Archive

Quotes

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

A false report rides post.

—English proverb

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.

—Erica Jong, 1973

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

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

It is one thing to slander, another to accuse.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 56 BC

Scandal begins where the police leave off.

—Karl Kraus, 1909

Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes.

—Huan Kuan, 81 BC

While 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, 1983

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

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

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

—Ge Hong, c. 320

Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.

—John Donne, c. 1629