46 Gossip Quotes

Our social relationships are limited, most of the time, to gossip and criticizing people's behavior. This observation slowly pushed me to isolate from the so-called social life. My days pass by in solitude.

Don't speak evil of someone if you don't know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?

Getting talked about is one of the penalties for being pretty, while being above suspicion is about the only compensation for being homely.

'The way to deal with worldly people is to frighten them by repeating their scandalous whisperings aloud.'

If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business.

Gossip is mischievous, light and easy to raise, but grievous to bear and hard to get rid of. No gossip ever dies away entirely, if many people voice it: it too is a kind of divinity.

To tell tales out of school.

Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

There can be - there ought to be - no medium course; a love-affair is either sober earnest or contemptible folly, if not wickedness: to gossip about it is, in the first instance, intrusive, unkind, or dangerous; in the second, simply silly. ~ Ch. 8

Gossip, public, private, social - to fight against it either by word or pen seems, after all, like fighting with shadows. Everybody laughs at it, protests against it, blames and despises it; yet everybody does it, or at least encourages others in it: quite innocently, unconsciously, in such a small, harmless fashion - yet we do it. We must talk about something, and it is not all of us who can find a rational topic of conversation, or discuss it when found. ~ Ch. 8

Well, Gosse, would you like to know what I think of Churton Collins? I think he's a Louse on the Locks of Literature.

In the latter days of July in the year 185-, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways- Who was to be the new Bishop?

Don't judge a man by the tales of others.

Learn from me that a wise man who has heard a criminal accusation related with so many absurd particulars ceases to be wise when he makes himself the echo of what he has heard, for if the accusation should turn out to be a calumny, he would himself become the accomplice of the slanderer.

I don't know what all the controversy is about, quite frankly. I've met Eminem, I met him backstage, and he's really gay.

Kashka from Baghdad Lives in sin, they say, With another man, But no one knows who.

Another Hollywood waitress Is telling us she's having your baby And there's a rumour that you're on ice And you will rise again someday.

If we delight in gossip, and are not content unless each neighbor is laid upon the dissecting table, we form a character unenviable indeed, and must be willing to bear the contempt of all the truly good, while we roll our bit of scandal as a sweet morsel under the tongue.

'Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.' 'Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened.' 'If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass.'

There can be - there ought to be - no medium course; a love-affair is either sober earnest or contemptible folly, if not wickedness: to gossip about it is, in the first instance, intrusive, unkind, or dangerous; in the second, simply silly. ~ Ch. 8

Gossip, public, private, social - to fight against it either by word or pen seems, after all, like fighting with shadows. Everybody laughs at it, protests against it, blames and despises it; yet everybody does it, or at least encourages others in it: quite innocently, unconsciously, in such a small, harmless fashion - yet we do it. We must talk about something, and it is not all of us who can find a rational topic of conversation, or discuss it when found. ~ Ch. 8

'The press is just a bunch of rubbish anyway. So - you know - they never get a story right anyways, and it's always rumors and gossip and, um, over-sensationalized shit.' - Christina Aguilera: Music Box Biographical Collection

Well, I'll tell you a story but you won't listen It's about a nightmare steeped in tradition It's the story of a coked-up pansy Who spends his nights in flights of fancy Met two fellas over gin and mixers They talked for a while, he soon got the picture Pete Docherty is a souped up Soho mincer And the other was a pikey with a knowledge of scripture

What on earth should we do if we had no matches to make, or mar; no 'unfortunate attachments' to shake our heads over; no flirtations to speculate about and comment upon with knowing smiles; no engagements 'on' or 'off' to speak our minds about, nosing out every little circumstance, and ferreting out our game to their very hole, as if all their affairs, their hopes, trials, faults, or wrongs, were being transacted for our own private and peculiar entertainment! Of all forms of gossip - I speak of mere gossip, as distinguished from the carrion-crow and dunghill-fly system of scandal-mongering - this tittle-tattle about love-affairs is the most general, the most odious, and the most dangerous. Every one of us must have known within our own experience many an instance of dawning loves checked, unhappy loves made cruelly public, happy loves embittered, warm, honest loves turned cold, by this horrible system of gossiping about young or unmarried people... ~ Ch. 8

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.

What on earth should we do if we had no matches to make, or mar; no 'unfortunate attachments' to shake our heads over; no flirtations to speculate about and comment upon with knowing smiles; no engagements 'on' or 'off' to speak our minds about, nosing out every little circumstance, and ferreting out our game to their very hole, as if all their affairs, their hopes, trials, faults, or wrongs, were being transacted for our own private and peculiar entertainment! Of all forms of gossip - I speak of mere gossip, as distinguished from the carrion-crow and dunghill-fly system of scandal-mongering - this tittle-tattle about love-affairs is the most general, the most odious, and the most dangerous. Every one of us must have known within our own experience many an instance of dawning loves checked, unhappy loves made cruelly public, happy loves embittered, warm, honest loves turned cold, by this horrible system of gossiping about young or unmarried people... ~ Ch. 8

Gossip is the Devil's radio.

When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office.

Love and scandal are the best sweeteneers of tea.

In Paragon we met Mrs Foley & Mrs Dowdeswell with her yellow shawl airing out-& at the bottom of Kinsdown Hill we met a Gentleman in a Buggy, who on minute examination turned out to be Dr Hall-& Dr Hall in such very deep mourning that either his Mother, his Wife, or himself must be dead.

You will have a great deal of unreserved discourse with Mrs. K., I dare say, upon this subject, as well as upon many other of our family matters. Abuse everybody but me.

The only gossip I'm interested in is in the Weekly World News- 'Woman's bra bursts, 11 injured.' That kind of thing.

Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round.

I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.

Everyone was muttering about Bill Clinton's philanderings before he came to visit, but once he walked into the room none of the women - or men - could get enough of him. He rather ignored me: my hair wasn't big enough.

A new burst of rage swept over him - What did it matter whether it was true or not - whether anything was true or not? What did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It was what everybody believed - what everybody was interested in! It was the measure of a whole society - their ideals and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and gossip of low intrigue.

Wherever there was a group of people, and a treasure to be administered, there Peter knew was backbiting and scandal and intriguing and spying, and a chance for somebody whose brains were 'all there.'