Buy the rumor and sell the fact

Buy the rumor and sell the fact

The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.

The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.

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 doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared.

Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared.

What some invent the rest enlarge.

What some invent the rest enlarge.

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.]

There is nothing which cannot be perverted by being told badly.

There is nothing which cannot be perverted by being told badly.

I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

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.]