Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Gossip
Whoever keeps an open ear
For tattlers will be sure to hear
The trumpet of contention.
Cowper—Friendship. St. 17.
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.
George Eliot—Daniel Deronda. Bk. II. Ch. XIII.
Tell tales out of school.
Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. I. Ch. X.
He’s gone, and who knows how may he report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 1,350.
Fabula (nec sentis) tota jactaris in urba.
You do not know it but you are the talk of all the town.
Ovid—Art of Love. III. 1. 21.
He that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.
Proverbs. XVII. 9.
This act is as an ancient tale new told;
And, in the last repeating, troublesome,
Being urged at a time unseasonable.
King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 18.
Foul whisperings are abroad.
Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 79.
If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 7.
I heard the little bird say so.
Swift—Letter to Stella. May 23, 1711.
Tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
I Timothy. V. 13.
Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum,
Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo.
Report, that which no evil thing of any kind is more swift, increases with travel and gains strength by its progress.
Vergil—Æneid. IV. 174.