Do Not Gossip Quotes & Sayings

You'll come to learn that many times, the people you have problems with are not really the people you have problems with; but in actuality, the problems lie in the premises of everybody else in between you, in their suggestive glances, in their implications and tone of voice, in their provocations and less-than-noble intent. Again, it comes down to shutting out the noise that isn't supposed to be there and listening to your inner silence. — C. JoyBell C.

...[She] was not nearly so intrusive. If she happened to observe the comings and goings of her friends out of the corner of her eye (which she could hardly fail to do, given the nature of her favorite sitting-place) and chanced to be able to remember when she had seen them and where they had been going, it was simply a tribute to her keen powers of observation and recall. Conscious spying was beneath her altogether. — Tom Holt

With no plan of escape in sight, I've been resigned to the life of a cosseted young lady of London society as Grandmama and I pay calls. We drink tea that is too weak and never hot enough for my liking. the ladies pass the time with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom - time and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or ever correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the fallows on my own strength. — Libba Bray

Not everything I do is gossip or bedroom. To the contrary, I think that's just an easy label to dismiss me and to dismiss the new medium. — Matt Drudge

I'm really not quite as frippery a fellow as you seem to think! I own that in my grasstime I committed a great many follies and extravagances, but, believe me, I've long since out-grown them! I don't think they were any worse than what nine out of ten youngsters commit, but unfortunately I achieved, through certain circumstances, a notoriety which most young men escape. I was born with a natural aptitude for the sporting pursuits you regard with so much distrust, and I inherited, at far too early an age, a fortune which not only enabled me to indulge my tastes in the most expensive manner imaginable, but which made me an object of such interest that everything I did was noted, and talked of. That's heady stuff for greenhorns, you know! There was a time when I gave the gossips plenty to talk about. But do give me credit for having seen the error of my ways! — Georgette Heyer

Go to faeries for gossip about vampires, to werewolves for gossip about faeries, and do not gossip about werewolves, because they try to bite your face off: that was Magnus's motto. — Cassandra Clare

Okay, so we're in Georgia. I can do this. I'm not just the new girl. I'm a vampire. I don't have to be afraid of mean girls and gossip anymore. I could snap their necks in half - er, not that I will or anything, but it's nice to know that I can. — Tamara Summers

A work of art must make the rules: rules do not make a work of art ... I tell people I am not a musician; I work with rhythms, frequencies and intensities ... tunes are merely the gossips of music ... — Edgard Varese

I don't keep women friends for too long largely because i do not trust them and i hate gossip. A lot of times i am on the inside looking out and people say if women are avoiding me then it means something is wrong with me and not with them. I look at these female cliques and the lies, pretense and backbiting that keeps them glued together and decide that i want no part of that. — Crystal Evans

Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence - it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute! — Agatha Christie

It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide. — Honore De Balzac

What is your objection to the clothes?" Sebastian asked, glancing at the gowns. "They're black, aren't they?"
"Well, yes, but they're not made of crepe."
"Do you want to wear crepe?"
"Of course not - no one does. But if people saw me wearing anything else, there would be terrible gossip."
One of Sebastian's brows arched. "Evie," he said dryly, "you eloped against your family's wishes, you married a notorious rake, and you're living in a gaming club. How much more damned gossip do you think you could cause? — Lisa Kleypas

A good turnout at church today. It had nothing to do with the mild weather and a desire to gossip and everything to do with my oratory skills, I am perfectly convinced. Indeed, if not for Mrs Attwood's new bonnet, I would have had the ladies' undivided attention. The gentlemen I was more certain of. They had no interest in bonnets, new or otherwise, and listened in pleasing silence, broken only by an occasional snore. — Amanda Grange

Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ... of the main strengths of each. Each is attentive to clues, each must narrow the choice, must strive for precision. As George Grosz says, "In art there is no place for gossip and but a small place for the satirist." The objective is fertile procedure. Is it not? Jacob Bronowski says in The Saturday Evening Post that science is not a mere collection of discoveries, but that science is the process of discovering. In any case it's not established once and for all; it's evolving. — Marianne Moore

Don't you dare scream. I do not want to end up as tonight's gossip. But I do want to end up with some part of me inside you. — Ella Frank

This friendship among women is something Samuel often talks about. Because the women share a husband but the husband does not share their friendships, it makes Samuel uneasy. It is confusing, I suppose. And it is Samuel's duty as a Christian minister to preach the bible's directive of one husband and one wife. Samuel is confused because ti him, since the women are friends and will do anything for one another - not always, but more often than anyone from America would expect - and since they giggle and gossip and nurse each other's children, then they must be happy with things as they are. (Walker 2000: 141) — Alice Walker

Are you holding her?" Wrath asked.
There was a pause. "As soon as I get this bow tied in the back - hold on, girlie. Okay, up you go. She's in a pink dress that Cormia made her by hand. I hate pink. I like it on her, though - but keep that to yourself."
Wrath flexed his hands. "What's it like?"
"Not totally hating pink? Pretty fuck - ehrm, frickin' emasculating."
"Yeah."
"Do not tell me Lassiter's been metrosexualizing even you. I heard he talked Manello into going for a pedicure with him - but I'm praying that's just gossip."

-Wrath & Zsadist — J.R. Ward

Often people that say they "don't care" actually do. The moment they discuss you with their friends and family, compete with you, bad mouth you to others or react to anything you do or say is when they give themselves away. You can either be saddened or flattered that you effected someone so much. The perspective is yours to determine. — Shannon L. Alder

Can we not do without the society of our gossip a little while, - have our own thoughts to cheer us? — Henry David Thoreau

Prefer spacious interactions with fewer people. And it means that, when you converse, you are more interested in sharing ideas than in talking about people and what they're doing. In a conversation with someone sharing gossip, the introvert's eyes glaze over and his brow furrows as he tries to comprehend how this conversation could interest anyone. This is not because the introvert is morally superior - he just doesn't get it. As we've discussed, introverts are energized and excited by ideas. Simply talking about people, what they do and who they know, is noise for the introvert. He'll be looking between the lines for some meaning, and this can be hard work! Before long, he'll be looking for a way out of the conversation. But when an introvert is hanging out — Laurie A. Helgoe

She already has." Assail smiled cruelly in the dark. "Tell me, is your Dom reputation just talk or are you truly that perverted?" "Waste my time with gossip and I'll answer that firsthand." "Kinky." "Why do you ask?" "Your name came up in conversation." "How." The fact that that wasn't a question, but a demand was not a surprise. "She was speaking of sexual conquests she had enjoyed. You apparently were one of them, back when she was younger - and she made it clear you had done the conquesting, as it were." "I've fucked a lot of people," V said in a bored tone, "and forgotten ninety-five percent of them. So tell me what you know - and not about sex. Mine or others'. — J.R. Ward

In a conversation with someone sharing gossip, the introvert's eyes glaze over and his brow furrows as he tries to comprehend how this conversation could interest anyone. This is not because the introvert is morally superior - he just doesn't get it. As we've discussed, introverts are energized and excited by ideas. Simply talking about people, what they do and who they know, is noise for the introvert. He'll be looking between the lines for some meaning, and this can be hard work! Before long, he'll be looking for a way out of the conversation. — Laurie A. Helgoe

the people grew tired of this little gossip. Fathers looked at their children and thought: "They are not learning much. What will make them brave and wise? What will teach them to love their country and old Norway? Will not the stories of battles, of brave deeds, of mighty men, do this? — Jennie Hall

But before, not so long ago - my own rose from prom still OK on the mirror, dried but not a corpse - you were just Ed Slaterton, jocky hero, handsome in the student newspaper and star of a million strands of gossip. Now Annette was a person to me, standing right there, and not just an oh-my-God-have-you-heard, and I tried to put it together in my head, the print and the negative, the boyfriend and the celebrity shadow, like Theodora Sire sat next to me in history, borrowing pencils, but was still a movie star above my bed. Because as you came out of the dark to me, you were the boy I was kissing and wanted to kiss more, back to find me at a party like anybody might do, but you were Ed Slaterton too, and not the cad you are now, but just Ed Slaterton, co-captain, with a beer in your hand and Jillian Beach on your arm. — Daniel Handler

I praise mirth" [Eccl. viii. 15]. This means the righteous man rejoices when he performs a meritorious act. "And of joy, what doth this do?" [Eccl. ii. 2] alludes to rejoicing that comes not through a Heaven-pleasing deed. This teaches that the divine presence (Shekhina) comes not by sadness, by indolence, by hilarity, by levity, by gossip, or by senseless talk, but through rejoicing in a meritorious deed; as it is written: "Now bring me a minstrel; and when the minstrel played, the power of the Lord was upon him" [II Kings, iii. 15]. Rabba said: The same (should be done) in order to enjoy good dreams. R. Jehudah says: The same (should be done) to predispose one's self for legislative work, as Rabba did: Before commencing to expound a Halakha he introduced it with a simile and caused the masters to become joyful; afterward, he sat down in the fear of the Lord and began to expound the Halakha. — Michael Rodkinson

If it were not for a goodly supply of rumors, half true and half false, what would the gossips do? — Thomas Chandler Haliburton

It is the disease of cowards, who do not have the courage to speak upfront and so talk behind one's back ... Watch out against the terrorism of gossip! — Pope Francis

Suddenly, it hit me. Why not do a talk show that featured not one, but four engaging female hosts of varying ages and perspectives. . . create a "kitchen table" forum for discussion. If it was on their minds, ya gotta figure that it's on the minds of half of American women, right? — Jamie Collins

Boys will be boys, that's what people say. No one ever mentions how girls have to be something other than themselves altogether. We are to stifle the same feelings that boys are encouraged to display. We are to use gossip as a means of policing ourselves
this way those who do succumb to sex but are not damaged by it are damaged instead by peer malice. Girls demand a covenant because if one gives in, others will be expected to do the same. We are to remain united in cruelty, ignorance, and aversion. Or we are to starve the flesh from our bones, penalizing the body for its nature, castigating ourselves for advances we are powerless to prevent. We are to make false promises then resist the attentions solicited. Basically we are to become expert liars. (p. 65) — Hilary Thayer Hamann

Unlock joy in any situation!
True understanding and mutual respect do not bridge blames, destructive, negative criticisms, false excuses and gossips. To express disappointments and ill-feelings are normal however to gossip around certain people and events in order to put another person down and destroy one's credibility is a form of bullying whether one expresses it publicly or privately.
Beware of segregation, regionalism, individualism, discrimination, stereotyping, destructive criticism, false accusations, biased wrong assumptions, prejudice, senseless comparison and unwanted competition because life is much more meaningful to live for where there is unity and harmony. — Angelica Hopes

Most likely, both the gossip theory and the there-is-a-lion-near-the-river theory are valid. Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, it's the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled. Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say, 'Careful! A lion!' Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, 'The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.' This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language. It's — Yuval Noah Harari

Hang-ups and addictions do not have the last word. Today's problem is not necessarily tomorrow's problem. Don't incarcerate yourself by assuming it is. Resist self-labeling. "I'm just a worrier." "Gossip is my weakness." "My dad was a drinker, and I guess I'll carry on the tradition." Stop that! These words create alliances with the devil. They grant him access to your spirit. It is not God's will that you live a defeated, marginalized, unhappy, and weary life. Turn a deaf ear to the old voices and make new choices. "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good inheritance" (Ps. 16:6). Live out of your inheritance, not your circumstance. — Max Lucado

Do not gossip with new coworkers, admit to any insecurities or concerns, complain to them, or solicit too much in the way of guidance (they will peg you as clueless), especially — Kate White

When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we're alert. This gift is always present in anyone's life, that moment when 'It's not the way I want it! — Charlotte Joko Beck

Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence (Peter's Paradox): they merely gossip about incompetence to mask their envy of employees who have Pull. — Laurence J. Peter

The widespread interest in gossip is inspired, not by a love of knowledge but by malice: no one gossips about other people's secret virtues, but only about their secret vices. Accordingly most gossip is untrue, but care is taken not to verify it. Our neighbour's sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinise the evidence closely. — Bertrand Russell

You can talk to me, too."
"I do!"
"But you say so little."
"Women talk a great deal to one another. All this gossip and such. I am not a woman."
"What do you do when you have to command your men?" She inquired, exasperated. "Grunt? — Catherine Asaro

My dear heart, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. If you want peace, don't harbor bad thoughts, do not gossip and don't teach what you do not know. — Rumi

This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie - no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I'm so not interested in gossip. It just gives me the creeps. I love the work; I love what I do. If somebody sends me an interview that has any connotation of something that's not interesting or genuine, I'm not interested. I really detach myself from it. — Francisco Costa

I'm just trying to not be in stupid gossip magazines, basically, and I think the best way to do it is never be photographed ever. As I get older, I just get more and more and more self-conscious about getting photographed. I don't know why. I've done it too many times and now I feel like everyone can see through me. — Robert Pattinson

Do not leave your reputation to chance or gossip; it is your life's artwork, and you must craft it, hone it, and display it with the care of an artist. — Robert Greene

Gossip and slander are not victimless crimes. Words do not just dissipate into midair ... Words can injure and damage, maim and destroy - forcefully, painfully, lastingly ... Plans have been disrupted, deals have been lost, companies have fallen, because of idle gossip or malicious slander. Reputations have been sullied, careers have been ruined, lives have been devastated, because of cruel lies or vicious rumors ... Your words have such power to do good or evil that they must be chosen carefully, wisely, and well. — Wayne D. Dosick

28People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed them to have their own worthless thinking and to do things they should not do. 29They are filled with every kind of sin, evil, selfishness, and hatred. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, lying, and thinking the worst about each other. They gossip 30and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude and conceited and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They do not obey their parents. 31They are foolish, they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or mercy to others. 32They know God's law says that those who live like this should die. But they themselves not only continue to do these evil things, they applaud others who do them. — Max Lucado

Be sure then to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn, without asking, in the street and the train. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big color photos and gossip columns, or the National Enquirer. Such vulgarity is healthy and safe. — Werner Herzog

He made a pit and digged it. He was cunning in his plans and industrious in his labors. He stooped to the dirty work of digging. He did not fear to soil his own hands. He was willing to work in a ditch if others might fall therein. What mean things men will do to wreak revenge on the godly. They hunt for good men as if they were brute beasts - they that will not give them the fair chase afforded to the hare or the fox, but must secretly entrap them because they can neither run them down nor shoot them down. Our enemies will not meet us to the face for they fear us as much as they pretend to despise us. But let us look on to the end of the scene. The verse says he has fallen into the ditch that he has made. Ah, there he is. Let us laugh at his disappointment. Lo, he is himself the beast. He has hunted his own soul. The chase has brought him a goodly victim. So should it ever be. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

You do not know it but you are the talk of all the town.
[Lat., Fabula (nec sentis) tota jactaris in urba.] — Ovid

Remember, kiddo, gossip says a lot about people. But not the people who are talked about. Only the people who do the talking." — Charleigh Rose

Do not gossip about monks and speak ill of spiritual teachers — Radhe Maa

Most secrets are secrets of the mouth. Gossip shared and small scandals whispered. These secrets long to be let loose upon the world. A secret of the mouth is like a stone in your boot. At first you're barely aware of it. Then it grows irritating, then intolerable. Secrets of the mouth grow larger the longer you keep them, swelling until they press against your lips. They fight to be let free. Secrets of the heart are different. They are private and painful, and we want nothing more than to hide them from the world. They do not swell and press against the mouth. They live in the heart, and the longer they are kept, the heavier they become. — Patrick Rothfuss

What the sounds and smells do not divulge, gossip supplies. It spreads like wildfire in the neighborhood, where everyone is watching one another's morals. — Asne Seierstad

I look around me and see all the problems.
I know people aren't living the gospel.
I know they are too busy.
The world is too loud.
The sounds you hear in the hall or not
the substance of love and kindness.
I hear gossip, I hear spite, I hear fear.
I do not hear the gospel.
Except inside me, I can feel it there. — David Levithan

Do I ever think Gossip will be really massive in America? No, I don't think it'll happen - and that's fine. It's kind of nice because I get to experience everything at once. I get to come home and it not be weird, like in Paris or something. It is nice to be completely anonymous. — Beth Ditto

The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength. — Libba Bray

Gossip, public, private, social to fight against it either by word or pen seems, after all, like fighting with shadows. Everybody laughs at it, protests against it, blames and despises it; yet everybody does it, or at least encourages others in it: quite innocently, unconsciously, in such a small, harmless fashion yet we do it. We must talk about something, and it is not all of us who can find a rational topic of conversation, or discuss it when found. — Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all these things - twenty-four hours a day. One's religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived.
Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call "religion." It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion. — Jack D. Forbes

A sadhak (one who does spiritual practice) will not have time to indulge in gossip. They will not feel like talking to anyone in a harsh manner. Those who always indulge in faultfinding will never achieve spiritual progress. Do not harm anyone by thoughts, words or deeds. Be compassionate towards all beings. Ahimsa (nonviolence) is the highest dharma (duty). — Mata Amritanandamayi

A lot of people say about 'Gossip Girl,' 'Well, how do you feel about gossip?' Well, who really likes gossip? No one likes to be talked about if it's not flattering or a compliment. — Jessica Szohr

I will not say it is not Christian to make beads of others faults, and tell them over every day; I say it is infernal. If you want to know how the Devil feels, you do know, if you are such an one. — Henry Ward Beecher

The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practise compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone's back - not even seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouth do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man's pain will hurt us all. One man's joy will make everyone smile. — Elif Shafak

In Sermons on the Statutes, Saint John Chrysostom reiterates this point saying: Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor man, take pity on him. If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him. Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye and the ear and the feet and the hands and all the members of our bodies. Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice. Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin. Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful. Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip. Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism. For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers? May He who came to the world to save sinners strengthen us to complete the fast with humility, have mercy on us and save us. — Michelle Allen Bychek

Do not jump the gun because of gossip. — Jeanne Phillips

Gossip columnists patrol their mundane arena with the same sort of mysterious merit the advice-givers do. Plainly put, how does anyone become a gossip columnist? I can't simplify it down to a lower scale than that. Are there universities that offer courses in gossip writing? How about plain old Gossip 111? Are there that many literate people who could not write a gossip column? What then, qualifies the chosen few above the rest? — Donald Jeffries

If your neighbors talk about you, and you think that they do wrong in speaking evil of you, do not let them know that your ever heard a word, and conduct yourselves as if they always did right, and it will mortify them, and they will say, "We'll not try this game any longer." — Brigham Young

Twenty-first-century attitudes towards time and our expectations of story are very different from the shape of Mary Anning's life. She spent day after day, year after year, doing the same thing on the beach. I have taken the events of her life and condensed them to fit into a narrative that is not stretched beyond the reader's patience. Hence events, while in order, do not always coincide exactly with actual dates and time spans. Plus, of course, I made up plenty. For instance, while there was gossip about Mary and Buckland and Mary and Birch, there was no proof. That is where only a novelist can step in. — Tracy Chevalier