gossip on Bad News

In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.

If there were no gratified hearers of ill reports, there would be an end of the trade of spreading them.

“Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong.”

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.

Gossip often veils itself in acceptable conventions such as “Have you heard…” or “Did you know…?” or “They tell me…” or “Keep this to yourself, but…” or “I do not believe it is true, but I heard that…...

To gossip means to betray a confidence or to discuss unfavorable personal facts about another person with someone who is not part of the problem or its solution. Even if the information you discuss is...

Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.

Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you, just measure it in inches.

In 1867, the great American writer Mark Twain embarked on what he wryly called his “Great Pleasure Excursion,” a journey through Europe that would later inspire his travelogue, The Innocents Abroad...

Much of gossip is envy in disguise.

Holy and merciful God, we need Your grace and love today. We deliberately lie and speak falsehoods. We mislead and deceive with half-truths. We omit facts that make us look bad. We take pleasure in go...

Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," not "blessed are the troublemakers."

A monk told his monastic leader, Poeman, “I am troubled in spirit, and I want to leave this place.” The old man said, “Why?” He said, “I have heard unedifying stories about one of the brothers. The...

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.

If someone has done something wrong even at a personal level, the right thing to do is not to gossip about it, not to tell everybody else, not to allow resentment to build up and fester, and certainly...

The power of speech is unfathomable. Gossip can never be undone. It is cruel, divisive, and demeaning. It alters the way people see another person forever. It robs the victim of dignity and opportunit...

Never about, always to.

“Why can’t you just be happy for me and then go home and talk behind my back later like a normal person?”

I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.

Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.

The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.”

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Three essential rules when speaking of others are: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

The art of spreading rumors may be compared to the art of pin-making. There is usually some truth, which I call the wire; as this passes from hand to hand, one gives it a polish, another a point, othe...

We should have much more peace if we would not busy ourselves with the sayings and doings of others.

What good does it do to speak in tongues on Sunday if you have been using your tongue during the week to curse and gossip?

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

William Shakespeare’s Othello is able to capture the heart of what it means to experience slander, or to have one “bear false witness’ perhaps better than any other: Who steals my purse steals trash;...

God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends: but so, that for every hour of our life (after we are persons capable of laws, and know good from evi...

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.