"Defamation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Attempt to seize WILLIAM and ELLEN CRAFT. William Craft armed himself, and kept within his shop. Ellen was concealed in the house of a friend. Their claimants, named Hughes & Knight, were indicted for defamation of character, in calling W.C. a slave, and brought before a magistrate. The feeling excited against them was so great, that they at length fled from the city. Shortly after, it being considered hazardous for Mr. ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... so that all the glories of His Mother are essentially His own. And yet we daily see ministers of the Gospel ignoring Mary's exalted virtues and unexampled privileges and parading her alleged imperfections; nay, sinfulness, as if her Son were dishonored by the piety, and took delight in the defamation of His Mother. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... ridiculous. He is a physiognomist, and is captivated by pleasant looks. In a certain cause, in which a boy brought an action for defamation against his schoolmaster, Campbell, his counsel, asked the solicitor if the boy was good-looking. 'Very.' 'Oh, then, have him in court; we shall get a verdict.' And so he did. His eyes are always wandering about, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... proceedings in this matter, since it is well known, that our most illustrious, most renowned, and most celebrated Roman family of Ix, has enjoyed the precedency to all others from the reign of good old Saturn. I could say much to the defamation and disgrace of your family; as, that your relations Distaff and Broomstaff were both inconsiderate mean persons, one spinning, the other sweeping the streets, for their daily bread. But I forbear to vent my spleen on objects so much ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... that act he supplied one ascertained fact of which science had been badly in need. Little did he dream of the existence of a certain group of islands, thousands of miles away, where in subsequent days there would arise a curious suit at law, when an old chief of Maui would be charged with defamation of character because he persisted in asserting that his body was the living repository of Captain Cook's great toe. It is said that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the old chief was not the tomb of the navigator's great toe, and that the ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... rough-tongued, weather-beaten, and heart-tortured prophet, who had saved not tens but thousands, who could see with his own eyes in almost every country of the world thousands of little girls rescued from defamation, thousands of women rescued from the sink of horrid vice, thousands of men new-born from lives of unimaginable crime and iniquity, thousands of homes once dreary with squalor and savagery now happy and full of purest joy; nay, who could ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... but with a small telescope could look into the dressing-room of a lady of her acquaintance, and watch all she did. A spinster lady of good family, a cousin of ours, carried her gossip so far, that she was tried for defamation, and condemned to a month's imprisonment, which she actually underwent in the Tolbooth. She was let out just before the king's birthday, to celebrate which, besides the guns fired at the Castle, the boys let off squibs and crackers in all the streets. As the lady in question was ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... the slaughtered pig. The case was brought before the elders of the church of Boston, who decided that the woman was mistaken. Mrs. Sherman then accused the captain of theft, and brought the case before a jury, which exonerated the defendant with L3 costs. The captain then sued Mrs. Sherman for defamation of character and got a verdict for L40 damages, a round sum indeed to assess upon the poor woman. But long before this it had appeared that she had many partisans and supporters; it had become a political question, in which the popular protest ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... but a man. No one claims that he was perfection. But if those who sought his destruction while he lived had had no greater faults than he, with better grace their modern representatives might indulge their genius for his defamation. At best, as we might suppose, it is the little men, the men of narrow range and narrow heart—men dwarfed by egotism, bigotry, and self-conceit—who see the most of these defects. Nobler minds, contemplating him from loftier standpoints, observe but little of them, and even honor ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... dear sir,' said the little man, laying his hat on the table, 'pray, consider—pray. Defamation of character: action for damages. Calm yourself, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Seigneur. "I fine Ba'tiste Maxime twenty dollars for defamation of character. The money to go for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... your future be ruined. I, who am, thank God, innocent, and without a stain on my life—I, who would lay bare my heart to my enemies, could they thus read its purity, will resist to the last. For you might come ruin, defamation, and perhaps imprisonment. Take away the money you so nobly offered me, and the assurance that not one movement of your generous heart has escaped me, and that your doubts, though they have wounded, have not estranged me. Go, I say, and seek elsewhere what the Queen ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... supporting aged parents, it is much, better to leave the case to voluntary impulses, seconded by approbation or reward. Again, an offence punished by law must be, in its nature, definable; which, makes a difficulty in such cases as insult, and defamation, and many species of fraud. Farther, the offence must be easy of detection, so that the vast majority of offenders may not escape. This limits the action ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... you practiced at home before you came, and without finding anything to say on the spur of the moment. In making affirmations and promises you surpass all mankind in audacity, but in the contests themselves beyond uttering some words of abuse and defamation you are most weak and cowardly. Do you think any one is ignorant of the fact that you never delivered one of those wonderful speeches of yours that you have published, but wrote them all up afterward, like persons who form generals and masters-of-horse out of day? If you feel doubtful of this point, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... Cesare Borgia was published in 1670. It enjoyed a considerable vogue, was translated into French, and has been the chief source from which many writers of fiction and some writers of "fact" have drawn for subsequent work to carry forward the ceaseless defamation of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... others, evil companions should be avoided. Defamation of character is likely to follow. If the water is muddy, evil, indeed death, and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... according to experts, is intrinsically worth $5,000, though it would take vastly more to buy it from a man so covetous of honor. Removing to Washington, he published a curious little book called "Slander and Defamation ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... refused. Bryan then dropped the action, which he objected to entrust to assessors, directed perhaps by a member of the executive: for the same reason he withdrew his proceedings against the police magistrate for defamation of character. He returned to England: sought redress from the ministers, but in vain. On this case the opinion of impartial persons can hardly err. Yet the right of the governor to withdraw men, though not to ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Detraction. — N. detraction, disparagement, depreciation, vilification, obloquy, scurrility, scandal, defamation, aspersion, traducement, slander, calumny, obtrectation[obs3], evil-speaking, backbiting, scandalum magnatum[Lat]. personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade; chronique ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to suppressor lessen every thing that is praise-worthy, is as frequent among the men as women. If I can remember what passed at a visit last night, it will serve as an instance that the sexes are equally inclined to defamation, with equal malice, with ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Bartley roared at him louder still, so that both the young people winced as they crouched in the recess of the window. "You foul-mouthed slanderer, I'll indict you for defamation, and give you twelve months in one of her ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... it 's aff, and when on, it 's ajee; He 's braid as he 's lang, an' ill-faur'd is he, A dafter-like body I never did see. An' yet for this cratur' she says I am deein', When that I deny, she 's fear'd at my leein'; Obliged to put up wi' this sair defamation, I'm liken to dee wi' grief an' vexation. An' oh! she 's ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... foes, that so long as its influence in Washington political circles remained unimpaired, no rupture of diplomatic relations could be hoped for. Entente diplomacy left no stone unturned which could be of service against us; lies, robbery, personal defamation, gossip, were all used ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... mispend much of their time, which might and probably would be employed in and about their Lawful Calling and Affairs; but also, for that in such houses ... divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majestie's Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm; his Majesty hath thought fit and necessary, that the said Coffee Houses be (for the future) Put down, and suppressed, and doth ... strictly ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... sobriety. "Worthy Don Pedro, all here, on both sides, have heard somewhat of this story. I understand that the English hidalgo concerned is dead. Don Luiz de Guardiola is in Spain. We all know that a simple vengeance never sufficed for him who was of those who by their cruelties have brought such defamation upon our name in the Indies. I see not that you do injury to Spanish honor by giving to our friends of one night as much as ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... astray, and where she goes through a delightful farce of answering her scruples before the bewildered man—the scene that for some far-fetched reason led Macaulay's mind to the incest in the Oedipus Rex—is perhaps the best comedy of situation in the piece. But the scene of defamation between the Froths and Brisk is notable as (with the Cabal idea in The Way of the World) the inspiration of the Scandal Scenes in Sheridan's play. When we remember that less than two years were gone since the production of The Old Bachelor, the ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... was the ground of the sentence of banishment, passed on Roger Williams. 'He broached and divulged divers new opinions against the authority of magistrates, as also wrote letters of defamation both of the magistrates and churches.'"—Winthrop's Hist. of N. E. edit. by Savage, vol. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... opportunity to show that he was no mealy mouthed parson, declared, when applied to, that Smilash was the greatest rogue in the country. Josephs, partly from benevolence, and partly from a vague fear that Smilash might at any moment take an action against him for defamation of character, said he had no doubt that he was a very cheap workman, and that it would be a charity to give him some little job to encourage him. Miss Wilson confirmed Fairholme's account; and the church organist, who had tuned all the pianofortes in the neighborhood once a ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... jingled along through everybody's palms all the way, till it reaches him,—and forty cents of it gets spilt, like the water out of the fire-buckets passed along a "lane" at a fire;—but when it comes to anonymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths, and then advertising those people through the country as the authors of them,—oh, then it is that they let not their left hand know what ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... how many dark and intricate Motives there are to Detraction and Defamation, and how many malicious Spies are searching into the Actions of a great Man, who is not always the best prepared for so narrow an Inspection. For we may generally observe, that our Admiration of a famous Man lessens upon our nearer Acquaintance ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... me that if what he says is false, the proper name for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer deserves ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... cease from defamation; The poet says 'tis worse To steal his reputation Than rob him of ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... earned it sure, boys; it wasn't no softness of the old man," said the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she had cleared her character; when they reentered the room with their verdict, it was known that she had been awarded three millions damages for its defamation. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... to Children, Custody of Compensation for Injuries Compensation for Accident Compensation for Defamation Compensation for Loss of Employment, &c., &c. Confiscation by Landlords Contracts, Breach of Copyright, Infringement of ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... s'acquiert aisement avec de la memoire." Mem. de l'Institut: vol. ii., p. 485. The author of these words then goes on to abuse the purchasers and venders of these strange books; but I will not quote his saucy tirade in defamation of this noble department of bibliomaniacism. I subjoin a few examples in illustration of Lysander's definition:—Caesar. Lug. Bat. 1636, 12mo. Printed by Elzevir. In the Bibliotheca Revickzkiana we are informed that the true Elzevir edition is known by having the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... prayers to be offered up at the shrine of their prophet, for Christians so illiberal and irreligious. Of all the vices of which these mahommedan priests were guilty, and by all accounts they were not a few, slander and defamation appeared to be by far the most general. Never did they hear a mallam speak of his neighbours in terms of common respect. According to his account they were all the vilest creatures under the sun, not ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... you all about it." And the first guffaw increases the gathering, and it has to be told all over again, and as they separate each carries a spark from the altar of Gab to some other circle, until from the coal-heaver in the cellar to the maid in the top room of the garret all are aware of the defamation, and that evening all who leave the house will bear it to other houses, until autumnal fires sweeping across Illinois prairies are less raging and swift than that flame of consuming reputation blazing across the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... continual anxieties robbed him of that sweet repose so necessary to recruit the weariness and debility of age. The cold ingratitude of his sovereign chilled his heart. The continued suspension of his honors, and the enmity and defamation experienced at every turn, seemed to throw a shadow over that glory which had been the great object of his ambition. This shadow, it is true, could be but of transient duration; but it is difficult for the most illustrious man to look beyond the present cloud which may ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... III, iv. 167. Smollett in Humphrey Clinker (published in 1771) makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... exemplary, their great defect being their weakness: rather than fire on the crowd they surrender the forts under their command, and allow themselves to be insulted and stoned by the people. For two years,[2232] "exposed to a thousand outrages, to defamation, to daily peril, persecuted by clubs and misguided soldiers," disobeyed, menaced, put under arrest by their own men, they remain at their post to prevent the ranks from being broken up; "with stoic perseverance they put up with contempt of their authority ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... resume the thread of our story. Teresa's practices were not confined to simple defamation. Her reproaches were contrived so as to imply some intelligence in favour of the person she reviled. In exemplifying his pertness and arrogance, she repeated his witty repartee; on pretence of blaming his ferocity, she recounted ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... terms. But his preliminaries were cut short by a volley of abuse. The man accused him point-blank of having been privy to the rascally drayman's fraud and of having hoped, by lying low, to evade his liability. Mahony lost his temper, and vowed that he would have Bolliver up for defamation of character. To which the latter retorted that the first innings in a court of law would be his: he had already put the matter in the hands of his attorney. This was the last straw. Purdy had to intervene and get Mahony away. They left ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson |
