# Rumors

Rumours or rumors are unverified accounts or explanations which spread from person to person, but whose veracity may not be quickly or ever confirmed. Rumours tend to be about matters of interest to people, and may be salacious. Furthermore, rumours are often outright falsehoods, dissemintated for purposes of creating misinformation about the target of the rumor.

## Quotes

* Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available.
** Stephen L. Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park, Ch. 46, Resting Places, I (2002)
* In all cases the best antidote to rumour is the truth, however painful.
** Edward Glover, The Psychology of Fear and Courage (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1940), p. 43
* Springfield McKenna didn’t place much faith in rumors. She’d traded in them far too long to lend credence to someone else’s social munitions.
** Jay Lake, Spendthrift (2013), reprinted in Last Plane to Heaven, ISBN 978-0-7653-7798-2, p. 107
* I'm tired of rumors starting, I'm sick of being followed. I'm tired of people lying, saying what they want about me.
** Lindsay Lohan, "Rumors" (2004)
* Rumors flew like bats at dusk.
** Kim Stanley Robinson, Book 9: "Nsara", The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
* I will be gone: That pitiful rumour may report my flight, To consolate thine ear.
** William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act III, scene 2, line 129
* Rumour 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.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act I. Induction, line 15
* Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the fear'd.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act III, scene 1, line 97
* It ain't that I'm too big to listen to the rumors, it's just that I'm too damned big to pay attention to 'em.
** Andre Young, "What's the Difference", 2001 (1999), California: Aftermath Entertainment

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 688.
* Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores.
** Idle rumors were also added to well-founded apprehensions.
** Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, I, 469.
* Hi narrata ferunt alio; mensuraque ficti Crescit et auditus aliquid novus adjicit auctor.
** Some report elsewhere whatever is told them; the measure of fiction always increases, and each fresh narrator adds something to what he has heard.
** Ovid, Metamorphoses, XII, 57.
* Nam inimici famam non ita ut nata est ferunt.
** Enemies carry a report in form different from the original.
** Plautus, Persa, III, 1, 23.
* The flying rumours gather'd as they 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.
** Alexander Pope, Temple of Fame, line 468.
* I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
** Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Canto II, Stanza 22.
* The rolling fictions grow in strength and size, Each author adding to the former lies.
** Jonathan Swift, Tr. of Ovid, in Examiner, No. 15.
* What some invent the rest enlarge.
** Jonathan Swift, Journal of a Modern Lady.
* Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet.
** When a disaster happens, every report confirming it obtains ready credence.
** Syrus, Maxims.
* Haud semper erret fama; aliquando et elegit.
** Rumor does not always err; it sometimes even elects a man.
** Tacitus, Agricola, IX.
* There is nothing which cannot be perverted by being told badly.
** Terence, Phormio, Act IV.
* Tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
** I Timothy. V. 13.
* Extemplo Libyæ 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 plumæ Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu, Tot linguæ, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures.
** 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.
** Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), IV. 173.
* Fama volat parvam subito vulgata per urbem.
** The rumor forthwith flies abroad, dispersed throughout the small town.
** Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), VIII. 554.
* Linguæ centum sunt, oraque centum Ferrea vox.
** It (rumour) has a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of iron.
** Virgil, Georgics (c. 29 BC), II, 44. (Adapted).

## See also

* Gossip
* Scandals

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Rumour on Wikipedia
* The dictionary definition of rumour on Wiktionary