Quotes about gossip and rumors behind your back
Relationships with others are a very complex thing. It is mostly complicated by gossip and rumors, which each of us would like to avoid. This is not always possible. There is only one thing left - to learn to treat intrigues philosophically.
Deep thematic quotes help you get into the right mindset. You will find the best sayings of famous personalities in our original selection of interesting aphorisms about rumors and gossip.
If a person cannot say anything good about himself, but wants to say something, he begins to say bad things about others. Mikhail Litvak.
Only those who are worse than us think badly of us, and those who are better than us... They simply have no time for us... Omar Khayyam.
Unscrupulous women gossip shamelessly, conscientious women gossip shyly. Leszek Kumor.
You can't get enough muzzles for everyone yapping behind your back, but sometimes a thrown bone is enough for them to chew each other...
Of all the senses, a woman has the best developed sense of rumors. Zhanna Golonogova.
Never pay attention to gossip about yourself. Just because monkeys have learned to talk doesn’t mean you need to listen to them...
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1. “The bigger the lie, the sooner they will believe it” (J. Goebbels).
Goebbels never said this. Hitler wrote this about the role of Jews and Marxists in the defeat of Germany in the First World War (Mein Kampf, Chapter 10): “These gentlemen proceeded from the correct calculation that the more monstrously you lie, the sooner they will believe you.” True, although Goebbels never said such a phrase, he acted as Minister of Propaganda exactly in accordance with this motto. By the way, there really is one aphorism, the author of which is Goebbels, the phrase has firmly entered the Russian language, but no one knows who invented it. “Everything ingenious is simple” (J. Goebbels, article “Twenty Advice to a Dictator and Those Who Want to Become One,” 1932)
2. “USSR - Upper Volta with missiles” (Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1974-82)
There is no evidence of where or when he said this. The fact that Schmidt is the possible author of this aphorism was first mentioned in a 1993 book written by a group of American Sovietologists. This is given there as an assumption, and with a characteristic caveat: “If Schmidt had come to such a discovery during the time of Brezhnev, he could only have shared it with his wife, late at night and under the covers...”. This is a hint that West Germany during Schmidt’s time was not in a position to be so hostile to the Soviet Union. 500 thousand soldiers, 8,000 tanks and a number of missiles of all types were in the GDR, one might say, under Schmidt’s windows.
Most likely, the authors of the aphorism are Western journalists. Perhaps it was first publicly voiced by Financial Times journalist David Buchan in the article “Soviet Export of Technology” dated September 14, 1984. Be that as it may, the phrase became a catchphrase, because accurately reflected the essence of the USSR: military power to the detriment of everything else.
3. “No man, no problem” (J.V. Stalin)
Another version of the same aphorism: “We don’t have irreplaceable people.” Alas, Stalin did not say anything like that. Both phrases were invented by Soviet writers. “There is a person - there is a problem, there is no person - there is no problem” - this is from Anatoly Rybakov’s novel “Children of the Arbat” (1987). And “there are no irreplaceable people” - from Alexander Korneychuk’s play “Front” (1942). Moreover, Korneychuk, a Ukrainian Soviet playwright and 5-time (!) laureate of the Stalin Prize in the field of art, was also NOT the author of this aphorism. He only translated into Russian the slogan of the French Revolution of 1789-94. The Commissioner of the Convention, Joseph Le Bon, responded with this phrase to a petition for pardon from an aristocrat.
In 1793, the Viscount de Ghiselin, arrested for political unreliability, asked to spare his life, since his education and experience could still be useful to the Republic (as he thought). To which the Jacobin commissioner replied: “There are no irreplaceable people in the Republic!” It is interesting that two years after that, in 1795, other revolutionaries sent Commissar Le Bon himself to the guillotine. Well, there are no irreplaceable people!
4. “Stalin took Russia with a plow, and left with an atomic bomb” (Winston Churchill).
Churchill never said that. Although on the basis of the military alliance of 1941-45. really treated Stalin with respect. Even in the Fulton speech on March 5, 1946, which began the Cold War between the West and the USSR, Churchill said: “I deeply admire and honor the gallant Russian people and my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin.” This, however, did not prevent Churchill from accusing the USSR of imposing communism and tyranny in Eastern Europe in the same speech. By the way, the expression “iron curtain” came from this same speech.
As for the phrase about the plow and the atomic bomb, its true author is the Stalinist Nina Andreeva from St. Petersburg, the author of the sensational article “I can’t give up principles” in her time (newspaper “Soviet Russia” March 13, 1988). She cited it as a “Churchill quote.” The quote turned out to be false, but its essence corresponds to the facts.
Most likely, this is a variation on the theme of the article about Stalin in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1956, which Sovietologist Isaac Deutscher wrote: “The essence of Stalin’s truly historical achievements is that he took Russia with a plow, and left it with nuclear reactors. He raised Russia to the level of the second industrialized country in the world. This was not the result of purely material progress and organizational work. Such achievements would not have been possible without a comprehensive cultural revolution, during which the entire population attended school and studied very hard."
5. “I thought I would die of old age. But when Russia, which fed all of Europe with bread, began to buy grain, I realized that I would die of laughter” (Winston Churchill).
For the first time, the USSR began purchasing grain from the West on a large scale (more than 1 million tons) in 1963. The scale grew and in 1984 reached 46 million tons. Churchill died in 1965, having lived to 90 years. Indeed, in his lifetime, he found Russia the world's largest exporter of grain (1900-1913), and saw the beginning of the reverse process - how the USSR began to turn into the world's largest importer of bread. There is only one problem: Churchill did NOT say this.
6. “Don’t spare the soldiers, the women are still giving birth!” (Marshal Zhukov).
Zhukov did not say this. Here again is the case when the “author” of the quote did not utter such words, but in fact acted exactly like that. The true author of “Women Are Still Giving Birth” is unknown. According to one version, it was Field Marshal Apraksin during the battle with the Germans at Gross-Jägersdorf (1757, Seven Years' War). The general refused to send cavalry to attack, allegedly saying: “They pay gold for horses, but women still give birth to soldiers.” According to another version, it was the wife of Nicholas II who wrote in a letter to the Tsar dated August 17, 1916. The Tsarina complained to her husband about the Minister of War Bezobrazov, who, in her opinion, mediocrely destroyed the guards units at the front:
“He criminally killed your guard... This should not go unpunished. Let him suffer, but others will benefit from this example... I regret that I did not talk about this more persistently at headquarters, and not with Alekseev, your prestige would have been saved... The generals know that we still have many soldiers in Russia, and therefore they do not spare lives, but these were superbly trained troops and all in vain.”
The letter itself does not say anything, except that Queen Alix interfered in military affairs, even to the point of attempting to give instructions to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (Nicholas II) and the Chief of Staff of the Headquarters, General Alekseev. As for “women are still giving birth,” in her letter she just regrets such methods of waging war. The generals know that there are a lot of people in Russia, so they do not spare the soldiers and kill them in vain... It is likely, given the subsequent revolutions, that the words of the empress were changed for propaganda purposes, the meaning was changed to the opposite (instead of condemnation - approval), and the phrase went to the people .
7. “The Franco-Prussian war was won by a German schoolteacher” (Otto von Bismarck).
A popular phrase with the implication that a nation superior to its enemy in education and general culture is more effective at waging war. However, Chancellor Bismarck did not say this. This was said by a professor of geography from Leipzig, Oskar Peschel, and not about the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), but about the Austro-Prussian War (1866), in which the Germans also won. In July 1866, Oskar Peschel wrote in a newspaper article: “... Public education plays a decisive role in war... When the Prussians beat the Austrians, it was a victory for the Prussian teacher over the Austrian schoolteacher.” This attention to learning was retained by the Germans later. A Russian officer in Tsarist Russia studied at a military school for 2 years, as long as the Germans had a sergeant major.
8. “When I hear the word “culture”, my hand reaches for a pistol” (Herman Goering).
Sometimes also attributed to Goebbels. But neither one nor the other said this. This is a phrase from the play Schlageter by playwright Hans Jost (1933). Hans Jost was a Nazi, winner of the NSDAP Grand Prize for art, and SS Gruppenführer. After World War I, the victorious Allies briefly occupied the Rhineland, Germany's main industrial region. The country capitulated, the monarchy collapsed, the Kaiser fled, everyone reconciled. But there was one fanatic, Albert Schlageter, a former front-line officer. who continued to fight. He was derailing French trains. He was caught and shot in 1923.
Nazi propaganda made a hero out of this Rhineland partisan. In Hans Jost's play, he discusses with his friend whether it is worth spending time on studying (getting involved in culture) if the country is under occupation. The friend replies that it is better to fight than to study and that at the word “culture” he releases the safety of his Browning. And from this phrase, after a series of creative revisions, Goering’s “quote” was obtained.
9. “Russia is a prison of nations” (V.I. Lenin).
In the USSR, this phrase was often used in propaganda to compare Tsarist and Soviet Russia. There is an empire where non-Russian nationalities were oppressed, here there is a voluntary union and friendship of peoples. Lenin actually used this aphorism in his works, but he was not its author. But who the author was was not advertised in the USSR. Because it could inspire bad thoughts.
Author: Marquis de Custine, book “Russia in 1839” , describing Nicholas Russia (from the time of Nicholas I) with the murderous characteristics of the Russian political system and the Russian people as a whole. In short: Russia is not Europe, a state of general lawlessness and “pyramidal violence.” That is, the bosses oppress the people, the higher up bosses have the bosses, and at the top is the king, who had everyone in mind, since his power is sole and irremovable. The rich here are not fellow citizens of the poor... The bureaucracy is monstrous (“a land of useless formalities”). “The police, so quick when it comes to tormenting people, are in no hurry when they turn to them for help...” And so on. Tsapki, Evsiuk and Serdyuk, and the universal Sveta from Ivanovo. This is the picture by the Marquis de Custine.
The Marquis's book about his travels in Russia in 1839 was a huge success in Europe. Almost the same as the previously published book by another Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, about his trip to the USA (“Democracy in America”, 1835). Only de Custine came and spat, and Tocqueville, on the contrary, sang defamations of the USA: the Anglo-Americans as a nation were originally born in freedom, equality, where their successes and great future come from, etc. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said that to understand Russian-American relations it is enough to read only 2 books: de Custine about Russia and de Tocqueville about the USA.
10. “Who are these gentlemen Nazis? “Murderers and pederasts” (Benito Mussolini).
I also thought it was Mussolini. In 1934, in Austria, local Nazis killed Chancellor Dollfuss (an opponent of the Anschluss), with whom the Duce had good relations. Well, Mussolini threw out this phrase in his heart. In fact, it was said in an editorial in the newspaper "Il Popolo di Roma" ("The People of Rome"), which was the mouthpiece of the Fascist party in Italy. It sharply condemned the murder of the chancellor and said that the criminals were connected “with murderers and pederasts in Berlin.”
This was an allusion to Ernst Roehm, the leader of Hitler's stormtroopers, who was homosexual (and many people around him were too). This was the sharpest attack by Italian fascists against their German colleagues in the entire history of their relationship. Mussolini, himself a former journalist, controlled the policy of Il Popolo di Roma, and of course, the editorial about “murderers and pederasts” from Berlin could not have come out without his knowledge. However, there is no evidence that he personally wrote this article.
