|
|
And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to
house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies,
speaking things which they ought not.
Author: Bible
Source: I Timothy (ch. V, v. 13)
|
Idle rumors were also added to well-founded apprehensions.
[Lat., Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores.]
Author: Lucanus (Marcus Annaeus Lucan)
Source: Pharsalia (I, 469)
|
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.]
Author: Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
Source: Metamorphoses (XII, 57)
|
Enemies carry a report in form different from the original.
[Lat., Nam inimici famam non ita ut nata est ferunt.]
Author: Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus)
Source: Persa (III, 1, 23)
|
The flying rumours gather'd as the roll'd,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it added something new.
And all who heard it made enlargements too.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Temple of Fame (l. 468)
|
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
Author: Sir Walter Scott
Source: The Lay of the Last Minstrel (canto II, st. 22)
|
I will be gone,
That pitiful rumor may report my flight
To consolate thine ear.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: All's Well That Ends Well (Helena at III, ii)
|
Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part II (Warwick at III, i)
|
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.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part II (Rumor at induction)
|
What some invent the rest enlarge.
Author: Jonathan Swift
Source: Journal of a Modern Lady
|
The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.
Author: Jonathan Swift
Source: Tr. of Ovid--Examiner (no. 15)
|
Every rumor is believed against the unfortunate.
[Lat., Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet.]
Author: Syrus (Publilius Syrus)
Source: Maxims
|
Rumor does not always err; it sometimes even elects a man.
Author: Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus)
Source: Agricola (IX)
|
There is nothing which cannot be perverted by being told badly.
Author: Terence (Publius Terentius Afer)
Source: Phormio (act IV)
|
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.]
Author: Virgil or Vergil (Publius Virgilius Maro Vergil)
Source: The Aeneid (IV, 173)
|
The rumor forthwith flies abroad, dispersed throughout the small
town.
[Lat., Fama volat parvam subito vulgata per urbem.]
Author: Virgil or Vergil (Publius Virgilius Maro Vergil)
Source: The Aeneid (VIII, 554)
|
It (rumour) has a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of
iron.
[Lat., Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum
Ferrea vox.]
Author: Virgil or Vergil (Publius Virgilius Maro Vergil)
Source: Georgics (II, 44), (adapted)
|
