A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming to me?" "Only the village druggist," was the answer. "And what sort of foolish advice did that numbskull give you?" asked the doctor, his tone and manner denoting his contempt for the advice of the layman. "Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."
Gossip is always a personal confession of malice or imbecility; it is a low, frivolous, and too often a dirty business. There are neighborhoods where it rages like a pest; churches are split in pieces by it, and neighbor made enemies for life. Let the young avoid or cure it while they may.
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.