There is a vital force in rumor. Though crushed to earth, to all intents and purposes buried, it can rise again without apparent effort.
—Eleanor Robson Belmont, 1957Quotes
A false report rides post.
—English proverbGossip is the opiate of the oppressed.
—Erica Jong, 1973A bad reputation is easy to come by, painful to bear, and difficult to clear.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCIt is one thing to slander, another to accuse.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 56 BCScandal begins where the police leave off.
—Karl Kraus, 1909Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes.
—Huan Kuan, 81 BCWhile gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact.
—Andrea Dworkin, 1983Journalists belong in the gutter, because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.
—Gerald Priestland, 1988The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.
—Virginia Woolf, 1921Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco pipes of those who diffuse it; it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.
—George Eliot, 1876Keep no company with those whose position is high but whose morals are low.
—Ge Hong, c. 320Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.
—John Donne, c. 1629