Every rumor is believed against the unfortunate.
[Lat., Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet.]

Every rumor is believed against the unfortunate.
[Lat., Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet.]

The rumor forthwith flies abroad, dispersed throughout the small
town.
[Lat., Fama volat parvam subito vulgata per urbem.]

The rumor forthwith flies abroad, dispersed throughout the small
town.
[Lat., Fama volat parvam subito vulgata per urbem.]

Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a read more

Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.

Idle rumors were also added to well-founded apprehensions.
[Lat., Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores.]

Idle rumors were also added to well-founded apprehensions.
[Lat., Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores.]

Nature abhors a vacuum but why do most people hasten to fill in the blanks with garbage?

Nature abhors a vacuum but why do most people hasten to fill in the blanks with garbage?

Some report elsewhere whatever is told them; the measure of
fiction always increases, and each fresh narrator adds something read more

Some report elsewhere whatever is told them; the measure of
fiction always increases, and each fresh narrator adds something
to what he has heard.
[Lat., Hi narrata ferunt alio; mensuraque ficti
Crescit et auditus aliquid novus adjicit auctor.]

Buy the rumor and sell the fact

Buy the rumor and sell the fact

It (rumour) has a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of
iron.
[Lat., Linguae centum sunt, oraque read more

It (rumour) has a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of
iron.
[Lat., Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum
Ferrea vox.]

Straightway throughout the Libyan cities flies rumor;--the report
of evil things than which nothing is swifter; it flourishes by read more

Straightway throughout the Libyan cities flies rumor;--the report
of evil things than which nothing is swifter; it flourishes by
its very activity and gains new strength by its movements; small
at first through fear, it soon raises itself aloft and sweeps
onward along the earth. Yet its head reaches the clouds. . . . A
huge and horrid monster covered with many feathers: and for
every plume a sharp eye, for every pinion a biting tongue.
Everywhere its voices sound, to everything its ears are open.
[Lat., Extemplo Libyae magnas it Fama per urbes:
Fama malum quo non velocius ullum;
Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo;
Parva metu primo; mox sese attollit in auras,
Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubilia condit.
. . . .
Monstrum, horrendum ingens; cui quot sunt corpore plumae
Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu,
Tot linquae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures.]