The palest ink is better than the best memory.
A reporter is no better than his source of information.
Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.
The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.
We must be careful what we read, and not, like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure.
Reports you read in the paper, you never know how true they are.
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers.
Hardest of all, as one becomes older, is to accept that sapient remarks can be drawn from the most unwelcome or seemingly improbable sources, and that the apparently more trustworthy sources can lead one astray.
Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust "Mothers of Borogravia!" and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it.
We know the past and its great events, the present in its multitudinous complications, chiefly through faith in the testimony of others.
