160+ Quotes That Will Help You Quit Gossiping

Just before you start gossiping about what your friend just told you, read these Gossip Quotes. You'll be glad that you did!

Do you ever find yourself gossiping? Chances are, yes! Most of us have done it before, and some of us even do it now. Gossiping can often feel like a harmless way to bond with friends or colleagues, but it can also be destructive. 

Many individuals gossip not to purposefully damage someone, but to satisfy the person with whom they are conversing. Some argue that gossip brings people together. It creates a hidden alliance and makes gossipers feel like members of a group.

So, how do we determine what constitutes gossip? A decent rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t say something to someone, don’t say it about them.

Words are like swords. They are capable of causing harm. Once the rumor spreads, it is very hard to undo the harm. This is why spreading rumors is dangerous; you never know what the people who start them are up to.

The funny thing is, no one dreads hearing the things others say about them behind their back more than the person themselves. So, you see!

Now, here are 160 gossip quotes that will help you avoid gossip.

Definition of Gossip

Gossip Quotes - Gisele Bundchen

Gossip is poison.

Gossip, it appears is a past time for many just like discussing the weather. It leads nowhere and neither talking about others or talking about the weather will change either.

Gossip was usually a mindless distraction from a far too serious world.

Gossip never goes away, no matter where you are in life.

Gossiping and lying go hand in hand.

Gossip needs no carriage.

Gossip needn’t be false to be evil – there’s a lot of truth that shouldn’t be passed around.

Gossip is when you hear something you like about someone you don’t.

Gossip is when you have a malice of intent or mindless, third-party conversation to someone about someone, something you haven’t said to that someone.

Gossip is hardly uplifting.

Gossip Quotes - Ginger Rogers

Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.

Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.

Gossip is the act of spreading that which is unconfirmed or the revealing of what was once confidential information. In either situation, gossip is harmful to the gossiper as well as the receipient. The best thing about gossip is when it doesn’t occur in any situation or in any environment.

Gossip . . . reflects the insecurity of those who initiate it.

Gossip is saying behind their back what you would not say to their face. Flattery is saying to their face what you would not say behind their back.

Gossip is nature’s telephone.

Gossip is called gossip because it’s not always the truth.

Gossip is an imperative evolutionary characteristic that enables a community to stand strong and united.

Gossip Quotes - Gore Vidal

History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.

Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility.

Josiah Gilbert Holland

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Gossip is also double-edged: as fun as it may be to tell gossip, by doing so we give people good reasons to do the same about us, which is not so amusing.

Gossip is a very dangerous tool. We should be more wary of the gossiper, and not the gossip they’re trying to relay to you.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it; it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

Gossip about a person and his shadow will appear.

What is told in the ear of a man is often heard 100 miles away.

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

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

People love gossip. It’s the biggest thing that keeps the entertainment industry going.

One of the most deadly diseases in the world today is gossip.

Gossip Quotes - David Kamara

People gossip. People are insecure, so they talk about other people so that they won’t be talked about. They point out flaws in other people to make them feel good about themselves.

One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.

Often he that criticize others reveal what he himself lacks.

Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own rules.

It isn’t what they say about you, it’s what they whisper.

It is presumptuous to draw conclusions about a person from what one has heard.

It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things.

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.

It is a pleasure to me people – who do not gossip.

Gossip Quotes - Henry Thomas Buckle

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

It hasn’t always been that I have gossiped or lied. Sometimes I just talk too much. Or I repeated the words of others, which I should not have.

Isn’t it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?

Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.

He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue.

Don’t Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes - Will Rogers

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

The people who are bullying you, they’re insecure about who they are, and that’s why they’re bullying you. It never has to do with the person they’re bullying. They desperately want to be loved and be accepted, and they go out of their way to make people feel unaccepted so that they’re not alone.

The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

The more drastic action is to remove all those social media apps that do not provide benefits to your life, to your well-being or to your freedom of mind. This means that you remove, delete in fact, any social media application that does not meet your definition of being free from those who simply love to gossip, those who ask inappropriate questions, those who live each day focusing on social media rather than what I call real meaningful person to person exchanges, and from those who seem to spend their time devoted to the negativity around them rather than contributing to the positive aspects of life.

Nothing productive is ever achieved as a result of spreading, or listening to gossip. Don’t waste your time! You can make more productive use of it.

Not allowing yourself to get dragged into gossip and talking behind people’s backs can be a challenge but is essential as part of the master plan. It is one of the Ten Golden Rules.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

Never engage in gossip, it kills your soul, and wounds another’s heart.

Never believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true; never tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary – and remember that God is listening while you tell it.

The biggest liar in the world is They Say.

Gossip Quotes - Douglas Malloch

Never make negative comments or spread rumors about anyone. It depreciates their reputation and yours.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.

I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody.

I never gossip. I observe. And then relay my observations to practically everyone.

Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

Doesn’t matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbors are gonna talk about you anyway.

Do not repeat anything you will not sign your name to.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.

Related: 240 Wonderful Smile Quotes to Make You Smile

Funny Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes - Spanish Proverb

Whoever gossips to you, will gossip about you.

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.

A lot of problems in the world would be solved if we talked to each other instead of about each other.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

A visiting minister began to share about the impact of gossip and criticism. Rather than focus on the harm done by speaking negative words, however, he taught about the damage done simply by listening to them.

Dr. Michael D. Sedler

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Ah, well, the truth is always one thing, but in a way it’s the other thing, the gossip, that counts. It shows where people’s hearts lie.

All literature is gossip.

As leaders of our organizations and businesses, we have to move away from participating in petty politics, gossip, and attacks on people who aren’t as popular. By setting an example in boosting up the team, those who we work with should do the same.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

A coward talks to everyone but you.

Gossip Quotes - Shannon L. Alder

How to be happy: Ignore people who think they know more about you than you do.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

I guess rumors are more exciting than the truth.

I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.

If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.

If you cannot be positive, then at least be quiet.

If you gossip – you need to hush. Now. If you listen to gossip – you need to stop. Now. If you are a victim of gossip – you need to become a victor. Now.

If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody come sit next to me.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

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If you must slander someone don’t speak it – but write it – write it in the sand, near the water’s edge!

Gossip Quotes - Will Rogers

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

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

If you’re horrible to me, I’m going to write a song about it, and you won’t like it. That’s how I operate.

If your foot slips, you may recover your balance, but if your tongue slips, you cannot recall your words.

People who judge harshly, criticize and condemn others through gossip, rumor or bad word of mouth are setting themselves up for the same unfair trials.

People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.

People will question all the good things they hear about you but believe all the bad without a second thought.

Perhaps even more than broken bones, words can hurt forever.

Perhaps you haven’t been accused, exactly, but you have struggled with gossip which has made you look bad. These situations can be very powerful since they can set expectations for people you have never met simply because they hear the lie first, and so can form an opinion about you before you have had the chance to show them your true self.

Family Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes - Matt Haig

Most gossip is envy in disguise.

Deception takes place when you intentionally try to get someone to believe something you know is not true. It occurs in numerous forms, depending upon the creativity and the desire of the deceiver.

Deborah Smith Pegues

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Deflect gossip about a person with uplifting and edifying words about them, and never say anything you wouldn’t want that person to hear.

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

Forget the slander that you hear before you can repeat it. Forget each slight, each spite, each sheer wherever you may meet it.

If people have gossiped about you, make sure that your basic stance is for them. This doesn’t mean that you must trust them in the same way you did before they gossiped about you. It does mean you should want what is best for them, even at a personal cost.

It’s important to stand up to all forms of bullying, and it’s even more important for those who are around you to be just as courageous and stand with you!

I’ve been the girl who gossiped about another, and I’ve been the girl who has been gossiped about. And guess what? It’s miserable both ways.

Let the greater part of the news thou hearest be the least part of what thou believest.

If you are prone to gossip, you may want to reexamine your own needs and wants.

Gossip Quotes - Jewish Proverb

Loose tongues are worse than wicked hands.

Let today be the day you speak only the good you know of other people and encourage – others to do the same.

Let’s just be honest about it. Gossip, in its essence, is a form of retaliation. You’re trying to get back at the person who offended you by talking about them behind their back.

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

Most comedy is based on getting a laugh at somebody else’s expense. And I find that that’s just a form of bullying in a major way. So I want to be an example that you can be funny and be kind, and make people laugh without hurting somebody else’s feelings.

Friends Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes - Marie Curie

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

Attacks can come in many forms: rumors, notes, and other ways. When we invest our time in small talk (gossip), we can only accomplish small things, if anything.

If you sitting with a group of friends that are gossiping about people then you should raise your voice and tell the friends that this is none of their business to talk about people lives, lifestyle’s or what so ever, initially it can be, it hard to convince them but not impossible to evaluate.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.

Bullying has been around since humans have been around, I think. I think it is wrong.

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.

Count not him among your friends who will retail your privacies to the world.

Fake friends believe in rumors. Real friends believe in you.

Gossip Quotes - Yolanda Hadid

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes any of us to talk about the rest of us.

There is just two important things to remember about gossip for it to be caring and not harmful to the gossiper or gossipee. First, we need to be willing to repeat whatever we are saying directly to the person and do it. And, second, there has to be absolutely no judmentalism in it. If we are not clear on these two points, then we’d better keep our mouths shut.

The truth is, words can hurt. And while they don’t physically break bones, they can damage your spirit.

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

Related: 187 Insightful Goal Quotes To Help You Succeed In Life

Office Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes - Izaak Walton

That which is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.

Rumors are mostly a projection of the individual who started them.

Rumors are nearly as old as human history itself, with some evidence dating back to ancient Rome.

Rumours began with the whispered gossip of native servants and spread quickly to the rest of the population.

Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession.

Small minds with little to do.

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

Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

Subjective secondhand speech is exemplified by gossip, which hearsay is sometimes likened to.

Small Town Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes

Who gossips with you will gossip of you.

In a little town, there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

Every day or two, I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.

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

There isn’t much to be seen in a little town, but what you hear makes up for it.

They have the unique ability to listen to one story and understand another.

They say’ is often a great liar.

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Today also means that you value everyone’s feelings and that you really listen openly to what each person has to say rather than just wanting to put your two cents worth into the conversation without really understanding what is being said or asked to you.

What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t witness with your mouth.

Gossip Quotes - Jewish Proverb

Trying to squash a rumor is like trying to un-ring a bell.

What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

Who brings a tale takes two away.

Gossip Quotes Bible

Gossip Quotes - Proverbs 18:21 Esv

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

The Bible refers to negative comments or stories regarding other people as “evil reports.” This may seem like a strong term, but a careful search through the Scriptures shows that our gossip and truth-stretching is much more than idle chatter. This type of speech carries with it far-reaching ramifications that affect not only the life of the speaker but the life of the listener.

Dr. Michael D. Sedler

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The acceptable year of the Lord is that year when women will start using the telephone for constructive purposes and not to spread malicious gossip and false rumors on their neighbors. The acceptable year of the Lord is any year when men will stop throwing away the precious lives that God has given them in riotous living.

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Related: Never Give Up Quotes

More Gossip Quotes

Gossip Quotes - Wentworth Dillon

Words, once spoken, can never be recalled.

You will never be sorry . . . for standing by your principles, for stopping your ears to gossip.

Your dignity can be mocked, abused, compromised, toyed with, lowered and even badmouthed, but it can never be taken from you. You have the power today to reset your boundaries, restore your image, start fresh with renewed values and rebuild what has happened to you in the past.

You should never make fun of something that a person can’t change about themselves.

Would your colleagues rather work with you if you are bright and cheerful, not prone to outbursts, or gossip or would they rather work with a person who has a sour disposition, is gloomy and unpredictable in mood? I think the answer is obvious.

Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.​

With bullying and all the stuff going on, words are very important. Words can be more hurtful than anything physically.

Words have no wings but they can fly a thousand miles.

Words spoken are like eggs broken.

Words spoken can never be recalled.

I understand that slander, gossip, and false charges may be cruel and unwarranted. It's one thing to cultivate excellent habits and refrain from spreading gossip.

It might be difficult to confront ourselves honestly and identify when we are spreading rumors or gossip. It's much more difficult to recognize when pals are gossiping and to persuade them to stop.

Which gossip quote is your favorite? I'd love to hear it! Meanwhile, continue to avoid gossip and unethical communication.

Comment about your experience and advice for dealing with gossip. Your thoughts may be of use to someone reading this right now.

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