May no portent¹ of evil be attached to the words I say.

Anonymous²

To harken to evil conversation is the road to wickedness.. (Pravis Assuescere Sermonibus Est Via Ad Rem Ipsam)

Anonymous

No one gossips about other people's secret virtues³.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.

Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)

There is so much good in the worst of us,

And so much bad in the best of us,

That it hardly behooves⁴ any of us

To talk about the rest of us.

Edward Wallis Hoch (1849 - 1925), Marion (Kansas) Record

Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly⁵ in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817), Persuasion⁶, 1818

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

A rumor⁷ without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.

John Tudor

Many species reciprocate⁸, but only humans gossip, and much of what we gossip about is the vale of other people as partners for reciprocal relationships.

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, 2005

Once you have listened to the gossip for some time, you will soon feel as if you know everyone, even if you have never met them.

Monica Fairview, Darcy Cousins, 2010

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III

Have I inadvertently said some evil thing?

Phocion (402 BC - 318 BC), from Plutarch, Apothegms

No sword bites so fiercly as an evil tongue.

Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586)

Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.

Spanish Proverb

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

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

Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), 'Politics Getting Ready to Jell,' The Illiterate⁹ Digest, 1924

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

Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)