When a story has gone the grand circuit, and travels back to us uncontradicted, we may reasonably begin to relax in our belief of it. If nobody questions it, it is manifestly a fiction; if it passes current, it is almost sure to be a counterfeit. The course of truth never yet ran smooth.
"Sketches from Life" by Laman Blanchard. "That what Everybody Says must be True", 1846.