“Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer
Variant: Gossip is what no one claims to like – but everybody enjoys.
Source: Gossip Girl
“Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer
Variant: Gossip is what no one claims to like – but everybody enjoys.
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer
Quoted in Gert Jonkers, "Gore Vidal, the Fantastic Man," Butt, No. 20 (7 April 2007)
2000s
“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan
Cecil Graham http://books.google.com/books?id=8SzYgCNz-vwC&q=&quot;Gossip+is+charming+History+is+merely+gossip+But+scandal+is+gossip+made+tedious+by+morality&quot;&pg=PT52#v=onepage, Act III <br class="br">Variant: Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. <br class="br">Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
§ IV
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: See what gossip does. It begins with evil thought, and that in itself is a crime. For in everyone and in everything there is good; in everyone and in everything there is evil. Either of these we can strengthen by thinking of it, and in this way we can help or hinder evolution; we can do the will of the Logos or we can resist Him. If you think of the evil in another, you are doing at the same time three wicked things:
(1) You are filling your neighbourhood with evil thought instead of with good thought, and so you are adding to the sorrow of the world.
(2) If there is in that man the evil which you think, you are strengthening it and feeding it; and so you are making your brother worse instead of better. But generally the evil is not there, and you have only fancied it; and then your wicked thought tempts your brother to do wrong, for if he is not yet perfect you may make him that which you have thought him.
(3) You fill your own mind with evil thoughts instead of good; and so you hinder your own growth, and make yourself, for those who can see, an ugly and painful object instead of a beautiful and lovable one.
Not content with having done all this harm to himself and to his victim, the gossip tries with all his might to make other men partners in his crime. Eagerly he tells his wicked tale to them, hoping that they will believe it; and then they join with him in pouring evil thought upon the poor sufferer. And this goes on day after day, and is done not by one man but by thousands. Do you begin to see how base, how terrible a sin this is? You must avoid it altogether.
“The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer
As quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 190
As quoted in ...
Variant: The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.
“In this world of gossip, a good listener is rarer than a great orator.”
Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden
Source: Black Blood
Brian P. Cleary (1959) American writer
Source: You Oughta Know By Now