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Gossip is saying behind their back what you would not say to their face

• Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true.  Oxford Dictionary
• Gossip is saying behind their back what you would not say to their face. Flattery is saying to their face what you would not say behind their back.
• Tact,  Discretion,  Making conversation,  Right speech

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Gossip is revealing information about the personal lives of others

• Gossip:  Conversation or reports about other people’s private lives that might be unkind, disapproving, or not true.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Gossip: A person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others.  Merriam Webster

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Gossip is a powerful spreader of information

• The most powerful force in the universe is gossip. Dave Barry
• Gossip is nature’s telephone. Sholom Aleichem
• Gossip is the Devil’s radio. George Harrison

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There are many who get great pleasure from gossip

• Gossip, even when it avoids the sexual, bears around it a faint flavor of the erotic. Patricia Meyer Spacks
• Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. Henry Fielding
• Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys. Joseph Conrad
• Pleasure

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For many, gossip is an addiction

• Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip. Erma Bombeck
• I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs. Andy Warhol
• Addiction

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Some would say gossip is even a deep human need

• Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need. Primo Levi
• Sometimes I think the human animal doesn’t really need food or water to survive, only gossip. Steve Toltz
• Human needs

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Pretty much everyone does it if they’re honest

• Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shoptalk of the scientist and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past. Phyllis McGinley
• What’s wrong with gossip? We all live on it, but we deny it; we’re hypocrites. Rona Gibbon
• Gossip is more popular than literature. Hugh Leonard

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Some argue gossip is simply to be interested in people

• Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Phyllis McGinley
• Show me someone who never gossips, and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people. Barbara Walters
• The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works. Jane Smiley

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Some argue gossip is usually a harmless distraction

• Gossip was usually a mindless distraction from a far too serious world. Dianne Sylvan

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Some argue listening to gossip is fine as long as you don’t repeat it

• It’s only gossip if you repeat it. Until then, it’s gathering information. Mercedes Lackey

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However, few would argue that gossip can have its evil side

• Have I inadvertently said some evil thing? Phocion
• Gossip needn’t be false to be evil – there’s a lot of truth that shouldn’t be passed around. Frank A. Clark
• No sword bites so fiercly as an evil tongue. Sir Philip Sidney
• To harken to evil conversation is the road to wickedness.
• Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. William Shakespeare
• We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them. Cato the Elder
• Never tell evil of a man, if you do not know it for certainty, and if you know it for a certainty, then ask yourself, ‘Why should I tell it?’ Johann K. Lavater
• May no portent of evil be attached to the words I say.
• To harken to evil conversation is the road to wickedness.
• Have I inadvertently said some evil thing? Phocion
• Evil

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To gossip is not to use your word in the direction of truth and love

• Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Don Miguel Ruiz
• Truth,  Love,  Be impeccable with your word

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To gossip is not right speech

• Right Speech has four parts:  Abstain from false speech; do not tell lies or deceive.  2.  Do not slander others or speak in a way that causes disharmony or enmity. 3.  Abstain from rude, impolite or abusive language. 4.  Do not indulge in idle talk or gossip.   Pali Canon
• Right speech

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The truth is that much gossip tends to be negative, critical and mean

• People like to think the worst. They like to have hushed gossip sessions and point their fingers at someone’s problems that are more obvious than their own. Marcia Lynn McClure
• No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues. Bertrand Arthur William Russell
• Good gossip is just what’s going on. Bad gossip is stuff that is salacious, mean, and bitchy; the kind most people really enjoy. Liz Smith
• Isn’t it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up? Sean Covey
• If it’s very painful for you to criticize your friends – you’re safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time to hold your tongue. Alice Duer Miller
• Criticism,  Negativity

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The truth is that gossip is a vice that weakens us

• Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind.
• 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
• Gossip is vice enjoyed vicariously. Elbert Hubbard
• Gossip is poison. Gisele Bundchen
• Gossip is hardly uplifting. Ginger Rogers
• Vice

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The tongue is a powerful organ and can do much damage

• No sword bites so fiercly as an evil tongue. Sir Philip Sidney
• He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue. Mark Twain

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Gossip spreads rumour

• Trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell. Shana Alexander
• A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run. Ouida
• What is told in the ear of a man is often heard 100 miles away. Chinese Proverb
• A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way. John Tudor
• Rumor travels faster, but it don’t stay put as long as truth. Will Rogers
• Trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell. Shana Alexander

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Gossip often spreads lies and inaccuracy

• The biggest liar in the world is They Say. Douglas Malloch
• Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction. Criss Jami
• Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong. M. Montgomery
• Gossip is called gossip because it’s not always the truth. Justin Timberlake
• Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left. Jane Austen
• Lying

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Gossip can hurt people and lives

• It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt. Sherwood Smith
• Shoot the wounded… what we do to people who are the most vulnerable… we ‘shoot the wounded.’ As if they haven’t suffered enough, we add to it by gossiping and treating hurt people like outcasts.  Lynn Dove
• A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it. But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target. So does gossip. Vera Nazarian
• Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip. Richard Steele
• A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. Bible

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Abstain from gossip

• What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t witness with your mouth.   Jewish Proverb
• Do not repeat anything you will not sign your name to.

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Gossip may be true …

• It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one’s back, that are absolutely and entirely true. Oscar Wilde
• There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true. Winston Churchill

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… but that doesn’t make it right

• Gossip needn’t be false to be evil – there’s a lot of truth that shouldn’t be passed around. Frank A. Clark

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Put gossip into the same category as criticism and complaining and abstain from it

• Complaining should happen infrequenlty; criticism and gossip, never… Most of the complaining we do is just a lot of “ear pollution” detrimental to our happiness and well-being. Will Bowen
• Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude. Joyce Meyer
• Criticism,  Complaining

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We don’t like it when people gossip about us so why do it to others?

• The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them. Will Rogers

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Mind your own affairs rather than the business of others

• It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire a knowledge of other people’s business. Dolley Madison
• If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence. Alexis de Tocqueville
• The Puritan’s idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business. Wendell Phillips
• How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy. Marcus Aurelius

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Choose to discuss ideas rather than gossip about people

• Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. Marie Curie
• Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt
• Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people. Socrates
• Ideas

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Speak only of the good you know about people

• How would your life be different if…You walked away from gossip and verbal defamation? Let today be the day…You speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same. Steve Maraboli
• I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody. Benjamin Franklin

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Even keeping up with gossip in the news is time that could be spent far better

• If you want to have a non-miraculous day, I suggest that newspaper and caffeine form the crux of your morning regimen. Listen to the morning news while you’re in the shower, read the headlines as you are walking out the door, make sure you’re keeping tabs on everything: the wars, the economy, the gossip, the natural disasters. . . But if you want the day ahead to be full of miracles, then spend some time each morning with God. Marianne Williamson
• Learn to turn off the distraction and live your life instead. Turn off the television and don’t read gossip magazines. Remove nonessential physical belongings that are robbing you of time and energy that could be better spent living intentionally. Joshua Becker

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Try the 21 day gossip free challenge

• Try the 21 day complaint free challenge. Begin to wear a bracelet on either wrist. When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping, or criticizing, move the bracelet to the other wrist. Stay with it. It may take many months to reach 21 consecutive days of not moving the bracelet. The average is 4 to 8 months. Will Bowen

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Never judge someone based on gossip you hear about them

• It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenceless one. Only the ignorant and narrow- minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things. Lawrence G. Lovasik
• It is presumptuous to draw conclusions about a person from what one has heard. Jude Morgan
• Judgement

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Be wary of the gossiper for whoever gossips will gossip about you

• Gossip is a very dangerous tool. We should be more wary of the gossiper, and not the gossip they’re trying to relay to you. John Lydon
• Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you. Spanish Proverb
• Who gossips to you, will gossip of you. Turkish Proverb
• A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much. Bible
• If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. Kahlil Gibran
• When you are in trouble, people who call to sympathize are really looking for the particulars. Edgar Watson Howe

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If people want to gossip about you, leave them to it

• Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip’s a nasty thing, but it’s sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Booth Tarkington
• Doesn’t matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbors are gonna talk about you ANYWAY. Felder Rushing
• Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear. Paulo Coelho
• It’s none of my business what people say about me. Madonna

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Women gossip more than men – or do they?

• The gossip mill runs on estrogen. Kim Harrington
• I get accused all the time of having a big mouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do. Meg Cabot
• When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women. Marilyn Monroe
• 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
• Men have always detested women’s gossip because they suspect the truth: Their measurements are being taken and compared. Erica Jong
• Women are more skilled than men at making gossip entertaining. Kate Fox
• Male and female gossip also sounds different, as women use more animated tones, more detail and more feedback. Kate Fox

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Today’s gossip is tomorrow’s news

• Today’s gossip is tomorrow’s headline. Walter Winchell
• Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress. Liz Smith
• To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit it and read it are old women over their tea. Henry David Thoreau

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History is gossip

• History is merely gossip. Oscar Wilde
• Historian – a broad-gauge gossip. Ambrose Bierce
• History

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Thoughts on keeping secrets

• Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. Benjamin Franklin
• The easiest way to keep a secret is without help.
• If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner…if I let it slip from my tongue, I am ITS prisoner. Arthur Schopenhauer
• There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret. Alexandre Dumas
• Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession. Georg Simmel

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• A gossip columnist is someone who uses dirt to make a mountain out of a molehill.  Alfred E. Neuman
• A gossip is someone who talks to you about others a bore is someone who talks to you about himself and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.  Lisa Kirk
• A real Christian is the one who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip. Billy Graham
• Don’t talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave. Wilson Mizner
• Gossip: What goes in one ear and in another.
• Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress.  Liz Smith
• Gossip is nature’s telephone.  Sholom Aleichem
• Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid. Walter Winchell
• Gossip, n.: Hearing something you like about someone you don’t. Earl Wilson
• Gossip: Hearing something you like about someone you don’t.  Earl Wilson
• Gossip: One with a keen sense of rumor.
• Gossip: Something negative that is developed and then enlarged.
• Gossip: Something that goes in one ear, out the other, and over the back fence.
• I don’t at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited. Oscar Wilde
• I look at it this way. I’m not an eavesdropper; I have an attention surplus disorder.  Robert Brault
• I never gossip. I observe. And then relay my observations to practically everyone. Gail Carriger
• I never repeat gossip so listen carefully the first time.
• If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you. Oscar Wilde
• If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me. Alice Roosevelt Longworth
• If you talk about yourself, he’ll think you’re boring; if you talk about others he’ll think you’re a gossip; if you talk about him he’ll think you’re a brilliant conversationalist.  Linda Sunshine
• In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
• It’s the gossip columnist’s business to write about what is none of his business.  Louis Kronenberger
• Legend is gossip that has attained the dignity of old age. Harry Oliver
• Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. Will Rogers
• No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.  Bertrand Russell
• So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
• Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me – it’s gossip.   Erma Bombeck
• The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.  Dave Barry
• To a friend, who asked him how to find out a girl’s faults, he gave the sage advice to praise her to her girl friends. Edwin Lillie Miller
• Who brings a tale takes two away. Irish Proverb
• Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.  Spanish proverb

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