Meddling Quotes

In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy. ~ George Washington

You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it - low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion - and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Advocates of Strict Father morality show such a resentment of illegitimate authority, not just toward meddling parents but toward any moral authority seen to be illegitimately meddling in their lives. The federal government is a common target. We regularly hear arguments that the federal government doesn't know what's best for people, that people know what's best for themselves, and that the government is not acting in the interests of ordinary people. Therefore, federal authority should be shifted to local governments or eliminated altogether. It ~ George Lakoff

Don't you have any concept of individuality?" she asks, annoyed by its presumption at meddling with her internal states.
"Individuality is an unnecessary barrier to information transfer," says the ghost, morphing into its original form, a translucent reflection of her own body. "It reduces the efficiency of a capitalist economy. A large block of the DMZ is still inaccessible to we-me. Are you sure you have defeated the monster? ~ Charles Stross

Peter sat as powerless as an overwhelmed female character in a Victorian drama. ~ Edgar Cantero

You're just pushing your food around, aren't you? You've barely taken two bites. I thought you loved Lou's Cornish hens."
"I do. I'm sorry. All I can think about is that English project due this week." I look over at Ryder with a faux scowl. "We're already way behind--you've always got some excuse. We should probably work on it tonight."
"Probably so," Ryder says with an exasperated-sounding sigh.
"That's the third project the two of you have been paired up on," Mama says, shaking her head. "I hope you two can behave well enough to get your work done properly. No more arguing like the last time."
We'd pretended to fight over a calculus project. Yes, a calculus project. Is there really any such thing?
"We're trying really hard to behave," I say, shooting Ryder a sidelong glance. "Right?"
His cheeks pinken deliciously at the innuendo. I love it when Ryder blushes. Totally adorable.
"Right," he mumbles, his gaze fixed on his lap.
Laura Grace gives us both a pointed look. "You two better learn to get along, you hear? You're going to be spending a lot of time together for the next four years."
Four years. Just the two of us--away from our meddling mamas. I have to bite my lip to force back the smile that's threatening to give us away.
"She's right," Mama says, nodding. "The only way I'm allowing Jemma to go to NYU is if she promises not to go off campus without Ryder to escort her."
Escort me? What is it, the 1950s or somethin ~ Kristi Cook

That which is meddling, touching everything, ~ Lao-Tzu

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind, than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part of life. ~ Joseph Addison

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

The problem with meddling," said Charles under his breath, "is that for every problem you solve, you create two more. ~ Kate Elliott

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs. ~ John Stuart Mill

The government should stop meddling in the business of the farmers, who would actually still be living ina desert if not for government meddling. ~ Jon Stewart

Disrespectful! My grandmothers are both dead."
"Well, Jesus. What did they die of?"
"Mom always said 'meddling. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

It is necessary that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other people's business. Each individual must be left free to follow his own path. ~ Aleister Crowley

Fine wits destroy themselves with their own plots, in meddling with great affairs of state. ~ John Selden

I'll take another stab at talking to her."
"If you can't find a way, get Cooper to do it. You know how he loves controlling things. I'm sure he'll want to help."
"True, but once he starts meddling, he won't stop. I don't need him giving me pointers for the rest of my relationship with Lark."
"Lark," my mother said, testing out the name. "She had such a sweet smile. I could look at that smile for the rest of my life. Yes, go kick fate in the balls and get me a daughter."
"You have a daughter."
"A new one, I meant. Preferably one who likes to visit more than Anna."
Grinning at the thought of my alpha chick sister, I finished my juice and stood up. "I'll focus on a first date then worry about getting you a more compliant daughter. ~ Bijou Hunter

India, she now knew, would not be content staying in the background, was nobody's wallpaper, insisted in interjecting itself into everyone's life, meddling with it, twisting it, molding it beyond recognition. India, she had found out, was a place of political intrigue and economic corruption, a place occupied by real people with their incessantly human needs, desires, ambitions, and aspirations, and not the exotic, spiritual, mysterious entity that was a creation of the Western imagination. ~ Thrity Umrigar

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong; and I reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own -- not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Didn't he come to - to ask you for some magic?"
"No, he came to enjoy the view of the Wood," the Dragon said. "Of course he came for magic, and I sent him about his business, which is hacking at enemy knights and not meddling in things he scarcely understands. ~ Naomi Novik

Meddling with another man's folly is always thankless work. ~ Rudyard Kipling

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

White magic is black magic. a less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people, and demons used for good can hang around and make mischief afterwards. ~ Iris Murdoch

My primary pastoral work had to do with Scripture and prayer. I was neither capable nor competent to form Christ in another person, to shape a life of discipleship in man, woman or child. That is supernatural work, and I am not supernatural. Mine was the more modest work of Scripture and prayer- helping people listen to God speak to them from the Scriptures and then joining them in answering God as personally and honestly as we could in lives of prayer. This turned out to be slow work. From time to time, impatient with the slowness, I would try out ways of going about my work that promised quicker results. But after a while it always seemed to be more like meddling in these people's lives than helping them attend to God. More often than not I found myself getting in the way of what the Holy Spirit had been doing long before I arrived on the scene, so I would go back, feeling a bit chastised, to my proper work: Scripture and prayer; prayer and Scripture. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural. ~ Marcus Aurelius

No wonder everyone is keen to put their feet up and let Fate look after them. It's rather like your granddad. Or a very hands-on organised person, sort of your own personal PA.
Only in my experience Fate is no such thing, and the same goes for his little brother, Destiny. Quite frankly they've made a real mess of things where I'm concerned. So from now on they can bugger off and stop meddling. I'm taking charge of my own life, and when it comes to love, Fate can mind its own bloody business. ~ Alexandra Potter

For my present purpose I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-Creative Art in itself, and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of 'unreality' (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the dominion of 'observed fact,' in short of the fantastic. I am thus not only aware but glad of the etymological and semantic connexions of fantasy with fantastic: with images of things that are not only 'not actually present,' but which are indeed not to be found in our primary world at all, or are generally believed not to be found there. But while admitting that, I do not assent to the depreciative tone. That the images are of things not in the primary world (if that indeed is possible) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most Potent.

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being 'arrested.' They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

No class of Americans, so far as I know, has ever objected ... to any amount of governmental meddling if it appeared to benefit that particular class. ~ Carl L. Becker

The thing itself, the first thing, will never do us alone, we must be elaborating, improving, poeticising. ~ Sebastian Barry

Fear is the mother of all gods ... Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods. ~ Lucretius

There is admittedly an incredible mystique to meddling in the reason a city won't sleep. ~ Aesop Rock

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. ~ Anonymous

There's a paradox here. If we return one last time to that '50s-era banker, we see that his mind was occupied with human distortions - desires, prejudice, distrust of outsiders. To carry out the job more fairly and efficiently, he and the rest of his industry handed the work over to an algorithm. Sixty years later, the world is dominated by automatic systems chomping away on our error-ridden dossiers. They urgently require the context, common sense, and fairness that only humans can provide. However, if we leave this issue to the marketplace, which prizes efficiency, growth, and cash flow (while tolerating a certain degree of errors), meddling humans will be instructed to stand clear of the machinery. ~ Cathy O'Neil

The story was certainly current at court, and in 1535 a Member of Parliament, Sir George Throckmorton, accused Henry to his face of 'meddling' with both Anne's mother and sister Mary.
'Never with the mother,' Henry said. ~ Alison Weir

Photographs have the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable. Any description in words, or even any inert picture exists in the mind. But on the screen the whole process of observing, describing, reporting, and then imagining, has been accomplished for you. ~ Walter Lippmann

I've never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country. ~ Madeleine Albright

One remarkable part of the SnapTax story is what the team leaders said when I asked them to account for their unlikely success. Did they hire superstar entrepreneurs from outside the company? No, they assembled a team from within Intuit. Did they face constant meddling from senior management, which is the bane of innovation teams in many companies? No, their executive sponsors created an "island of freedom" where they could experiment as necessary. Did they have a huge team, a large budget, and lots of marketing dollars? Nope, they started with a team of five. What allowed the SnapTax team to innovate was not their genes, destiny, or astrological signs but a process deliberately facilitated by Intuit's senior management. ~ Eric Ries

If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have: no federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U.S. membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign aid. We would have no welfare for big corporations, or the "poor"; no American troops in 100 foreign countries; no NAFTA, GAT, or "fast-track"; no arrogant federal judges usurping states rights; no attacks on private property; no income tax. We could get rid of most of the agencies, and most of the budget. The government would be small, frugal, and limited. ~ Ron Paul

I don't think anybody ever thought about the CIA meddling in internal affairs. The shock of the President's death called for an immediate investigation. It actually lay in the jurisdiction of Texas. ~ John Sherman Cooper

If Americans want prosperity, we need a grand reawakening to the incontrovertible fact that its source is entrepreneurs unfettered by meddling politicians. ~ Star Parker

We should pay as much reverence to youth as we should to age; there are points in which you young folks are altogether our superiors: and I can't help constantly crying out to persons of my own years, when busied about their young people
leave them alone; don't be always meddling with their affairs, which they can manage for themselves; don't be always insisting upon managing their boats, and putting your oars in the water with theirs. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Politics is the enemy of a sound economic entity, he mused. New laws, harsher tax rates, meddling . . . and now this. ~ Philip K. Dick

You may say you won't interfere with another person's soul, but you do - merely by existing. The snag about it is the practical difficulty, so to speak, of not existing. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The world will not alter for all your meddling. ~ Moliere

Refuting the false promises requires philosophic understanding of economic interventionism, central banking, and the deeply flawed foreign policy of meddling in the affairs of other nations. ~ Ron Paul

Certain countries long ago succeeded where the U.S. has failed in commercializing their air traffic control systems, putting them in the hands of private or quasi-private operators able to raise capital, charge fees, and invest in growth, free of meddling by congressional pork barons. You want a drone-friendly air traffic control system? This is the place to start. Our FAA isn't blindly anti-drone but simply marooned in a system that still needs thousands of eyeballs gazing at radar terminals and out of cockpit windshields. ~ Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

After the dedication, Eleanor saw Bernard privately, probably at her own request. He came prepared to offer more spiritual comfort, thinking that she too might be suffering qualms of conscience over Vitry, but he was surprised to learn that she was not. Nevertheless, several matters were indeed troubling her, not the least the problems of her sister. She asked him to use his influence with the Pope to have the excommunication on Raoul and Petronilla lifted and their marriage recognised by the Church. In return, she would persuade Louis to make peace with Theobald of Champagne and recognise Pierre de la Chatre as Archbishop of Bourges.

Bernard was appalled at her brazen candour. In his opinion, these affairs were no business of a twenty-two-year-old woman. He was, in fact, terrified of women and their possible effects on him. An adolescent, first experiencing physical desire for a young girl, he had been so filled with self-disgust that he had jumped into a freezing cold pond & remained there until his erection subsided. He strongly disapproved of his sister, who had married a rich man; because she enjoyed her wealth, he thought of her as a whore, spawned by Satan to lure her husband from the paths of righteousness, and refused to have anything to do with her. Nor would he allow his monks any contact with their female relatives.

Now there stood before him the young, worldly, and disturbingly beautiful Queen of France, intent upon meddling in matte ~ Alison Weir

The people, when they say 'Death to America!' - do you know what they are really saying? What they mean to say relates to the aggressive policies of the U.S. and intervention and meddling by the U.S. ~ Hassan Rouhani

Been meddling, have you?" Royce asked, looking around at the hive of activity.
"You must admit they didn't have much in the way of a defense plan,"
Hadrian said, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
Royce smiled at him. "You just can't help yourself, can you? ~ Michael J. Sullivan

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

All countries in my part of the world, we want democracy to prevail. I told the people, 'If you want American policies to stop, we need to take action.' We need to make the U.S. understand that its meddling is inappropriate. ~ Hassan Rouhani

Mrs. Bonneville never buckled her seat belt, even though it was required by state law; an ardent libertarian, she opposed government meddling in all matters of personal choice. ~ Carl Hiaasen

The people with money were meddling in mechanical and design affairs. They were interjecting their mediocre ideas into the process and polluting it. ~ Robert Greene

I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace. ~ Will Rogers

A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling, more regulation of private affairs and less liberty. In general, he would be inclined to regard the repeal of any tax as outrageous. ~ H.L. Mencken

Oberon could not speak for the burning anger on is tongue. Instead, he drew back his mighty fist and would have knocked his captain clean off the wall, down on the jagged rocks below...
Only suddenly, standing between him and his prey was the gloriously golden image of his wife smiling sweetly up at him.
"Really, darling, such a display. And so public too!" she said, laughing like the ringing of a bell chorus. "What will all the little ones think?'
"Out of my way, Titania!" Oberon bellowed. "Puck has told me of your part in all this nonsense, and I'll be dealing with you next!"
But Titania had seen too many of her husband's tempers over the long centuries of their marriage to mind him much now. "Don't be ridiculous," she said lightly, tapping him on the nose with one long, elegant finger. 'Do you really want to stand in the way of true love? When you start meddling with people's hearts, things never go well, as everyone knows. ~ Camryn Lockhart

And I get it, okay? I mean, look at him. I'd bang that drum, too. All I'm saying is, if you don't want your overprotective sister meddling in your business, find someone else to massage your lady bits."

"I'm partial to massaging my own lady bits, actually. I have no problem getting my own kinks out."

"Yes, well, more power to you then. But I, for one, am getting carpal tunnel syndrome with all the self-massaging I've been doing as of late. ~ Mia Sosa

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates. ~ Thomas Sowell

Two things never mix: one is enchantments and the other is meddling with them. ~ Lloyd Alexander

To these same myths, I take it, belong all those fairy stories of which Beauty and the Beast is the type. Here, a maiden noted as a rule for her amiability and gentleness is served each day by invisible hands, and at night receives her lover, in the form of a handsome prince. By the ordinary light of day, he is a monster, appalling to behold, or, in some of the stories, he is invisible; but night and the marriage couch cause him to materialize in his true shape. Finally, her family and friends--themselves quite outsiders as to these experiences--work upon her feelings and make her believe that this union is evil (in occult parlance, it would be termed diabolical) and she breaks off her connection with him. In the end, true love triumphs, and the lovers are reunited under happier auspices--that is, in the fairy story; in actual life, it too often happens that Beauty and the Beast are permanently separated by meddling outsiders who ignorantly assume that everything which they cannot understand comes from the Devil. ~ Ida Craddock

Living apart and at peace with myself,I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with anothers way of life-so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands Off. ~ Henry Miller

Will you stop meddling in my love life?" I growled.
"I'm not meddling. I'm offering commentary. ~ Ilona Andrews

A meddling mother who pounded at the door and yelled, "Arik Theodore Antoine Castiglione, I know you're in there."
Kira shouted, "Hey, Norma, fancy you showing up," before humming the theme to Psycho.
As his mother screamed in rage, Arik laughed. And laughed. ~ Eve Langlais

The banana flavour of his accidental conception, and the banana theme of his accidental death, now all seemed to conspire against him and rather suggest the universe, Mr Fate or whoever did have some sort of master plan after all. Despite all his earlier conjecturing, maybe the universe, Mr Fate or whoever was laughing its fat and meddling head at him. The outlandish evidence did seem to speak for itself, truly suggesting a mocking narrative devised by some mischievous author because quite simply a banana condom had brought Midnight into the world and a banana skin had seen him out. Putting those two seeming truths together, Midnight was once again forced to ask such confused and searching questions like:
What is this place, where am I heading? And what's the deal with all the ruddy bananas? ~ Tom Conrad

I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart. ~ Sam Walton

Apologists for activist government never tire of telling us that the
benevolent state is our protector and that without it wed be at the mercy of
monsters. It is about time that we understood that the U.S. government does
more to endanger the American people than any imagined monsters around the
world ... by pursuing its Grand Foreign Policy of meddling anywhere and
everywhere. ~ Sheldon Richman

But you know, meddling when you don't need to is the essence of being a hero. ~ Kohei Horikoshi

I make my way to the cave and notice a silhouette at the lip of the cavern. Kiaran. "Let me guess," I say, drawing nearer, "your sister told you where to find me."

His smile isn't visible in the darkness, but I can hear it when he speaks. "On the contrary," he says. "She told me I looked like I needed fresh air. It wasn't until I saw you that I realized she decided to engage in her second-favorite hobby."

"Subterfuge?"

"I was going to say meddling, but you're not wrong. ~ Elizabeth May

Azrael raised his finger to a face that filled the sky, lit by the faint glow of dying galaxies.

There are a billion Deaths, but they are all aspects of the one Death: Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, the beginning and end of time.

Most of the universe is made up of dark matter, and only Azrael knows who it is.

Eyes so big that a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on the iris turned slowly and focused on the tiny figure on the immense whorled plains of his fingertips. Beside Azrael the big Clock hung in the center of the entire web of the dimensions, and ticked onward. Stars glittered in Azrael's eyes.

The Death of the Discworld stood up.

LORD I ASK FOR -

Three of the servants of oblivion slid into existence alongside him.

One said, Do not listen. He stands accused of meddling.

One said, And morticide.

One said, And pride. And living with intent to survive.

One said, And siding with chaos against good order.

Azrael raised an eyebrow.

The servants drifted away from Death, expectantly.

LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE....

Azrael's expression did not change.

THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US.

The dark, sad face filled the sky.

ALL THINGS THAT ARE ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR ~ Terry Pratchett

Hullo!" said Merry. "So that's what is bothering you? Now, Pippin my lad, don't forget Gildor's saying - the one Sam used to quote: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
"But our whole life for months has been one long meddling in the affairs of Wizards," said Pippin. "I should like a bit of information as well as danger. I should like a look at that ball."
"Go to sleep!" said Merry. "You'll get information enough, sooner or later. My dear Pippin, no Took ever beat a Brandybuck for inquisitiveness; but is it this time, I ask you?"
"All right! What's the harm in my telling you what I should like: a look at that stone? I know I can't have it, with old Gandalf sitting on it, like a hen on an egg. But it doesn't help much to get no more from you than a you-can't-have-it-so-go-to-sleep!"
"Well, what else could I say?" said Merry. "I'm sorry, Pippin, but you really must wait till the morning. I'll be as curious as you like after breakfast, and I'll help you in any way I can at wizard-wheedling. But I can't keep awake any longer. If I yawn any more, I shall split at the ears. Good night! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Thank you," she whispered. "I promise I will not interfere in Court business again."
"Oh yes, you will."
Zouelle looked up to see her uncle regarding her with a sad little smile.
"You decided that you were ready to start meddling in the great game. I really hope you were right, Zouelle, because once you start playing it you can never leave. You are in the game now, my dear. There is no going back. ~ Frances Hardinge

Andy kicked her way in, moonlit and angerstruck, doors shattering the decoration behind as she shouted at the shocked furniture: "Blyton Summer Fucking Detective Club! Anybody home?" Kerri and Nate came to flank her right after, rifles aimed at the horrified haunted house. Tim scurried between them, promenaded across the hall, stopped by a decorative suit of armor, and peed on it. ~ Edgar Cantero

I disapprove of lots of decisions made by George Bush: the war, the meddling in the affairs of other countries, the conversations with dictators; it was a dark time. ~ Tommy Hilfiger

Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion, (so let me speak,) snatches the pen, and blots out nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality. The lettered world no longer consists of singulars: it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one. ~ Edward Young

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

What makes a good editor is staying the hell out of the way as much as possible ... If you're a DC or Marvel or Dark Horse or BOOM! editor who's assigning work, then if you did your job properly to begin with, then the people you've hired can be trusted to do what they do without excessive meddling. The ideal situation you're shooting for as an editor is to groom a collaborative creative team to the point where their work sails effortlessly through production and the most you have to do is fix the spelling and the commas. ~ Mark Waid

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

Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can't tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion. ~ Noam Chomsky

Meddlers, both, we be, and always with the hope that our meddling will leave in our wake a more beautiful tapestry than that we first encountered. ~ R.A. Salvatore

I'm not in the business of meddling with people's destinies - and yes, my characters are real people to me. They have histories and thoughts and yearnings and hurts and misgivings and pleasures that don't belong to me. ~ Jonathan Evison

Then there was Buddha meddling in, telling all of the Hindu, Hebrew, Christian and Islamic gods and demons that they were nothing more than unenlightened fear induced figments of nirvana-starved mortals. ~ Andrew James Pritchard

We've heard many people say and have often said ourselves that justice is doing one's own work and not meddling with what isn't one's own ... Then, it turns out that this doing one's own work-provided that it comes to be in a certain way-is justice. ~ Plato

Bitcoins can be traded or used for purchases, but only with those sellers who will accept them. Because it is a system independent of external meddling, there can be no sudden devaluation of Bitcoins through the actions of governments. ~ Kurt Eichenwald

Mixed with this frustration was the suspicion that Northern lives were being wasted because of mismanagement and political meddling, a suspicion reinforced by Lincoln's firing of McClellan, who, despite his poor showing in the field, was widely respected as a military professional. These are the views reflected in Holmes's letter. They were Copperhead views, but one did not need to be a Democrat in the fall of 1862 to share them. ~ Louis Menand

Nor must we always be neutral where our neighbors are concerned: for tho' meddling is a fault, helping is a duty. ~ William Penn

What has been said of the Roman empire, is at least as true of the British constitution - "This mighty structure has come together thanks to eight hundred years of good fortune and discipline, which cannot be uprooted without destroying the uprooters." This British constitution has not been struck out at an heat by a set of presumptuous men, like the assembly of pettifoggers run mad in Paris.
'Tis not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay.
It is the result of the thoughts of many minds, in many ages. It is no simple, no superficial thing, nor to be estimated by superficial understandings. 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. The British constitution may have its advantages pointed out to wise and reflecting minds; but it is of too high an order of excellence to be adapted to those which are common. It takes in too many views, it makes too many combinations, to be so much as comprehended by shallow and superficial under ~ Edmund Burke

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

Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of things We murder to dissect ~ William Wordsworth

Writers take words seriously - perhaps the last professional class that does - and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader. ~ John Updike

Better to accept the worst about people than to try to change them. ~ Marty Rubin

From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life. ~ Anais Nin

Have we reached the point where my intervention will not get me shouted at for being a meddling tomcat who doesn't respect the boundaries of others?" Tybalt stepped out of the shadows behind the Candela, tightening his hand around her throat. "I ask to be polite, you realize. There's no way I'm walking away. ~ Seanan McGuire

If man is but a biological organism and biology itself may be reduced to a set of physical and chemical laws, it should be possible to build up a biological science, a kind of biological mechanics, whose laws would rule the working and repair of the several pieces of the human machine. In such a case, there would be a 'medicine' or 'medical science'; and the doctor's task would consist in acquiring and maintaining an adequate knowledge of the laws of such a science and applying them so to speak in a uniform and automatic way, with hardly any meddling from his own personal criterion.
If, on the contrary, man is above all an eminently living being, every specimen of which is ever new and original, a being strongly influenced by ultra-physical faculties -- spirit, intellect, emotions -- if, in one word, man is a whole that can only be ruled from its own centre, medicine, then, will be but an art or a craft to be applied in each case to a concrete individual. And then, rather than 'medicine', there will be medicine-men.
Truth lies between these two poles, but gravitates definitely towards the second. ~ Salvador De Madariaga

The God Wars had not been a pleasant time for Craftsmen and Craftswomen around the world. One day, you're a simple thaumaturge, idly meddling in matters man was not meant to comprehend. The next, a collection of beings as old as humanity, with legions of followers, declare war on your "kind", and neighbours who once thought you a harmless eccentric with a fondness for mystic sigils and foul unguents see you as an affront to Creation. ~ Max Gladstone

Because of God, even the imperious ballbreakers, moralizing windbags, and meddling assholes may know love. ~ Joshua Ferris

It was time to confront the old bat with the damage she'd caused this time. Then, he promised himself, he'd strangle her for meddling in affairs that were none of her business, and kidnapping a goddamn innocent fairy. ~ Eden Ashe

Planetologist call it the conundrum of unforeseen ecological consequence. I call it the whack-a-mole rule of human meddling. She clasped both hands like a child hammering. WHACK! We change something here. Oops, that makes another problem pop up there where we didn't expect it. WHACK! So, we whack that mole. Oops! We're so smart that we're a menace. ~ Robert Buettner

When men do not know their assignment on earth they kill themselves psychologically and emotionally, wallowing in different careers and meddling in dreams of others. They become restless and engage in unhealthy competition - living unfulfilled lives ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

Don't cross me Scooby-Doo. I'm not an old man in a mask waiting to be thwarted by you meddling kids. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Intimately concerned as we are with the system of Europe, it does not follow that we are therefore called upon to mix ourselves onevery occasion, with a restless and meddling activity, in the concerns of the nations which surround us. ~ George Canning

Photography has always been a major part of my vision: my excuse for meddling with what the world looks like. ~ Robert Rauschenberg