Archive

Quotes

Keep no company with those whose position is high but whose morals are low.

—Ge Hong, c. 320

Journalists belong in the gutter, because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.

—Gerald Priestland, 1988

The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.

—Virginia Woolf, 1921

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, 1957

Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.

—Phyllis McGinley, 1957

The more sifted, the finer the flour; the more often repeated, the rougher the gossip.

—Korean proverb

The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1776

There is a demon who puts wings on certain tales and launches them like eagles out into space.

—Alexandre Dumas, 1846

Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.

—Charles I, 1636

A bad reputation is easy to come by, painful to bear, and difficult to clear.

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

There are many civil questions that arise between individuals in which it is not so important the controversy be settled one way or another as that it be settled.

—William Howard Taft, 1921

A false report rides post.

—English proverb

Gossip 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, 1876