Put no faith in tale-bearers.
Meaning: Gossips distort truth through retelling, making their reports unreliable guides for judgment.
Origin: Recorded in A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, an undated collection published in London by Whittaker & Co. around 1880 and credited to Thomas Preston. Its earlier history hasn't been traced.
More proverbs about Wisdom
- Temperance is the best physic. — Moderation in food, drink, and habits prevents disease better than medicine can cure it.
- Gather thistles, expect prickles. — Planting harmful seeds guarantees painful consequences; you reap what you sow literally a…
- Roses, mind you, have thorns. — Beauty demands caution; attractive things often conceal hidden dangers or painful consequ…
- Second thoughts are best. — Hasty decisions often falter; pausing to reconsider reveals wiser paths forward.
- Every tide has its ebb. — Periods of decline inevitably follow periods of flourishing; change is the only constant…
- Too far east is west. — Extreme pursuit of one direction eventually leads you backward toward your opposite goal.
From our tongue twisters
- 红鲤鱼与绿鲤鱼与驴 (Hóng lǐyú yǔ lǜ lǐyú yǔ lǘ) — lǐ, lǜ and lǘ differ only by vowel rounding and tone — nine syllables that all collapse t…
- 八百标兵奔北坡，炮兵并排北边跑。(Bābǎi biāobīng bēn běipō, pàobīng bìngpái běibian pǎo.) — A pure b-versus-p drill, separating Mandarin's unaspirated b from its aspirated p.
- O peito do pé de Pedro é preto. — Five 'p' words in a row, with the vowels shifting underneath each one.