GOSSIP
I learned his character at once from what he said about others (a mode of judging
which has never misled me), and I made up my mind how to act. 2LS164
Remember that, as the receiver is as bad as the thief, so the hearer of scandal is a
sharer in the guilt of it. If there were no listening ears there would be no talebearing
tongues. 2LS171
Hearsay is half lies. A tale never loses in the telling. As a snowball grows by rolling,
so does a story. They who talk much lie much. PT47
Gossip is a very ready means of separating friends from one another. Let us
endeavour to talk of something better than each other’s characters. Dionysius went
down to the Academy to Plato. Plato asked what he came for. “Why,” said Dionysius,
“I thought that you, Plato, would be talking against me to your students.” Plato
made this answer: “Dost thou think, Dionysius, we are so destitute of matter to
converse upon that we talk of thee?” Truly we must be very short of subjects when
we begin to talk of one another. 607.10