Scandals

Scandals are widely publicized allegations or sets of allegations that damage (or try to damage) the reputation of an institution, individual or creed. A scandal may be based on true or false allegations or a mixture of both.

Quotes

• Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
  • Oscar Wilde in "Lady Windermere's Fan"

• Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 31.

• Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged.
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), § 2287

• These are the spiders of society;
  They weave their petty webs of lies and sneers,
  And lie themselves in ambush for the spoil,
  The web seems fair, and glitters in the sun,
  And the poor victim winds him in the toil
  Before he dreams of danger or of death.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) (1838) Vol. II, Chapter 12

• The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
  What makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;
  For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
  • William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece (1594), line 1,004.

• Jane's attitude toward reincarnation (like mine) was strongly ambivalent. The idea of physical life being expressed in many historical situations made emotional and intuitive sense to her. Intellectually, however, she was highly suspicious of the standard notion of reincarnation, particularly as any kind of pat answer to present problems. Thus, when class started to experience the theory of reincarnation in emotionally-charged drama form, Jane would often find herself in a most uncomfortable one-foot-on-the-dock, one-foot-in-the-boat position, at once intellectually scandalized and intuitively involved. Even on those occasions when the inner events would "click," or when Seth gave past-life information that made complete sense to people, Jane worried about it for days afterwards. What was the meaning of such memories? Where did they come from? Were we creating the events through suggestion, combined with a need for emotional outlet? Or did we actually remember people who lived -- in our terms -- long before any of us were born? these questions demanded the class maintain a balance, from which Jane never let things stray too far.
  • Susan M. Watkins in Conversations With Seth, Volume 1, p. 173.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 691.

• To converse with Scandal is to play at Losing Loadum, you must lose a good name to him, before you can win it for yourself.
  • William Congreve, Love for Love, Act I, scene 2. ("Losing Loadum" an old game which one plays to lose tricks).

• Assail'd by scandal and the tongue of strife,
  His only answer was a blameless life;
  And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
  Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
  • William Cowper, Hope, line 570.

• And though you duck them ne'er so long,
  Not one salt drop e'er wets their tongue;
  'Tis hence they scandal have at will,
  And that this member ne'er lies still.
  • John Gay, The Mad Dog.

• And there's a lust in man no charm can tame
  Of loudly publishing our neighbour's shame;
  On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly,
  While virtuous actions are but borne to die.
  • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), IX. Harvey's translation.

• Conscia mens recti famæ mendacia risit:
  Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.
  • The mind conscious of innocence despises false reports: but we are a set always ready to believe a scandal.
  • Ovid, Fasti, IV. 311.

• He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff,
  But 'tis so very foul, it won't go off.
  • Edward Young, Epistles to Pope, Epistle I, line 199.

See also

• Rumors