The Town Gossip

Betty, the town gossip and self-appointed supervisor of the town's morals, kept sticking her nose into other people's business.

Several local residents were unappreciative of her activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence. However, she made a mistake when she recently accused Ted, a local man, of being an alcoholic after she saw his pickup truck parked outside the town's only bar one afternoon.

Ted, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just walked away without saying a word. Later that evening, he parked his pickup truck in front of her house and left it there all night.
- Unknown

Busybodies

Most of us are fearless critics of other men’s conduct and meticulous denouncers of other men’s sins. To mind other people’s business is a common pastime of our day. There are very few of us who are not very deeply concerned over the reform of- somebody else.

Now there is no more lovely experience than to feel the personal interest of a friend in you and your affairs. But there is no more irritating experience than to be aware of unfriendly meddling and prying into your private affairs.

The man who cannot respect personality is hardly qualified to be listened to on any subject.
- Selected ©

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