"Meddler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thoughts: I shall meet the meddler, the ingrate, the scorner, the hypocrite, the envious man, the cynic. These men are such because they know not to discern the difference between good and evil. But I know that Goodness is Beauty and that Evil is Loathsomeness: I know that the real nature of the evil-doer is akin ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... was likely to give less help than scandal. The Bishop elect was determined to be wherever danger was; and the way in which he exposed himself excited the extreme disgust of his royal patron, who hated a meddler almost as much as a coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle and a gownsman who pushed himself into a battle were the two objects which most ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... all against him," he said, "at the beginning. I thought him a crack-brained fool, and a meddler. But now—" And ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... fight? as we sometimes see, when a man goes home fighting drunk, every man of the neighborhood keeps out of sight, while all the women go out and help his wife to get him home. The most troublesome meddler was, as might be expected, an English sparrow. From the time when the first stick was laid till the babies were grown and had left the tree, that bird never ceased to intrude and annoy. He visited the nest when empty; he managed to have frequent peeps at the young; and ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... my finger into the lives of twenty thousand human beings!" the professor said to himself many times a day, with the joy of the scientist. "I'm being first assistant to the world's greatest meddler. That young man is headed for a place as one of the world's leaders, or for a lamp-post and a rope.... I ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... who end by neither making their children happy nor having a tolerable life for themselves. A selfish tyrant you know where to have, and he (or she) at least does not confuse your affections; but a conscientious and kindly meddler may literally worry you out of your senses. It is fortunate that only very few parents are capable of doing what they conceive their duty continuously or even at all, and that still fewer are tough enough to ride roughshod over their children ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Bacon, that man is the minister and interpreter of Nature, or whether he did not speak habitually of Nature as an intruder in the sick room, from which his art was to expel her as an incompetent and a meddler. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... did not make this selection without bitter opposition and grave warning. He was told that McClellan was an aggressive pro-slavery Democrat, a political meddler and unalterably opposed to him and his party on every essential issue before the people. These arguments found no weight with the man in the White House. He would ask but one question, discuss ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... come to regard his niece as his son's lawful property, and the Baron as the troublesome meddler; and Diane had much the same feeling, enhanced by sore jealousy at Eustacie's triumph over her, and curiosity as to whether it could be indeed well founded. She had an opportunity of judging the same evening—mere habit always caused Eustacie to keep under ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that our fighting and victories may go hand in hand with a measure which is to prevent future war, he is 'opposed to the Administration,' is 'a selfish traitor thinking of nothing but the Nigger,' and altogether a stumbling-block and an untimely meddler. If he protest that he cares no more for the welfare of the Negro than for that of the man in the moon, he is still reviled as an 'abolitionist.' If he insist that emancipation will end the war, his 'conservative' foe becomes pathetic over his indifference ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... stead came the mirrored bar with its greater influence for the spread of intemperance but clothed with more respectability outwardly. Public officials were embarrassed, cajoled and threatened. The malcontent, the meddler, the demagogue, had injected their baneful innovations into the political life ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... he screamed; "he didn't have a red cent. He's no more than an old pauper I was taking in to play the fiddle. He owes me, curse him! And who are you anyways, you blasted meddler, that accuses a decent man of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... interests—apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways for English arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on, giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which, unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for freedom and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Parliament, you can cite all the damned into the burning Evildom, and then bid the devils hurl them headlong to bottomless perdition, and lock them up in its vortex, to trouble you no more." "But the Common Meddler is still missing," said Lucifer, frowning most darkly at the Rogue. When we reached once more the entrance of the infernal court, who should come straight to meet the King but the Busybody. "Ah, your majesty, I have a word with you." "And ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... have his way, and was off in a clatter. Lonely, fuming with resentment, Rudolph stared after him. What could he know, this airy, unfeeling meddler, so free with his advice and innuendo? Let him go, then, let him canter away. He had seen quickly, guessed with a diabolic shrewdness, yet would remain on the surface, always, of a mystery so violent and so profound. The young man stalked into his vacant nunnery in a ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... violence, have come and gone—millions uncountable, have suffered, lived, and died—to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... Fairfax is reprieved. [Aside] Yet, if my complicity in his escape were known! Plague on the old meddler! There's nothing for it— [aloud]— Hush, pretty one! Such bloodthirsty words ill become ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... buy any tape, Or lace for your cape, My dainty duck, my dear-a? Any silk, any thread, Any toys for your head, Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a? Come to the pedlar; Money's a meddler That ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... of the Edinburgh University, complains of one of the professors of that institution, a Dr. CRUM BROWN. This crusty CRUM refuses to award her the HOPE scholarship, and offers her instead a medal of bronze. Miss PECHEY very properly characterizes this conduct as that of a brazen meddler who would deprive her of hope. The quarrel is not yet ended, but it strikingly illustrates the trouble a Crumb can give when ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... no meddler, but a man speaking of something very near his heart; no presuming and interfering outsider who deserved a snub, but a man suffering from ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... back and crush him. The people could be led, but they couldn't be driven. And therefore Mr. Mix, who had naturally made himself solid with the reactionaries and the church-going element (except those liberals who regarded him as an officious meddler), and who had actually succeeded in being mentioned as the type of man who would make a good Mayor, or President of Council, followed out a path which, unless his geography of common-sense was wrong, could hardly end at ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... "He is a mountebank—a meddler, that's what he is. The sooner we come to realise it, the better," exclaimed the over-heated Duke. "He has greater influence over our beloved Prince than any one else in the royal household. He has no business here—none ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... "The stupid old meddler!" ejaculated the squire, throwing the letter from him in impatience. "I suppose the Barton boy has been writing to him. He evidently considers it my duty to support all my poor relations, himself included. I will undeceive him on that ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... to say. If you had left your precious young meddler to vegetate in his native village you would have saved me a ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... be ruined; and then I'll marry him off to some nice well-bred pink-face, like Jeff Saxton's pretty cousin—who may turn him into a beastly money-grubber; and I'm monkeying with destiny, and I ought to be slapped, and I realize it, and I can't help it, and all my latent instinct as a feminine meddler is aroused, and—golly, I almost went off ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... tampering with, intrigue. press of business, no sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, busy hum of men, battle of life, thick of the action. housewife, busy bee; new brooms; sharp fellow, sharp blade; devotee, enthusiast, zealot, meddler, intermeddler, intriguer, busybody, pickthank^; hummer, hustler, live man [U.S.], rustler [U.S.]. V. be active &c adj.; busy oneself in; stir, stir about, stir one's stumps; bestir oneself, rouse ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the veins upon his brow were swollen and hard as knotted cords; but his hand was very steady, as he took the bottle, removed the cork, smelled, tasted. "Who has had access to this bottle?" he thundered then, and his voice boded little good to any meddler. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... arrogant pride; not from the eye, lest she be wanton-eyed; not from the ear, lest she be an eavesdropper; not from the neck, lest she be insolent; not from the mouth, lest she be a tattler; not from the heart, lest she be inclined to envy; not from the hand, lest she be a meddler; not from the foot, lest she be a gadabout. I will form her from a chaste portion of the body," and to every limb and organ as He formed it, God said, "Be chaste! Be chaste!" Nevertheless, in spite of the great caution used, woman has all the faults God tried to obviate. The daughters ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... smiled. In this smile was the whole of his polite and easy-going philosophy. "I am no meddler," it seemed to say; and at sight of that smile Lady ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... thought. Probably he reflected that there are two sides to every argument, and he had heard but one. Certainly, John Delancy Curtis did not strike him as the dare-devil meddler, if not worse, he had been ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence 'password hacker', 'network hacker'. The correct term for this sense ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... meddler I was, I tore the wound afresh. I exposed the bruised place in the girl's life, but my blunder brought to light ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... that!' Mr Bethany sat back. 'I see, I see,' he said. 'I'm nothing but a fumbling old meddler. And there was I, not ten minutes ago, preaching for all I was worth on a text I knew nothing about. God bless me, Lawford, how long we take a-learning. I'll say no more. But what an illusion. To think this—this—he laid ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... escapade she supposed that he must have been looking forward to for days—dragging himself back to protect her—oh, it was too hopeless! Should she ever be able to explain to him why she had sent for him, and that her intentions had been the opposite of those of the moralizing meddler he would take her for? If only she could make it up to him somehow. She would have liked to reach over and pull him down into her arms, mother him and tell him not to mind—there was something so intolerably pathetic about his effort to sit soberly straight—but ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... of all men from need of the arrogant meddler am I, The fool who's unguided of God and judges the folk all awry; For wealth and good gifts are a loan and each man at last shall be clad As it were in a mantle, with that which hid in his bosom doth lie. If thou enter on aught by a door that is other ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... a very tame and crestfallen Garnache who quitted the Auberge du Veau qui Tete and rode out of the town to take the road to Paris. How they would laugh at him at the Luxembourg! Not even an affair of this kind was he fit to carry through; not even as a meddler in women's matters as Tressan had called him—could he achieve success. Rabecque, reflecting his master's mood—as becomes a good lackey—rode silent and gloomy a pace or two in ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... that his wife would never be easy about him. Eyen Marcus owned the other day that he feared he would never be fit for much. But there is no use in trying to manage other people's lives. As Aunt Madge says, it takes all our strength and cleverness to manage our own. 'A meddler is always a muddler;' how well I remember her saying that. We did not make the world, and we cannot rule the world. When I see grown-up folk trying to arrange for other people, I always think of children ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for having doubted you, even for a moment. And I thank you for having so cleverly and quietly exposed these precious gentry. I shall keep an eye on them and on this local meddler; I'll ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... selection and his defiance of Nature's pre-human dispositions, that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the conditions, or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to fall on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs. We may indeed compare civilized man to a successful rebel against Nature, who, by every step forward, renders himself liable to greater and greater penalties, and so cannot afford to pause or fail in one single step. Or again we may think of him as the heir ...
— Progress and History • Various
... speak in behalf of thy kingdom; and consider that he is now present before thee speaking these words. If anyone should say, O King, putting all in a word, that thou hast given up thy kingdom and all men everywhere to Justinian, he would be speaking correctly. For since he is by nature a meddler and a lover of those things which in no way belong to him, and is not able to abide by the settled order of things, he has conceived the desire of seizing upon the whole earth, and has become eager to acquire for himself ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... "What's more, that is exactly what I would do in your place. I'd borrow all I could and give my sister her one supreme hour, free from all disturbing fears and embarrassments; then I'd tell the impertinent meddler who was to blame for my trouble to go whistle for his satisfaction. Of course ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... world by discovering the bicycle bacillus. All our ills appear to be caused by minute insects that get inside of us, demoralize our system of government and inaugurate a reign of anarchy. Everything, from mugwumpery to the meddler's itch, from corns to crime, is now traced to the pernicious activity of some microbian. Even our currency system is blasted by goldbugs, and Prohibition milk- sickness is being treated with vermifuge. A Kansas M.D. has succeeded in hiving the old-age microbe, and is now treating ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... going to settle with you, young meddler!" announced Dexter, vaulting the wall and throwing himself upon Dick. "When I get through with you you'll never feel like meddling ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... could, in hopes of patching it up, but I can't write now—my hand is too shaky—and mebbe it was just as well, for meddling is terribly risky work in a love trouble, Nora May. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler and them she meddles with is ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... meddler," interposed Concha, "who made you boss of the show? If the senora wishes to teach the child what is right, is she to consult you how to do it? Do you know what it is to bring up children? If she has to be punished it is right it should be done by a hardworking, honourable woman. Some day she ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... want to help you. But I can only do so if you give me the right to do it. Nobody must tell me I'm a meddler, butting in where I have no business. There are people enough about you who would be only too ready to do that—people related to you by blood and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... Opimian. Now, sir, if the man who has fooled the greatest number of persons to the top of their bent were to be adjudged the fittest companion for Jack of Dover, you would find him in a distinguished meddler with everything who has been for half-a-century the merry-andrew of a vast arena, which he calls moral and political science, but which has in it a dash of everything that has ever ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... knight: "For ye, fool and meddler, whether ye be knight or no, will I not stay my hand, nay, rather for your shame, will I chastise her the more; and should ye but speak another word to her I shall thrust ye straightway from ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... people do, with the exception of Butterby. Confounded old meddler! There would have been no outcry ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... briskly, "but I am not an amateur philanthropist. I trust I'm not an amateur anything. I am a business woman earning my own living by my own labors and I pay taxes and for the past year or so I have been a citizen and a voter. Please do not regard me merely as an officious meddler—a busybody with nothing to do except to mind other people's affairs. It was quite by chance that I came upon this poor child and learned ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... used from the first; the lurking figure by the fire in the woods was no longer a mystery; the scene on this very spot, when she had bent down to hand Emmet the candle, was explained. The whole story, in which he played the part of a meddler and a fool, was unrolled before him. Emmet—Emmet—Emmet—that had been her theme, and apparently her chief interest in life. Still, with a pitiful hope, he must needs have the final proof before believing. There was yet some remote possibility ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... corn-chandler; and Silat the bean- seller; and Akrashah the greengrocer; and Humayd the scavenger; and Sa'id the camel-man; and Suwayd the porter; and Abu Makarish the bathman;[FN621] and Kasim the watchman; and Karim the groom. There is not among the whole of them a bore or a bully in his cups; nor a meddler nor a miser of his money, and each and every hath some dance which he danceth and some of his own couplets which he caroleth; and the best of them is that, like thy servant, thy slave here, they know not what much talking ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Well, the suggestion haunts me, too. I'll investigate promptly; and—what I shall do after that I haven't yet decided. I hate a meddler and am not anxious to become one. Heigho! No matter how hard a tired man tries to mind his own business he can't do it! Here comes that young Melvin Cook, and he's a lad with a pedigree, let me tell you, as long as any oldest ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... cried Elizabeth. "What! This independent young barrister—this parliamentary meddler in opposition, forsooth! He craveth a monopoly? God's death! A monopoly in all the impudence in this our realm is of a surety this fellow's right! We grant it—we grant it. Let the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... hold my peace unless you give your sacred pledge, you are mistaken, monsieur. I am no meddler, but I have had much kindness at the hands of Monsieur and Madame Barbille, and I will do what I can to protect them and their daughter—that good and sweet daughter, from the machinations, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the fat man bleakly. "You in this, Mr. Meddler? If you're not declarin' yoreself in, I'd ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... what I am going to be,—a home missionary, in his home; and all the principalities and powers of earth shall not prevent it. And now, you dear, precious, old meddler, good-by. You shall, one day, sit in the snuggest corner of as cosy a little home in the West as was ever made in the East;" and she vanished, leaving the old gentleman chuckling to himself, "It doesn't look as if it would be 'stopped' after all. Perhaps sister will find out ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe |
