"We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligencia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligencia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest."

"Honesty is the best policy."

"I am looking for a human."

"If we live by the rule of honesty and accept our problems, we can go far down the road of achievement."

"Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny, when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright nor stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds."

"Therefore, now that you have put away deceit, each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, because we are members belonging to one another."

"An honest blunder in the use of the language is not dishonest. [...] What is honest is not dishonest."

"You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion."

"He who says that there is no such thing as an honest man is himself a knave."

"The truthfulness which Jesus demands from his followers is the self-abnegation which does not hide sin. Nothing is then hidden, everything is brought forth to the light of day. In this question of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man’s whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness."

"The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only "the first step toward greatness," — it is greatness itself."

":Beverly Crusher: Data, telling us why you're going to fail before you make the attempt is never wise."

":Data: But is not honesty always the preferred choice?"

"Gossip brings out the creativity in the dullest souls."

"Elizabeth Gaskell, the Brontës, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, novelists who had a strong interest in gossip and made good use of it in their fiction, understood both gossip's attractions and its literary value. So, too, did writers whom one doesn't think of as primarily social novelists. Gossip plays a strong hand in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as it does in the novels of Balzac, Dickens, and Flaubert."

"A woman and a mouse, they carry a tale wherever they go."

"He's my friend who speaks well of me behind my back."

"To create an unfavourable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said."

"Whereas some ascetics and Brahmins remain addicted to such unedifying conversation as about kings, robbers, ministers, armies, dangers, wars, food, drink, clothes, beds, garlands, perfumes, relatives, carriages, villages, towns and cities, countries, women, heroes, street- and well-gossip, talk of the departed, desultory chat, speculations about land and sea, talk about being and non-being, the ascetic Gotama refrains from such conversation."

"Three sins there are which work more harm than all else in the world — gossip, cruelty, and superstition — because they are sins against love. Against these three the man who would fill his heart with the love of God must watch ceaselessly."

"What kind of story am I going to give them next? Because that's what we are to other people, boy, we are their gossip. That's all civilization is, a giant mill grinding out gossip. And so I could be the story of the man who rode high and fell hard, and had his spirit broken and crawled off into a hole like a dog, to die as soon as he could manage it. Or I could be the story of a man who rode high and fell hard, and then got up defiant, and walked away in a new direction."

"Be Impeccable with Your Word... 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."

"Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum, Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo."

"Tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not."

"Foul whisperings are abroad."

"If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word."

"I heard the little bird say so."

"He's gone, and who knows how may he report Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?"

"Fabula (nec sentis) tota jactaris in urbe."

"Tell tales out of school."

"He that repeateth a matter separateth very friends."

"This act is as an ancient tale new told; And, in the last repeating, troublesome, Being urged at a time unseasonable."

"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."

"Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, — the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, — to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, — an Hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods?"

"When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip."

"Cursed be the gossiper with his spiteful tongue. He has destroyed many who lived peacefully. The vicious tongue has demolished many and hounded them from nation to nation. It has ruined powerful cities and laid low great households. The vicious tongue has cast out wives who were beyond reproach, depriving them of the fruit of their work. Whoever listens to it will never find rest or be able to live in peace. The whip leaves a mark but the lash of the tongue shatters bones. Many have been felled by the sword but many more have perished by the tongue. Happy he who has escaped it and has not been exposed to its fury, who has not been weighed down by its yoke or been tied up in its chains."

"Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it's gossip with some point to it. That's why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true."

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"One keeps silent and is thought to be wise, the other makes himself hated because of his gossiping. One remains silent because he does not know how to reply; the other keeps quiet, waiting for the right moment. The wise man keeps silent until the right moment; the chatterer and fool speak out of turn."

"It (Gossip) comes so naturally to us that it seems as if our language evolved for the very purpose."

"Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention."

"Omnium artium domina [eloquentia]."

"Magna eloquentia, sicut flamma, materia alitur, et motibus excitatur et urendo clarescit."

"In causa facili cuivis licet esse diserto."

"L'éloquence est une peinture de la pensée."