„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 Feminist writer 1946 - 2005
Right Wing Women, ch.2 (1978)
— Andrea Dworkin Feminist writer 1946 - 2005
Right Wing Women, ch.2 (1978)
— Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian spiritual philosopher 1895 - 1986
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.
§ IV
— Yanni Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer 1954
— Edward Elgar English composer 1857 - 1934
Letter to A. J. Jaeger, October 9, 1900.
— Jean De La Fontaine French poet, fabulist and writer. 1621 - 1695
L'homme est ainsi bâti: Quand un sujet l'enflamme
L'impossibilité disparaît à son âme.
Book VIII (1678-1679), fable 25.
— Gene Wolfe American science fiction and fantasy writer 1931
Chapter 13, "The Battles" (p. 95)
— Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
Cecil Graham http://books.google.com/books?id=8SzYgCNz-vwC&q="Gossip+is+charming+History+is+merely+gossip+But+scandal+is+gossip+made+tedious+by+morality"&pg=PT52#v=onepage, Act III
— Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist 1817 - 1862
Context: It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
— John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980
As quoted in Guitar Player (1 August 2004), and in "Pax Patter" at ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) http://www.abc.net.au/civics/rights/pax.htm
— Vilna Gaon Polish-Lithuanian rabbi; Mitnagdim leader in opposition to Hasidism 1720 - 1797
Alim li-Terufa as cited in "Separation from the Worldly (Perishut)" http://etzion.org.il/en/separation-worldly-perishut
— Marc Randazza American writer 1969
— David Hockney British artist 1937
Interview with Paul Joyce, New York, November 1985, quoted in Hockney on Photography, ed. Wendy Brown (1988)
— Robert Schumann German composer, aesthete and influential music critic 1810 - 1856
Early Letters of Robert Schumann (1888), p. 82