Quotes from Smith’s Writings

Rumor

I entreat such give me leave to excuse myself of so much imbecility as to say that in these eight years which I have been conversant with these [colonial] affairs, I have not learned there is a great difference betwixt the direction and judgment of experimental knowledge and the superficial conjecture of variable relation wherein rumor, humor, or misprision have such power that ofttimes one is enough to beguile twenty but twenty no sufficient to keep one from being deceived. (A Description of New England, p. 46)

So it be news, it matters not what, [for it] will pass current when truth must be stayed. (Advertisements, p. A3r)

I have not been so ill bred but I have tasted of plenty and pleasure as well as want and misery; nor doth necessity yet or occasion of discontent force me to these endeavors, nor am I ignorant what small thanks I shall have for my pains, or that many would have the world imagine them to be of great judgment that can but blemish these my designs by their witty objections and detractions; yet I hope my reasons with my deeds will so prevail with some that I shall not want employment in these affairs, to make the most blind see his own senselessness and incredulity, hoping that gain will make them affect that which religion, charity, and the common good cannot. (The Generall Historie, p. 5-218)