his post as Chancellor that day, for the Queen had usurped it,' which drew wry laughter from the deputation. — Alison Weir

Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise people, who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to carve out their own purposes. — Anna Brownell Jameson

Never meddle with play-actors, for they're a favoured race. — Miguel De Cervantes

The past is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's etched in stone. And other times, it's rendered in soft memories. But if you meddle too long in deep, dark things... Who knows what monsters you'll awaken? — Emily Thorne

People without independence have no business to meddle with science. It should never be linked with lucre. — Edward Forbes

An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people. — Jack Welch

I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That is to say, I desire to be Radiant
to Radiate Life! — Elbert Hubbard

The providence that's in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, Finds bottom in th' incomprehensive deeps, Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. There is a mystery (with which relation Durst never meddle) in the soul of state, Which hath an operation more divine Than breath or pen can give expressure to. (Act 3, Sc. — William Shakespeare

We forget now, but during his life, Dr. King wasn't always considered a unifying figure. Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical. He was even attacked by his own people, by those who felt he was going too fast or those who felt he was going too slow; by those who felt he shouldn't meddle in issues like the Vietnam War or the rights of union workers. — Barack Obama

It was asserted that these escapes were organised by a band of Englishmen, whose daring seemed to be unparalleled, and who, from sheer desire to meddle in what did not concern them, spent their spare time in snatching away lawful victims destined for Madame la Guillotine. — Emmuska Orczy

A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much. — Irwin Shaw

It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men's
marriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize and
segregate anyone he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a few
great hygienists might enclose or limit the life of all citizens,
as nurses do with a family of children. It is not anarchy, it is
tyranny; but tyranny is a workable thing. — G.K. Chesterton

A man. All men. He will pass up a hundred chances to do good for one chance to meddle where meddling is not wanted. He will overlook and fail to see chances, opportunities, for riches and fame and welldoing, and even sometimes for evil. But he won't fail to see a chance to meddle. — William Faulkner

It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not to meddle in things that weren't his business from now on. He'd had it with sneaking around and spying. — J.K. Rowling

There are certain things for which civilization has no answer. But if you choose to meddle thus, then you must be prepared to facethe consequences, whatever they are. — Jimmy Sangster

Some have said that it is not the business of private men to meddle with government
a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to come from no mouth but that of a tyrant or a slave. To say that private men have nothing to do with government is to say that private men have nothing to do with their own happiness or misery; that people ought not to concern themselves whether they be naked or clothed, fed or starved, deceived or instructed, protected or destroyed. — Cato The Younger

It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not. — Charles Caleb Colton

Anyone who does not feel sufficiently strong in memory should not meddle with lying. — Michel De Montaigne

Ha!" he thought. "That will teach me to meddle with magic meant for kings! Norrell is right. Some magic is not meant for ordinary magicians. Presumably John Uskglass knew what to do with this horrible knowledge. I do not. Should I tell someone? The Duke? He will not thank me for it. — Susanna Clarke

We're not going to meddle in the internal life of other peoples and other governments, because we don't want them meddling in ours. — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege. — Plato

Why doesn't anyone address the substantive question of why other states blatantly interfere in Israel's internal affairs? Israel does not meddle in the affairs of other states in a similar way, so why do other countries feel entitled to do this to Israel? These actions violate Israeli sovereignty and I expect European Union member states to act differently. — Ayelet Shaked

If there be any Gods at all, of which I am not even certain, I cannot believe they would stoop to meddle in the affairs of men. Nor will I wait upon the Gods to do what I see clearly must be done - who's to say that the Goddess cannot work through my hand as well as another. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

When I lately retired to my house I resolved, as far as I could, to meddle in nothing, but to pass in peace and privacy what little time I had to live. It seemed to me I could not better gratify my mind than by giving it full leisure to dwell in its own thoughts and divert itself with them. And I hoped that with the passage of time, it could do this with greater ease as it became more settled and ripe. But the contrary was the case. Like a horse broke loose, it gave itself a hundred times more rein. There rose in me a horde of chimerae and fantastic creatures, one upon the other, without order or relevance. To contemplate more coolly] their queerness and ineptitude I began to put them in writing - hoping in time to make my mind ashamed of itself. A ming which has no set goal loses itself. To be everywhere is to be nowhere. No wind serves the man bound for no port. — Michel De Montaigne

An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill. — Edmund Burke

In other words each of those calm and melancholy days on which I did not see her, coming one after the other without interruption, continuing too without prescription (unless some busy-body were to meddle in my affairs), was a day not lost but gained. Gained to no purpose, it might be, for presently they would be able to pronounce that I was healed. Resignation, modulating our habits, allows certain elements of our strength to be indefinitely increased. Those - so wretchedly inadequate - that I had had to support my grief, on the first evening of my rupture with Gilberte, had since multiplied to an incalculable power. — Marcel Proust

intentional: if you meddle in our affairs, we'll — Douglas Preston

I don't like to meddle in my private affairs. — Karl Kraus

Age should never meddle with such a matter. Mind your own business. — Soseki Natsume

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

I didn't meddle. If I did meddle there wouldn't be all this violence. All this horrible sexism in games. — Lincoln Chafee

Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutalized. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Keep in mind God's precept that states, 'Judge not, and you will not be judged' (Lk. 6:37), and in no way meddle in the lives of others. — Symeon The New Theologian

Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back. "Not that. That's meddling with things you don't understand."
"Well, we are wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle in things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we understood things we'd never get anything done. — Terry Pratchett

Shakespeare is to me the purest voice of nature, and he does no meddle with nature. His plays provide us with the greatest variety of erotic expression, and with Shakespeare eros is the proper term to use. — Allan Bloom

their own ends and to meddle in the affairs of others. I sometimes wonder if the gods and goddesses we call on today might once have walked the Earth as Witches themselves, having been so magical in life that they were deified in death. — Christian Day

Everyone needs to make his own choices. You need to mind your own business and not meddle in ours. So — John Bunyan

When women oppose themselves to the projects and ambition of men, they excite their lively resentment; if in their youth they meddle with political intrigues, their modesty must suffer. — Madame De Stael

Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer. — Bruce Graham

My principles in respect of religious interest are two,
one is, that the Church shall not meddle with politics, and the government shall not meddle with religion. — Lajos Kossuth

I'll not meddle with it. It makes a man a coward: a man cannot steal but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbor's wife but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavors to trust to himself and live without it. — William Shakespeare

An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man's property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything this is his. — Daniel Morgan

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble. — Mark Twain

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. — Darynda Jones

But this does not take away the fact that Luke sees the frustrations women face, including the constant discipline of being quietly useful while others crowd in to take the more obviously attractive roles. Furthermore, he remembers Jesus as a teacher who was willing to recognize the value of women's contribution. Working in partnership with a man also protected the women from being bothered by other men who resented their independent activity or simply wanted to meddle. For the women of Galilee, Jesus was invaluable as a sympathetic male focal point around which their activity could be organized. The presence of such a person in their midst would have been a godsend even if the man in question had not been a miracle-worker. — Kate Cooper

We are not responsible to the .90 calibers the pezzonovantis who take it upon themselves to decide what we shall do with out lives, who declare wars they wish us to fight in to protect what they own ... And who are they then to meddle when we look after our own interests? Sonna cosa nostra ... these are our own affairs. We will manage our world for ourselves because it is our world, cosa nostra — Mario Puzo

Moreover, to endure labour; nor to need many things; when I have anything to do, to do it myself rather than by others; not to meddle with many businesses; and not easily to admit of any slander. — Marcus Aurelius

It can be rebuilt if other countries with selfish interests will not meddle, as has been done in the past. — Bulent Ecevit

Those who keep careful watch over their conscience are not often liable to form rash judgments, for just as when the clouds lower the bees make for the shelter of their hive, so really good people shrink back into themselves, and refuse to be mixed up with the clouds and fogs of their neighbour's questionable doings, and rather than meddle with others, they consecrate their energies on their own improvement and good resolutions. No surer sign of an unprofitable life than when people give way to censoriousness and inquisitiveness into the lives of other men. — Francis De Sales

came the time in which the King was to be crowned. Now, at the coronation of kings, there is usually a releasement of divers prisoners, by virtue of his coronation; in which privilege also I should have had my share; but that they took me for a convicted person, and therefore, unless I sued out a pardon (as they called it), I could have no benefit thereby, notwithstanding, yet, forasmuch as the coronation proclamation did give liberty, from the day the King was crowned, to that day twelvemonth, to sue them out; therefore, though they would not let me out of prison, as they let out thousands, yet they could not meddle with me, as touching the execution of their sentence; because of the liberty offered for the suing out of pardons. — John Bunyan

Make my happiness - I will make yours. God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me: I have her and will hold her. — Charlotte Bronte

If any person should meddle with my cause, I require them to judge the best'. — Anne Boleyn

Browns seek knowledge, Blues meddle in causes, and Whites consider the questions of truth with implacable logic. We all do some of it all, of course. But to be Green means to stand ready. In the Trolloc Wars, we were often called the Battle Ajah. All Aes Sedai helped where and when they could, but the Green Ajah alone was always with the armies, in almost every battle. We were the counter to the dreadlords. The Battle Ajah. And now we stand ready, for the Trollocs to come south again, for Tarmon Gai'don. the Last Battle. We will be there. That is what it means to be Green. -Alanna — Robert Jordan

It is not wise to meddle with D'Angelines in matters of love. — Jacqueline Carey

The compulsion to preach is so rooted in us that it emerges from depths unknown to the instinct for self-preservation. Each of us awaits his moment in order to propose something - anything. He has a voice: that is enough. It costs us dear to be neither deaf nor dumb. . .

From snobs to scavengers, all expend their criminal generosity, all hand out formulas for happiness, all try to give directions: life in common thereby becomes intolerable, and life with oneself still more so; if you fail to meddle in other people's business you are so uneasy about your, own that you convert your "self" into a religion, or, apostle in reverse, you deny it altogether; we are victims of the universal game. . . — Emil M. Cioran

It's the gloomy things that need our help, if everything in the garden is sunny, why meddle? — Julian Fellowes

When I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great. And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most — Plato

Mature citizens have to sink or swim by themselves. Citizens are on their own and have to prove their responsibility and self-reliance. They have become the leaders in their own family units (or local communities). They have to, and are competent to, make their own decisions. They have to protect themselves and their families (or communities). They know what is good for them better than their government, which is distant from them. A good government does not meddle or interfere in their lives. Any governmental meddling or interfering is strongly resented. Here — George Lakoff

Christ's fishermen should not meddle with men's law, for men' s law contains sharp stones and trees by which the net of God is broken, and the fish wend out of the world. — John Wycliffe

In truth, my husband and I were persons of "quite different construction, different bent, completely dissimilar views." But we always remained ourselves, in no way echoing nor currying favor with one another, neither of us trying to meddle with the other's soul, neither I with his psyche nor he with mine. And in this way my good husband and I, both of us, felt ourselves free in spirit. — Anna Grigoryevna Dostoyevskaya

The easiest way to get along in life is to meddle as little as possible. — Salla Simukka

California had organized itself, not accidentally, into highly partisan legislative districts. It elected highly partisan people to office and then required these people to reach a two-thirds majority to enact any new tax or meddle with big spending decisions. On the off chance that they found some common ground, it could be pulled out from under them by voters through the initiative process. Throw in term limits - no elected official now serves in California government long enough to fully understand it - and you have a recipe for generating maximum contempt for elected officials. Politicians are elected to get things done and are prevented by the system from doing it, leading the people to grow even more disgusted with them. "The vicious cycle of contempt," as Mark Paul calls it. California state government was designed mainly to maximize the likelihood that voters will continue to despise the people they elect. — Michael Lewis

She barely hid a smile. "That's a wizard's answer if I ever heard one." "Meaning that mages deal in double talk?" His grin was impish. "That's one of our two occupational hazards." "And what's the other one?" He laughed. "A deplorable tendency to meddle. — Barbara Hambly

For that which you mention concerning liberty of conscience, I meddle not with any man's conscience. — Oliver Cromwell

He that does not know how wisely to meddle with public affairs in preaching the gospel, does not know how to preach the gospel. — Henry Ward Beecher

It is by manipulating "hidden forces" that the advertising experts induce us to buy their wares - a toothpaste, a brand of cigarettes, a political candidate. And it is by appealing to the same hidden forces - and to others too dangerous for Madison Avenue to meddle with - that Hitler induced the German masses to buy themselves a Fuehrer, an insane philosophy and the Second World War. — Aldous Huxley

Its an arrogant conceit of humans to think that they can "give" justice in whatever capacity. Karma would boomerang sooner or later and you are not required to meddle with it. Laws don't ensure justice but ensures fear of punishment in men much like religion instills fear of God. — Nikhil Sharda

Simply because humankind have the power now to meddle or 'manage' or 'exercise stewardship' in every nook and cranny of the world does not mean that we have a right to do so. Even less, the obligation. — Edward Abbey

Bless you. Be careful. Anyone intending to meddle with words needs such blessing, such warning. — Margaret Atwood

Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons. For thou art crunchy and go well with Ketchup. — Unknown

The man once wrote: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Tolkien had that one mostly right.
I stepped forward, let the door bang closed, and snarled, Fuck subtle. — Jim Butcher

I used to do jacket design, and I'm very conscious of covers, and probably meddle more than other authors would. — Steven Amsterdam

I though the Black Reach lived in China."
"That doesn't mean anything," Bob said with a shrug. "The Black Reach doesn't have to be in the same hemisphere to meddle in you affairs. He didn't get his name for having unusually long arms, you know. — Rachel Aaron

Aren't you sentient human beings? Or are you living like animals for the moment only? In that case by all means indulge in charity and cure each petty suffering that meets your eye; but don't meddle with the revolution, for its task is to cure all sufferings present and to come. — Albert Camus

The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it; but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better. — Thomas Jefferson

I grew up in what you might call a relentlessly creative household. We were given art supplies, music supplies ... Our mother knew enough to get us started and then stand back and not meddle. My parents never said to us, 'Don't you think you'll need something to fall back on?' They acted as though creativity was completely normal. — Julia Cameron

Happily, the sorcerer returns just in time to break the spell and end the disaster. The implied lesson of the story is not to meddle with forces you can't control. — Aubrey Sherman

I love Virginians because Virginians are all snobs and I like snobs. A snob has to spend so much time being a snob that he has little time left to meddle with you. — William Faulkner

I realized that I really, almost by accident, had fallen into a labyrinthine, very powerful paradigm for dealing with these things through genre films. And once I realized that and realized the power of it, and the fact that because horror films aren't, in general, studio products - studios back them sometimes, but they don't try to meddle too much, because they kind of don't want to sully their skirts - you have a lot of freedom. — Wes Craven

The love, born of beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy, consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in this Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either to its culture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly. — Charlotte Bronte

My mother was a pathetic patchwork witch who had used magic so much to meddle in her own life that she had no integrity left and was nothing but a coil of hatreds consuming themselves in futility. We had already hedged her power, with the help of the fairies. — Jo Walton

That will teach me to meddle with magic meant for kings! Norrell is right. Some magic is not meant for ordinary magicians. Presumably John Uskglass knew what to do with this horrible knowledge. I do not. — Susanna Clarke

From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus, nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I learned endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander. — Marcus Aurelius

See what perils do environ those who meddle with hot iron. — John Galsworthy

Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with the government of men. — Georges Danton

It was only after the illness that I understood how important it is to affirm one's own destiny. In this way we forge an ego that does not break down when incomprehensible things happen; an ego that endures, that endures the truth, and that is capable of coping with the world and with fate. Then, to experience defeat is also to experience victory. Nothing is disturbed - neither inwardly nor outwardly, for one's own continuity has withstood the current of life and of time. But that can come to pass only when one does not meddle inquisitively with the workings of fate. I — C. G. Jung