Hearsay Quotes

My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.

To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay...

Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment.

It was not in my nature to gossip, which put me at odds with most of my sisters at San Zaccaria, who twittered hearsay like so many flocks of birds.

Not basing your principles of sex based on the judgment of other or on hearsay, uphold yourself to virtues that you believe in. Before any laws created by man, religion, and culture; the universe has always held us under the principles of love in all endeavors in life, and this applies to sex as well. Sex is a very personal experience and the morals you follow under this act are a personal notion that you create yourself for the sake of your personal happiness.

I mean, all this stuff you're involved in, it's all gossip. It's people talking about each other behind their backs. That's the vast majority of this social media, all these reviews, all these comments. Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication. And besides that, it's fucking dorky.

...we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

If one is content to freely speak trash about another, it is probably more correct to judge them as the one of ill repute and refuse the load of garbage they offer you.

The biggest liar in the world is They Say.

It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them.

So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.

If you want to really know something you have to observe or experience it in person; if you claim to know something on the basis of hearsay, or on happening to see it in a book, you'll be a laughingstock to those who really know.

Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do.

The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength.

Yes, Kālāmas, it is proper that your have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kālāmas, do not be led by reports, or traditions, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, not by the idea: 'this is our teacher'. But, O Kālāmas, when you know for yourself that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up... And when you know for yourself that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them.

Your tongue tends to say more about you when it blabs about other people.

Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever "truer." The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to "landscape" the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone. Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future? One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each "shell" (the present) encased inside a nest of "shells" (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of "now"likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future.

A pathfinder's job is hard enough — blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you're hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.

Bad news has good legs.

Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,–however it may come, these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton.

Isn't that something-to know your own soul by hearsay, instead of its own tidings? Why should I let a preacher tell me if I had one or not? If I could believe I hada soul, all by myself, then I could listen to its tidings all by myself.

Does it ever give thee pause that men used to have a soul? Not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech, but as a thruth that they knew and acted upon. Verily it was another world then, but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls. We shall have to go in search of them again or worse in all ways shall befall us.

I wanted to study them all; obviously, not as a specialist, but still rigorously, working directly from texts, because I have a horror of improvisation and hearsay learning.

Don't believe everything you hear about yourself. It tends to be false.

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

You will never know the moon or stars, unless you breathe in their solar system and inspect it from many diverse vantage points as possible.

How old was More when Richard succeeded? He was five. When that dramatic council scene had taken place at the Tower, Thomas More had been five years old. He had been only eight when Richard died at Bosworth. Everything in that history had been hearsay.

When everyone is determined to present someone as a monster, there are two possibilities: either he is a saint or they are not telling the whole story.

However, though belief on faith alone may be comforting, it is wholly arbitrary and thus does nothing to ensure that you are more correct than anyone else. So it cannot properly be described as knowledge, but rather as a mere wish, a desire that something be true or false, or else it is a naive trust in guesswork or hearsay.

It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.

1 )Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them. 2)A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off.

Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it. It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication.

Spending your life on nothing but gossip and hearsay isn’t any way to stay informed.

Hearsay, even from the people I love, doesn't equate to gospel truth.

Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication.

What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call “nature” or “the real world” fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?

For any reputable person or organization to be successful, that person's or organization's actions must be based on solid information, not conspiracy theories, not hearsay, not rumors, and certainly not fear mongering.

But women who have common sense are so curiously plain, father, aren't they? Of course I only speak from hearsay. No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex. Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?

Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of texts, by logic, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, ‘The ascetic is our teacher.’4 But when you know for yourselves, ‘These things are unwholesome; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to harm and suffering,’ then you should abandon them.

They were and are children of privilege... the privilege taught, learned, and imbibed, in a "liberal arts education" is the privilege to indict. These children have, in the main, never worked, learned to obey, command, construct, amend, or complete - to actually contribute to the society. They have learned to be shrill, and that their indictment, on the economy, on sex, on race, on the environment, though based on no experience other than hearsay, must trump any discourse, let alone opposition. It occurred to me that I had seen this behavior elsewhere, where it was called developmental difficulty.

Have you ever reflected, Madame, on the enormous part that Hearsay plays in life. “Mr. A said,” “Mrs. B. told us.” “Miss C. explained why –” and so on. And if the known facts seem to fit with what we have been told, then we never question them. There are so many things that do not concern us, and so we do not bother to uncover the actual facts.

You could fill three lifetimes with the things people say about you when you're not there.

Hearsay - there's a reason it's not admissible in court.

Hearsay cannot stand as valid testimony, and assumption spun from hearsay is a rope of sand.

I hear of the ongoing drama on the mountain - the injuries, violence and shifting loyalties. But it comes to me now as distant hearsay, which is a gift.

The justification I hear more often than any other for leaving the Bible behind is that “everyone knows” it is antiquated and full of scientific nonsense, if not blatant errors and contradictions. Amazingly, when I ask people to cite examples, many cannot bring to mind even one. Apparently, they base their opinion on hearsay and repeat a widespread misconception. Among those who do answer my question, one Bible portion draws more vigorous attack than all others combined: the first few chapters of Genesis. This attack opens a wonderful door of opportunity for me—and for every believer who knows something about the scientific discoveries of the past few decades. Instead of offering an excuse for disbelief and rejection, these chapters present some of the most persuasive evidences ever assembled for the supernatural authorship, accuracy, and authority of the Bible.

Racism, at the individual level, can be seen as a predictive model whirring away in billions of human minds around the world. It is built from faulty, incomplete, or generalized data. Whether it comes from experience or hearsay, the data indicates that certain types of people have behaved badly. That generates a binary prediction that all people of that race will behave that same way. Needless to say, racists don’t spend a lot of time hunting down reliable data to train their twisted models. And once their model morphs into a belief, it becomes hardwired. It generates poisonous assumptions, yet rarely tests them, settling instead for data that seems to confirm and fortify them. Consequently, racism is the most slovenly of predictive models. It is powered by haphazard data gathering and spurious correlations, reinforced by institutional inequities, and polluted by confirmation bias.

Questions are not happenstance thoughts nor are questions common problems of today which one picks up from hearsay and booklearning and decks out with a gesture of profundity questions grow out of confrontation with the subject matter and the subject matter is there only where eyes are, it is in this manner that questions will be posed and all the more considering that questions that have today fallen out of fashion in the great industry of problems. One stands up for nothing more than the normal running of the industry. Philosophy interprets its corruption as the resurrection of metaphysics.

With no plan of escape in sight, I've been resigned to the life of a cosseted young lady of London society as Grandmama and I pay calls. We drink tea that is too weak and never hot enough for my liking. the ladies pass the time with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom - time and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or ever correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the fallows on my own strength.

A few have become acquainted with Orwell’s 1984; because it is both difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certain members of the Inner Party. Orwell fascinates them through his insight into details they know well, and through his use of Swiftian satire. Such a form of writing is forbidden by the New Faith because allegory, by nature manifold in meaning, would trespass beyond the prescriptions of socialist realism and the demands of the censor. Even those who know Orwell only by hearsay are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a perception into its life.

Yet again it is demonstrated that monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.

How can you tell there's anything out there?" said the man politely. "The door's closed." "But you know there's a whole Universe out there!" cried Zarniwoop. "You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!" The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while while Zarniwoop quivered with anger. "You're very sure of your facts," he said at last. "I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is one - for granted." Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent. "I only decide about my Universe," continued the man quietly. "My Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay." "But don't you believe in anything?" The man shrugged and picked up his cat. "I don't understand what you mean," he said.

Does it ever give thee pause, that men used to have a soul- not by hearsay along, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth that they knew, and acted upon! Verily it was another world then... but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls... we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse in all ways shall befall us.

Taking your clothes off and spreading yourself on top of Roman Bradford’s desk is a bad idea.” “I was thinking more along the lines of dropping to my knees and going all Hoover on his cock,” Derrick announced with a tremulous smile. “I do give great head. I figure I’ll have him eating out of my hand in no time.” Derrick Swain, Hearsay

In his book The Captive Mind, written in 1951-2 and published in the West in 1953, the Polish poet and essayist Czeslaw Milosz paid Orwell one of the greatest compliments that one writer has ever bestowed upon another. Milosz had seen the Stalinisation of Eastern Europe from the inside, as a cultural official. He wrote, of his fellow-sufferers: A few have become acquainted with Orwell’s 1984; because it is both difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certain members of the Inner Party. Orwell fascinates them through his insight into details they know well, and through his use of Swiftian satire. Such a form of writing is forbidden by the New Faith because allegory, by nature manifold in meaning, would trespass beyond the prescriptions of socialist realism and the demands of the censor. Even those who know Orwell only by hearsay are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a perception into its life. Only one or two years after Orwell’s death, in other words, his book about a secret book circulated only within the Inner Party was itself a secret book circulated only within the Inner Party.

Prior to Y.P.W.c.’s Freedom of Speculation Act, credible sociohistorical data on the origins and evolution of Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents from obscure, adolescent, nihilistic Root Cult to one of the most feared cells in the annals of Canadian extremism was regrettably patchy and dependent on the hearsay of sources whose scholarly veracity was of an integrity somewhat less than unimpeachable.

Essentially the film is about the importance of rational thought. We should draw our conclusions from the evidence available rather than from hearsay and try not to be influenced by our preconceptions. We should strive to see what we can see for ourselves rather than what we would like to see.

IN FOUR DAYS’ riding he crossed the Pecos at Iraan Texas and rode up out of the river breaks where the pumpjacks in the Yates Field ranged against the skyline rose and dipped like mechanical birds. Like great primitive birds welded up out of iron by hearsay in a land perhaps where such birds once had been.

You maintain hope for humanity as an infinite skeptic of gossip and slander. In all mankind's desires for entertainment and exaggeration and sensationalism, when it comes to gossip, the individual always sounds worse than he really is. This is why adhering to gossip subtly affects the mental state of the listener - he goes on holding shady opinions regardless of where the realities of their lights and darknesses may stand.

Harper’s brow furrowed. “Why are you even asking me questions? I know you did your research on me.” “I did,” he admitted unrepentantly. “I learned a lot about you. For instance, I learned that you’re responsible for the breakdown of an ex-boyfriend’s bank account—” “Allegedly.” “—that you hacked a human police database and messed up their filing system when your friend was unjustly arrested—” “Hearsay.” “—that you beat up a male demon who hurt your cousin—” “I have an alibi for that.” “—and that you infected an old teacher’s computer with a virus that caused clips of gay porn to pop up on his screen every thirty seconds.” “Closet gays do the strangest things when the pressure gets too much.

This realization is much like Donald Miller's awakening after a day of protesting President Bush: "More than my questions about the efficacy of social action were my questions about my own motives. Do I want social justice for the oppressed, or do I just want to be known as a socially active person? I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself.... I was the very problem that I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read "I AM THE PROBLEM!" " I cannot plead innocent. I have contributed to the sum total of misery in the world. ...Or, as Casey incisively remarks, "I have more evidence of crime against myself than I have for any other human being. My conscience accuses me directly of so much malice, whereas I know only by hearsay of the evil done by others. To be humble before God is to know that I am blameworthy." " Such Christian humility is not the same thing as low self-esteem or poor self-image. It is simply the refusal to be deluded by the lie that I am guiltless: "Empowered by the intensity of God's unconditional love for me, I find it possible to demolish my defenses and admit to the truth of my condition. There is nothing in my constitution or personal history that would give me any confidence in my own competence to bring my life to a happy conclusion.

Nothing beats effective communication because it clears all doubts, misunderstandings, accusations, rumour, insecurities, gossip, hearsay, etc.

When we constantly react to assumptions and hearsay, bad things happen.

He’s like an apparition, appearing now and again: a rumor, a myth. Hearsay. Not verified. Not real. You have to want to believe in him to see that he exists at all.

The judge dismissed a lot of this as hearsay

I shall never rest until I know that all my ideas are derived not from hearsay or tradition but from my real living contact with the things themselves.

The most ridiculous person in the world is the "knowall" who picks up a smattering of hearsay knowledge and proclaims himself "the world's Number One authority";

My mother died at eighty-three, of cancer, in pain, her spleen enlarged so that her body was misshapen. Is that the person I see when I think of her? Sometimes. I wish it were not. It is a true image, yet it blurs, it clouds, a truer image. It is one memory among fifty years of memories of my mother. It is the last in time. Beneath it, behind it is a deeper, complex, ever-changing image, made from imagination, hearsay, photographs, memories. I see a little red-haired child in the mountains of Colorado, a sad-faced, delicate college girl, a kind, smiling young mother, a brilliantly intellectual woman, a peerless flirt, a serious artist, a splendid cook—I see her rocking, weeding, writing, laughing — I see the turquoise bracelets on her delicate, freckled arm — I see, for a moment, all that at once, I glimpse what no mirror can reflect, the spirit flashing out across the years, beautiful. That must be what the great artists see and paint. That must be why the tired, aged faces in Rembrandt’s portraits give us such delight: they show us beauty not skin-deep but life-deep.

…A story that was the subject of every variety of misrepresentation, not only by those who then lived but likewise in succeeding times: so true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity. TACITUS

But when a doctor among them refused to cast his vote—his reasonable justification being that he’d made no professional examination of Elizabeth and could hardly diagnose her based on hearsay

Deep Throat seemed impressed by the groundwork they had done. Suddenly he walked to the front of one of the cars in the garage and, standing erect, placed his gloved hands authoritatively on the hood as if it were a rostrum. “From this podium, I’m prepared to denounce such questions about gentle Colson and noble Mitchell as innuendo, character assassination, hearsay and shoddy journalism. The questions themselves are fabrication and fiction and a pack of absurdities and cometh from the fountain of misinformation.” Woodward, who was very tired, started laughing and couldn’t stop. Deep Throat “Ziegler” continued the denunciation: “. . . that small Georgetown coterie of self-appointed guardians of public mistrust who seek the destruction of the people’s will—

The Bible is a collection of stories and myths based on hearsay transmitted from generation to generation and which were recorded by many (40 +) different authors during a period spanning possibly 1,600 or more years.   The ‘evidence’ then is only to be found in the Bible – no historical, scientific or authenticated archaeological evidence exists. If you check the internet for such evidence you will discover many websites by Christian ministries – all present the evidence only from the Bible. Most so-called archaeological evidence is based on supposition rather than fact.

The proof of “sudden” changes (p. 223 to the end) is quite convincing and meritorious. If you had done nothing else but to gather and present in a clear way this mass of evidence, you would have already a considerable merit. Unfortunately, this valuable accomplishment is impaired by the addition of a physical-astronomical theory to which every expert will react with a smile or with anger—according to his temperament; he notices that you know these things only from hearsay—and do not understand them in the real sense, also things that are elementary to him. . . . To the point, I can say in short: catastrophes yes, Venus no.

What we know as self-consciousness is only our opinion of ourselves, and like any other opinion it comes from outside; it is hearsay, our contribution to public opinion. We must become disobedient to it, resist it, no longer listen to it.

The Pirahã language and culture is not only literal but evidence-based. How do you know something happened? If the line of hearsay becomes too long, involving too many steps away from experience, the thing is no longer deemed to be of any importance to speak or think about.

Arthur Church, who as I say took local journalism very seriously, wrote an eloquent defence of reporting even the nasty things. The gist of it was this, that it was in the public interest that the truth be known and known because it has been carefully reported and published. Without it, you are relying on the man in the pub, and rumour, possibly malicious rumour. If the local paper does for some reason get it wrong, then this would be known, and an apology and clarification would be made. This was not the best of all worlds, but better than the world of hearsay.

Consider choosing the "here is how" over the "I know you can" types. Consider connecting with those that have the authority and ability to show, educate and help you create what you want... instead of those that only focus on vague directions, hearsay instructions, empty motivation and scripted hype.

There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. . . . So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the lat- ter only by seeing the countenance.

Backing up your argument with unnamed sources, rumored facts and hearsay only backs your view and your professional reputation into a corner. Argue the facts with validity, authority and substantial proof or walk away. It is ok to say you don’t know and it can serve your reputation better than sharing what you can’t prove.

It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they were born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them. You can only know them if you are them.

Spread joy and laughter, not hate and rumors.

What can we do when we have hurt people and nowthey consider us to be their enemy? Thereare few things to do. The first thing is to take the time to say, “I am sorry, I hurt you out of my ignorance, out of my lack of mindfulness, out of my lack of skillfulness. I will try my best to change myself. I don’t dare to say anything more to you.” Sometimes, we do not have the intention to hurt, but because we are not mindful or skillful enough, we hurt someone. Being mindful in our daily life is important, speaking in a way that will not hurt anyone. The second thing to do is to try to bring out the best part in ourselves, to transform ourselves. That is the only way to demonstrate what you have just said. When you have become fresh and pleasant, the other person will notice very soon. Then when there is a chance to approach that person, you can come to her as a flower and she will notice immediately that you are quite different. You may not have to say anything. Just seeing you like that, she will accept you and forgive you. That is called “speaking with your life and not just with words.” When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. When you see in yourself the wish that the other person stop suffering,that is a sign of real love. But be careful. Sometimes you may think that you are stronger than you actually are. To test your real strength, try going to the other person to listen and talk to him or her, and you will discover right away whether your loving compassion is real. You need the other person in order to test. If you just meditate on some abstract principle such as understanding or love, it may be just your imagination and not real understanding or real love. Reconciliation opposes all forms of ambition, without taking sides. Most of us want to take sides in each encounter or conflict. We distinguish right from wrong based on partial evidence or hearsay. We need indignation in order to act, but even righteous, legitimate indignation is not enough. Our world does not lack people willing to throw themselves into action. What we need are people who are capable of loving, of not taking sides so that they can embrace the whole of reality.

How can you tell there's anything out there?" said the man politely. "The door's closed." "But you know there's a whole Universe out there!" cried Zarniwoop. "You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!" The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while while Zarniwoop quivered with anger. "You're very sure of your facts," he said at last. "I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is one - for granted." Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent. "I only decide about my Universe," continued the man quietly. "My Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay." "But don't you believe in anything?" The man shrugged and picked up his cat. "I don't understand what you mean," he said.

But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity - strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others - prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,–however it may come, these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton.

This green flowery rock-built earth, the trees, the mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas;—that great deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail and rain; what is it? Ay, what? At bottom we do not yet know; we can never know at all. It is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty; it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our want of insight. It is by not thinking that we cease to wonder at it. Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words. We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud "electricity," and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but what is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it? Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere superficial film. This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.

You and your husband have, I think, been very fortunate to know so little, by experience, in your own case or in that of your friends, of the wicked recklessness with which people repeat things to the disadvantage of others, without a thought as to whether they have grounds for asserting what they say. I have met with a good deal of utter misrepresentation of that kind. And another result of my experience is the conviction that the opinion of "people" in general is absolutely worthless as a test of right and wrong. The only two tests I now apply to such a question as the having some particular girl-friend as a guest are, first, my own conscience, to settle whether I feel it to be entirely innocent and right, in the sight of God; secondly, the parents of my friend, to settle whether I have their full approval for what I do. You need not be shocked at my being spoken against. Anybody, who is spoken about at all, is sure to be spoken against by somebody: and any action, however innocent in itself, is liable, and not at all unlikely, to be blamed by somebody. If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much

-Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever 'truer.' The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. -The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to 'landscape' the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) -Symmetry demands an actual + virtualfuture, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone. -Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future? -One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each 'shell' (the present) encased inside a nest of 'shells' (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of 'now' likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future. -Proposition: I am in love with Luisa Ray.

He stood hat in hand over the unmarked earth. This woman who had worked for his family fifty years. She had cared for his mother as a baby and she had worked for his family long before his mother was born and she had known and cared for the wild Grady boys who were his mother's uncles and who had all died so long ago and he stood holding his hat and he called her his abuela and he said goodbye to her in Spanish and then turned and put on his hat and turned his wet face to the wind and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead. In four days' riding he crossed the Pecos at Iraan Texas and rode up out of the river breaks where the pumpjacks in the Yates Field ranged against the skyline rose and dipped like mechanical birds. Like great primitive birds welded up out of iron by hearsay in a land perhaps where such birds once had been…..The desert he rode was red and red the dust he raised, the small dust that powdered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led. In the evening a wind came up and reddened all the sky before him. There were few cattle in that country because it was barren country indeed yet he came at evening upon a solitary bull rolling in the dust against the bloodred sunset like an animal in sacrificial torment. The bloodred dust blew down out of the sun. He touched the horse with his heels and rode on. He rode with the sun coppering his face and the red wind blowing out of the west across the evening land and the small desert birds flew chittering among the dry bracken and horse and rider and horse passed on and their long shadows passed in tandem like the shadow of a single being. Passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come.

Rumors surrounded her like a legend that’s repeated in hushed whispers for generations based on hearsay and speculation. People said she was cruel, I saw strong willed. People said she was aloof, I saw independent. People said she was cunning, I saw goal-oriented. For every warning I was given, I put on rose-colored glasses and looked at her through my own warped, but discriminating, perspective. That is perhaps my biggest flaw, as well as my saving grace; I tend to only see the best in people.

There are indeed in some writers visible instances of deep thoughts, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these would give, would be of great use, if their readers would observe and imitate them; all the rest at best are but particulars fit to be turned into knowledge, but that can be done only by our own meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said; and then, as far as we apprehend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is ours; without that, it is but so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory may be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat what others have said or produce the arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon weak and wrong principles. For all that is to be found in books is not built upon true foundations, nor always rightly deduced from the principles it is pretended to be built on.

But I am no Lord of the Hill; these hands pitching fastballs at glass houses are just as dirty as yours are. However, there are a lot of exemptions in my favor. One, much of my calamitous behavior occurred prior to the Digital Age, so no footage or real proof exists (thank fuck) and can only be found in hearsay and interviews. Two, I understand the difference between “getting it out of your system” when you are young and not giving a shit outright about making buffoonery seem like a career and not an aberration as you get old enough to actually know better. Three—and this is most important—it is my book, so I can do no wrong. Shit happens; it just so happens to be yours and not mine. So guess what? Even if you are not devoid of gray matter, even if you are not technically by definition bereft of intuitive mental faculties, you are all guilty by association. This is a RICO case, and I am the district attorney in charge of bringing justice to the world. I may not be infallible, but I can wear a suit and use big words, and it won’t even look like someone put peanut butter on the roof of my mouth.

He has something of the same feeling about the hymn singing, I am told. Much as he loves it himself, and music is in him to his very fingertips, be feels—I judge both from the hearsay and from watching him break into the midst of the singing when, in a way they have in Wales, they repeat over and over the same stirring melody—that too much singing moves only surface emotions and takes the congregations’ mind from the deeper influence of prayer and close communion with God. He believes completely in the efficacy of prayer, and he has for many years spent a considerable amount of time daily upon his knees.

The prophet died in the year 632 of our own approximate calendar. The first account of his life was set down a full hundred and twenty years later by Ibn Ishaq, whose original was lost and can only be consulted through its reworked form, authored by Ibn Hisham, who died in 834. Adding to this hearsay and obscurity, there is no agreed-upon account of how the Prophet’s followers assembled the Koran, or of how his various sayings (some of them written down by secretaries) became codified. And this familiar problem is further complicated—even more than in the Christian case—by the matter of succession. Unlike Jesus, who apparently undertook to return to earth very soon and who (pace the absurd Dan Brown) left no known descendants, Muhammad was a general and a politician and—though unlike Alexander of Macedonia a prolific father—left no instruction as to who was to take up his mantle. Quarrels over the leadership began almost as soon as he died, and so Islam had its first major schism—between the Sunni and the Shia—before it had even established itself as a system. We need take no side in the schism, except to point out that one at least of the schools of interpretation must be quite mistaken. And the initial identification of Islam with an earthly caliphate, made up of disputatious contenders for the said mantle, marked it from the very beginning as man-made.

What are you doing here? What have you come for?' 'Work,' said Psmith, with simple dignity. 'I am now a member of the staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests. Psmith, the individual, ceases to exist, and there springs into being Psmith, the cog in the wheel of the New Asiatic Bank; Psmith, the link in the bank's chain; Psmith, the Worker. I shall not spare myself,' he proceeded earnestly. 'I shall toil with all the accumulated energy of one who, up till now, has only known what work is like from hearsay. Whose is that form sitting on the steps of the bank in the morning, waiting eagerly for the place to open? It is the form of Psmith, the Worker. Whose is that haggard, drawn face which bends over a ledger long after the other toilers have sped blithely westwards to dine at Lyons' Popular Cafe? It is the face of Psmith, the Worker.

A phrase caught Brunetti’s attention, and he went back and read it again, and then again. ‘I give only one example of the falsity of gossip and hearsay, and I urge my readers to beware of incredible tales, however widely they might be believed and instead to believe the unvarnished truth;’ Brunetti let the open book fall on to his stomach and stared out the window at rooftops and windows that reflected the setting sun. Two thousand years ago, the bulk of the population illiterate, most news was transmitted by word of mouth, and Tacitus was warning his readers to be careful about believing what they heard and to trust only unvarnished truth. ‘Whatever that is,’ a voice whispered to Brunetti’s inner ear. Had Tacitus been a prophet as well as an historian, Brunetti wondered, by so well anticipating the consequences of television and social media?

In Crawford v. Washington the Supreme Court ruled that cross-examination is required of witnesses at trial unless a witness was unavailable (e.g., sick or dead). The court said that a defendant had the Constitutional right to face his accusers, that testimonial statements by witnesses who did not appear at trial were hearsay. And hearsay was not admissible. This meant victims who were too terrified to appear in court but were otherwise healthy could no longer allow prosecutors to use their statements. Post-Crawford, there is still some room for state courts to determine admissible evidence using their own discretion, but generally speaking Crawford had a profound effect on the movement of evidence-based domestic violence cases across the country. These days, victim statements are often inadmissible in court proceedings if a witness is uncooperative (as happens in as many as 70% of cases).

The identity of Jack the Ripper is surely one of the all-time classic crime mysteries. In the late 19th Century, the Ripper is believed by general consensus to have committed five murders (although a number of later killings did also bear his hallmarks, and the fifth of the ‘confirmed’ killings still raises a number of doubts). At the time police were stumped, even arresting a man purely on anti-Semitic hearsay before apologising and letting him go. Since then, more than eighty suspects have been proposed, from members of royalty to mad surgeons, and even a suggestion that the Ripper was in fact ‘Jill’ rather than ‘Jack’. The case became muddied when a number of letters were sent to the police; some obvious hoaxes, some in fact likely to have been written in the killer’s own hand. One even included half a kidney (it should be noted that one of the victim’s had a kidney removed at the scene of the attack) with a note saying the other half had been fried and was very nice to eat. Everyone has their own view on who the Ripper was, and why the killings stopped just as suddenly as they began.

Sadly, however, it is not serious historians who, for the most part, form the historical consciousness of their times; it is bad popular historians, generally speaking, and the historical hearsay they repeat or invent, and the myths they perpetuate and simplifications they promote, that tend to determine how most of us view the past. However assiduously the diligent, painstakingly precise academical drudge may labor at his or her meticulously researched and exhaustively documented tomes, nothing he or she produces will enjoy a fraction of the currency of any of the casually composed (though sometimes lavishly illustrated) squibs heaped on the front tables of chain bookstores or clinging to the middle rungs of best-seller lists. For everyone whose picture of the Middle Ages is shaped by the dry, exact, quietly illuminating books produced by those pale dutiful pedants who squander the golden meridians of their lives prowling in the shadows of library stacks or weakening their eyes by poring over pages of barely legible Carolingian minuscule, a few hundred will be convinced by what they read in, say, William Manchester’s dreadful, vulgar, and almost systematically erroneous A World Lit Only by Fire. After all, few have the time or the need to sift through academic journals and monographs and tedious disquisitions on abstruse topics trying to separate the gold from the dross. And so, naturally, among the broadly educated and the broadly uneducated alike, it is the simple picture that tends to prevail, though in varying shades and intensities of color, as with any image often and cheaply reproduced.