First To Arrive

Some marry the first information they receive, and turn what comes later into their concubine.  Since deceit is always first to arrive, there is no room left for truth.

-- Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601 - 1658), Spanish Jesuit author regarded as one of the most accomplished prose stylists of the Baroque era, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), Maxim 227 (p. 128)