"Defamation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neither of friend nor foe. She was, it is true, a very handsome girl, and the charms of her person would have procured her many admirers if they had not been disgraced by her natural propensity to slander and defamation. In her very infancy, as soon as she could speak to be understood, she began with telling fibs of the servants, and very frequently of her brothers and sisters; for which, you may be certain, they all despised her very heartily. But as ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... who discharges a servant to inscribe on his or her character-book a good character: should the departing help have been sent away for gross immorality, theft or drunkenness, and should the master write down the real reason of the dismissal, he renders himself liable to an action for defamation of character. The person, therefore, who engages servants from their character-book has no real guarantee as to their worth. It is a well-known fact also that the intelligence offices in Paris are far more anxious to obtain places for bad servants ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... from defamation; The poet says 'tis worse To steal his reputation Than rob him ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... told me one or the other of you had said so. We won't stand that—we'll have you arrested for—for defamation of character!" stormed the rival auctioneer, working himself up into a fine pitch ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... day bring as pretty a brigantine as ever sailed in the narrow seas, to condemnation; and then will there be rumors abroad, and characters cracked, till every lover of gossip in the Americas shall be tired of defamation." ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... one of them, which he has published, is just on a level with the quack publications that are thrust into young men's hands in the street. Henry Varley had already issued one private circular about Mr. Bradlaugh, full of the most brazen falsehoods and the grossest defamation; and containing, as it did, garbled extracts from Mr. Bradlaugh's writings, and artfully-manipulated quotations from books he had never written or published, it undoubtedly did him a serious injury. The new ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... the one same sin does not deserve a twofold punishment, according to Nahum 1:9 [*Septuagint version]: "God shall not judge the same thing a second time." But he who fails to prove his accusation, incurs the punishment due to defamation [*Can. Infames, caus. vi, qu. 1], which punishment even the Pope seemingly cannot remit, according to a statement of Pope Gelasius [*Callist. I, Epist. ad omn. Gall. episc.]: "Although we are able to save souls by Penance, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... from which he had seceded. His Life of 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 ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... she beheld, although somewhat faked, was one of the monkey tribe. She confessed her error, she became contrite and tearful, and promised an apology if the Professor would not persist in his threatened action for defamation of character. ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... excel in some useful art, finds himself pursued by multitudes whom he never saw with implacability of personal resentment; when he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him as a public enemy, and incited by every stratagem of defamation; when he hears the misfortunes of his family or the follies of his youth exposed to the world; and every failure of conduct, or defect of nature, aggravated and ridiculed; he then learns to abhor those artifices at which he only laughed before, and discovers how much the happiness of life ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... said that a persecution made up of defamation, proscription and slander may be as hard to hear as that which issues in bonds and imprisonments; and this these early Disciples had to bear. But the world was ripe for reformation, and the cause spread like fire ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Agnes. "There must be a punishment deeper than any for the writers of anonymous letters. A murderer strikes the vital spot but once. Here every commandment is broken in the cowardly secret letter. False witness, the stab, illicit joy, covetousness, dishonor of father and mother, and defamation of God's image in the heart, are all committed in these ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... suppose it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and my hot water with a dose of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... business that lay at the bottom of the abuse of Leopold. Henry Stanley had put him up to this. It turned out a gold mine, and then two streams of defamation were let loose; one from the covetous commercial standpoint and the other from the humanitarian. Between them, seeking to drive him out, they depicted him as a monster of cruelty ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... Hence, when such men as these perceive a person to be famous, they are immediately jealous, because they compare members and powers; and they fear, on account of the excellence of such an one, to be themselves accounted of less worth; and these passionate men, not only judge evilly, but, by defamation, they cause others to judge evilly. Wherefore with such men their apprehension restricts the acknowledgment of good and evil in each person represented; and I say this also of evil, because many who delight in evil ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... 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 you ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... to meet with a true man in music. They pretend to be shocked, as though they had come across something improper. The spirit of their shyness, which originally served to conceal their own impotence, now attempts the defamation of other people's potency. Defamatory insinuations and calumny find ready acceptance with the representatives of German Philistinism, and appear to be at home in that mean and paltry state of things which, as we have seen, ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... jurisdictional or natural justice grounds. We hold that the position can be no different when a High Court Judge is sole Commissioner. He will, however, have the powers, privileges and immunities mentioned in s. 13 (1) of the Commissions of Inquiry Act. For instance he will have immunity from defamation actions. ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... this history and its frequent obligato of extreme racial and religious propaganda, we would deny experience to say that the Illinois legislature was without reason in seeking ways to curb false or malicious defamation of racial and religious groups, made in public places and by means calculated to have a powerful emotional impact on those to whom it was presented. 'There are limits to the exercise of these liberties [of speech and of the press]. The danger in these times from the coercive activities of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... point out how slander and defamation flourish under a democracy. Now, this voluntary system, from the interference of the laity, who judge not only the minister, but the congregation, gives what appears to be a legitimate sanction to this tyrannical surveillance ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... found true by experience, For the adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in defence of their cause, employ a set of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of readers; while those who would draw their pens on the side of their prince and country, are discouraged by this tax, which exceeds the intrinsic value both of the materials ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... robe of seeming truth and trust Did crafty observation; And secret hung, with poison'd crust, The dirk of Defamation: A mask that like the gorget show'd, Dye-varying on the pigeon; And for a mantle large and broad, He ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... able to return to England, probably in 1641. There he found Anthony Panton continuing his campaign of defamation against him. Panton was not content to accuse the previous government in Virginia of every sort of general crime (although he failed to cite any specific instance of oppression) but charged that the commission the King had granted to Sir William Berkeley in August ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... shall," said the judge. "But of course I don't know yet what form your libel is going to take. Still, I can hardly imagine that the defamation of any one's character will keep me out of Ballymoy. I have a car waiting for me outside the station, but I'm afraid I cannot offer to drive you down to the hotel. I have a good deal ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... who died and went to ——;" then stopping short, and seeming to be suddenly impressed, he continued: "Brethren, I shall not mention the place this rich man went to, for fear he has some relatives in this congregation who will sue me for defamation of character." The effect on the assembled multitude was irresistible, and he made the impression permanent by taking another text, and never alluding to ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... stockholders, and what was to be done to stop his swindling. But this was never mentioned. The questions discussed were: Had the publisher the legal right to print the article of its reporter? What crime has he committed by printing it—defamation or libel? And does defamation include libel, or libel defamation? And a number of other things unintelligible to ordinary people, including various laws and decisions ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... that my destiny should involve yours, or 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's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... poetry, but of his life. The pride of personating every kind of character, evil as well as good, influenced his ambition and his conduct; and to such a perverse length did he carry this fancy for self-defamation that, if there was any tendency to mental derangement, it was in this point that it manifested itself. I have known him more than once, as we have sat together, to throw out dark hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed to awaken interest; and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... a Spanish beau. This exquisite one day received a challenge for defamation, soon after he had retired to bed, and said to his valet, "I would not get up before noon to make one in the best party of pleasure that was ever projected. Judge, then, if I shall rise at six o'clock in the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the streets without expecting every moment to get shot from a stairway or double-banked by the meek and lowly followers of the Messiah; when I have time to amuse myself with trifles, I'll sue this brace of Smart Alecs for $20,000 each for deliberate defamation of character, and if I recover the money I'll use it to make a partial payment on the grocery bills of the rest of the gang. Intellectual pigmies who accumulate much cash by trading in cash or tripe ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... an orator makes long speeches in the Senate, with much thought, little sense, and to no purpose;—whoever, I say, should venture to be thus particular, must expect to be imprisoned for scandalum magnatum, to have challenges sent him, to be sued for defamation, and to be brought before the bar ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... indiscretion. A great scandal connected with a diamond necklace, which an unprincipled woman, the Countess Lamotte, falsely asserted that the queen desired the Cardinal de Rohan to purchase for her, did much to make her the victim of gross defamation (1785). Her forbearance towards unworthy favorites, and her intermeddling in the affairs of government, in opposition to political reforms, gradually kindled against her wide-spread disrespect ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... was bred an apprentice to gorgio law, and of course ought to stand up for it, whenever I conscientiously can, but I must say the gypsy manner of bringing an action for defamation is much less tedious, and far more satisfactory, than the gorgiko one. I wish you now to clear up a certain point which is rather mysterious to me. You say that for a Romany chi to do what is unseemly with a gorgio is quite out of the question, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... 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 beneath my indignation. I ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... she, considerably mollified by his defamation of his people, "I dare say they are not so much to be blamed after all. And," with a little, quick laugh at her sister, "as Joyce says, my beauties are still unknown to them; they will be ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... see her as soon as he thought it best after Atherton's letter; and the old man had to endure talk of Bartley to which all her former praises were as refreshing shadows of defamation. She required him to agree with everything she said, and he could not refuse; she reproached him for being with herself the cause of all Bartley's errors, and he had to bear it without protest. At the end he could say nothing but "Better ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... 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 Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... fanatic or a dangerous disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and advances to its sure triumph; and in proportion as it nears the goal, the popular estimate of his character changes, till finally excessive panegyric is substituted for outrageous abuse. The praise, on the one hand, and the defamation on the other, are equally unmerited. In the clear light of reason, it will be seen that he simply stood up to discharge a duty which he owed to his God, to his fellow-men, to the land of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Boyce, the real motive of his summons. He repented much that he had told and written to me. His long defamation of the character of a brother-officer had lain on his conscience. And lately he had, at last, met Boyce personally, and his generous heart had gone out to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... 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
... detraction which we have already noticed as characterizing both parts of the Annals: it is the same spirit which runs through the works of Bracciolini: first he praises an individual, and then mars the eulogy of him by introducing some little bit of defamation. To give examples:—We open his collected works, and begin to read his treatise on Avarice: turning over the first page we find him speaking of a great preaching friar, named Bernardino, whom he lauds as most extraordinary in the command he held over the feelings of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... objection is, that these sort of authors are poor. That might be pleaded as an excuse at the Old Bailey for lesser crimes than defamation (for 'tis the case of almost all who are tried there), but sure it can be none: for who will pretend that the robbing another of his reputation supplies the want of it in himself? I question not but such authors are poor, and heartily wish the objection ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... any hesitation and consented with profound devotion to the Epistle of the most blessed Pope Leo.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} The truth of these things having been considered, we determine and decree that nothing be done or proposed by any one in judgement upon him to the injury and defamation of a man most approved in the synod of Chalcedon, that is to say, Theodoret of Cyrus. But guarding in all respects the reverence of his person, whatsoever writings are brought forward under his name or under that of another evidently in ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... comedies of Cratinus, Quintilian speaks in great commendation; the little of his poetry, however, that remained is not thought to justify that praise. Eupolis is related to have composed seventeen plays at the age of seventeen years. He was put to death by Alcibiades for defamation, and died unlamented except by a dog, which was so faithfully attached to him that he refused to take food and starved to death upon his master's tomb. So that of the three, Aristophanes alone lays ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... work with a man usefully busy. You cannot so easily overcome them with sharp retort as with adze and yardstick. All the howlings of Californian wolves at night do not stop the sun from kindling victorious morn on the Sierra Nevadas, and all the ravenings of defamation and revenge cannot hinder the resplendent dawn of heaven ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... the Public. The spirit of party is risen to a kind of phrenzy, unknown to former ages, or rather degenerated to a total extinction of honesty and candour — You know I have observed, for some time, that 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 ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... prompted considerable public response. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith telegraphed "hearty approval of your directive ... action is consonant with democratic ideals and in particular with the military establishment's successful program of integration in the armed forces."[19-72] Walter White added the NAACP's approval in a ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... 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 ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... travellers resumed their journey in a wooden canoe, about the first of August, [Footnote: Joutel says that the Parisian boy Barthelemy was left behind. It was this youth who afterwards uttered the ridiculous defamation of La Salle mentioned in a preceding note (see ante, p. 367). The account of the death of La Salle, taken from the lips of Couture (ibid.), was received by him from Cavelier and his companions during their stay at the Arkansas. Couture was by trade a ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Winthrop, 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. 1, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... English snobbishness was stronger than it is to-day; it was then supported by law and enforced by penalties. To speak of a lord without his title was regarded as defamation, and was punished as such more than once by the Star Chamber. Shakespeare's position, too, explains how this native snobbishness in him was heightened to flunkeyism. He was an aristocrat born, as we have seen, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... as the word itself implies, is an inscription on a tomb, and, in its most extensive import, may admit, indiscriminately, satire or praise. But as malice has seldom produced monuments of defamation, and the tombs, hitherto raised, have been the work of friendship and benevolence, custom has contracted the original latitude of the word, so that it signifies, in the general acceptation, an inscription engraven on a tomb in honour of the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... PRIVILEGE), though, should the accused have been maliciously prosecuted, he will have a right to bring an action for malicious prosecution. An accusation made outside a court of justice would, if the accusation were false, render the accuser liable to an action for defamation of character, while, if the accusation be committed to writing, the writer of it is liable to indictment, whether the accusation be made only to the party accused or to a third person, A threat or conspiracy to accuse another of a crime or of misconduct which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 that they may preserve ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of the man, we must carefully distinguish between the Espronceda of legend and the Espronceda of fact; for a legend sprang up during his own lifetime, largely the result of his own self-defamation. Like many other Romanticists, Espronceda affected a reputation for diabolism. He loved to startle the bourgeois, to pose as atheist, rake, deposer of tyrants. Escosura sums up this aspect of his character by branding him "a hypocrite of vice." ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... compelled to confess its own wrong and to do partial justice to the injured man by restoring him to honorable service under the flag of the Nation. No reparation was made to him for the protracted defamation of his character, no order was published acknowledging that he was found guiltless, no communication was ever made to him by National authority giving even a hint of the grounds on which for half a year he was pilloried before the nation as a malefactor. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... operation. The wicked lying of previous campaigns no doubt cannot be repeated: bigotry will make no further experiments in Pigottry. But a resolute attempt, lavishly financed and directed by masters of the art of defamation, will be made to blacken Ireland. Every newspaper in every remotest country-town in England will be deluged with syndicated venom. The shop-keeper will wrap up his parcels in Orange posters, and the working-man will, I hope, light his pipe for years to come with pamphlets of the same clamant ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... were disqualified by common interest to form an impartial judgment, and a jury was 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 be exercised in a wanton and destructive ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... all public men have to undergo similar virulent defamation. I have heard a well-known publicist, a lawyer of ability, argue that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln did not escape from what seems now incredible abuse, and that they were, nevertheless, the noblest of men and peerless patriots; and then he went on to argue ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... that a considerable proportion of our papers, in common with those of other nations, have "laboured in the employ or at the instigation of" the Government, "with all the implements of mendacity and defamation, to spread hatred and contempt for Germany." Unlike your own, our press is wholly free from Government control. Any attempt on the part of our Government to dictate the policy of any newspaper would be hotly resented, and would be doomed to certain ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... The Butter-cups ranged, defamation ran high, While every tongue join'd the debate; Miss Sensitive said, 'twixt a groan and a sigh, Though she felt much concern'd—yet she thought her dear Vi— Had grown rather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... Belfield eagerly, "if you imagine me a hireling scribbler for the purposes of defamation or of flattery, you as little know my situation as my character. My subjects shall be my own, and my satire shall be general. I would as much disdain to be personal with an anonymous pen, as to attack an unarmed man in the dark with a ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... I will have you presented by the grand jury of this county for wholesome defamation of the inhabitants thereof," said his mother, shaking ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... one of the Antipodes, but they must have it 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to go in criticizing her one-time friend. In fact her sense of fairness recoiled at the ridicule and defamation heaped upon Horace Greeley in the campaign. "I shall not join with the Republicans," she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "in hounding Greeley and the Liberals with all the old war anathemas of the Democracy.... My sense of justice and truth is outraged by the Harper's ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... 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
... culpatory statements against others, [74] without ability to prove them, is, to say the least, hazardous; but to make accusations to formulate which the accuser is forced, not only to ignore facts, but actually to deny them, is, to our mind, nothing short of rank defamation. ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... detraction, disparagement, depreciation, vilification, obloquy, scurrility, scandal, defamation, aspersion, traducement, slander, calumny, obtrectation^, evil-speaking, backbiting, scandalum magnatum [Lat.]. personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade; chronique scandaleuse [Fr.]; roorback [U.S.]. sarcasm, cynicism; criticism (disapprobation) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... aver, that such a behavior, instead of making you appear more virtuous, only draws down upon you, by those who know the world, suspicions not much to your advantage. Your sex are in general suspected by ours, of being too much addicted to scandal and defamation; a suspicion, which has not arisen of late years, as we find in the ancient laws of England a punishment, known by the name of ducking-stool, annexed to scolding and defamation in the women, though no such punishment nor crime is taken notice of in the men. This crime, however, we ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... ignorance to all women; but Fate shall undeceive you, O John Milton, and make mock of all your high ideals. You dote on liberty, but liberty is not for you. You shall see the funeral of the Republic; the defamation of your honor; the proscription of all the sacred things you prize. Your companions shall not be of your own choosing, but shall be those who neither know nor value the sweet, subtle mintage of the mind. Around you mad ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... that which, under his name, the Doctor addressed to the Bishop; it was a dark spot in Dr. Johnson's life. A Scotsman, said he, must be a strange one who would not tell a falsehood in a case where Scotland was concerned; and we fear that any fable of defamation must have been gross indeed which Dr. Johnson would not have countenanced against Milton. His 'Life of Milton,' as it now stands, contains some of the grossest calumnies against that mighty poet which have ever been hazarded; and some of the deepest misrepresentations are coloured, to the unsuspecting ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... incidents in the unhappy sequence of wrong and suffering, the inevitable but unrecognized logic of Providence, were briefly, and in succession, a profitless marriage with the most distinguished heiress of his province, carried off from twenty more eligible rivals by the superior strategy of seduction and defamation, pecuniary extravagance, dissipation, debts, sequestration of property, marital separation, successive imprisonments by paternal intervention, deadly hate with the father, permanent alienation from his adulterous wife and only child, licentious connection with a friend's wife, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... extraordinarily 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, watching and noticing everything and everybody. One day there was a dog ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... my troubles, this was the chief. I was every day and every hour assailed with accusations of deeds of which I was wholly ignorant; of acts of cruelty, injustice, defamation, and deceit; of pieces of business which I could not be made to comprehend; with lawsuits, details, arrestments of judgment, and a thousand interminable quibbles from the mouth of my loquacious and conceited attorney. ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... regarding my life have been told, and must be refuted. I have written to Mrs Lawrence demanding a letter from her, clearing my personal character, or giving her the alternative of appearing in court to answer the charge of defamation of character. I have also written to the church committee requesting them to meet me here in my apartments to-morrow, and explain their demand for ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... man, one that hath grace, a generous spirit, tender of his reputation, will be deeply wounded, and so grievously affected with it, that he had rather give myriads of crowns, lose his life, than suffer the least defamation of honour, or blot in his good name. And if so be that he cannot avoid it, as a nightingale, Que cantando victa moritur, (saith [1687]Mizaldus,) dies for shame if another bird sing better, he languisheth and pineth away in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... knowledge of what is practicable in politics as I did in that book, who suppose that the liberty of any civil society can be maintained by the destruction of order and decency or promoted by the petulance of unbridled defamation. ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... abominable endeavour 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 ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... directions. Alec then gave a brief statement of the facts of the encounter upon the bridge. This was the only part of his relations with Beauchamp which he chose to bring before the public; for the greater wrong of lying defamation involved his cousin's name. He told how Beauchamp had sought the encounter by deliberate insult, had used a weapon against an unarmed enemy, and then thrown him ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... prithee stay: Tattle and you should never be asunder; you are light and shadow, and show one another; he is perfectly thy reverse both in humour and understanding; and as you set up for defamation, he ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... that this work cannot be set forward, without the great slander of the gospel, defamation of many preachers, and evident hurt and loss of the people's souls committed to our charge. For the people are brought almost to the like case, as they were in Syria, Arabia and Egypt, about the 600th year of our Lord, when the people were so shaken ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... a loud quaver—" Take care what you say! I'll have my action of defamation against you double quick if you dare to say such a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... consider that for a satisfactory defamation of character the code won't charge you more than five or six hundred francs, and the tax on a blow is ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... hint or two to escape him concerning possible suits for defamation of character against ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... inclined to believe, that the great law of mutual benevolence is oftener violated by envy than by interest, and that most of the misery which the defamation of blameless actions, or the obstruction of honest endeavours, brings upon the world, is inflicted by men that propose no advantage to themselves but the satisfaction of poisoning the banquet which they ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... at this expurgation, but added, "Can you wonder Oxford is now the metropolis of slander, since it is full of court-ladies who have now no revels or maskings to amuse them, and never leave reputations in quiet when they are out of humour. But, to put a stop to defamation, let me advise a ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... lose sight of this title and this publication, for (as will be more fully explained in a succeeding chapter) they had much to do with the future defamation of Vespucci. He, it will be observed, was pursuing his voyage to, or from, that "New World," while that little quarto of only four leaves, with its significant title, was being printed and circulated in Europe. Both Vespucci and Columbus were then absent from Europe, ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety. They might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved to and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation, but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... 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 proofs of his spirit and ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... And yet, with a free platform, where is the human being who cares to argue the question? Where is the man who presents himself decently, and proffers a word of reasonable argument against our cause? I have yet to see that man. Instead, we have blackguardism, defamation, rowdyism, profanity; we have all the indications that hell from beneath is stirred up against this divine Convention, for it is divine—it takes hold of heaven and the throne of God! (Hisses). Hiss, ye serpents! ye have nothing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... said the Seigneur. "I fine Ba'tiste Maxime twenty dollars for defamation of character. The money to go for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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
... men in business, and the wares they carry are those in demand: mostly gossip, scandal and defamation. And humanity is of such a quality that it is not scandalized or shocked by facts, but by the recital of the facts in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... two; but assuredly he was less tossed about and his sight less obscured by floating fancies and vast changing projects (muscae volitantes) than the other. To the one are ascribed fierce and envious passions; coarse thoughts and habits—(he has indeed been crowned by defamation); whilst to Coleridge have been awarded reputation and glory, and praise from a thousand tongues. To secure justice we must wait ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... thing? And do you think Doctor Clay will stand for it? If you do, you are greatly mistaken. If you have us arrested on this charge, which is absolutely false, I'll get my folks to sue you for false imprisonment and defamation of character, and I know the other fellows will do the same. And you can rest assured that the charges against you will be pushed to the limits of ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... clutched at the short down grass, tearing it up and scattering it. He was helpless, too, unless he took the law into his own hands. It would do no good, young as he was, he knew that, to bring any action for defamation of character, since the world only says, if a man justifies himself by the only legal means in his power, "There must have been something in it, since it was said!" No legal remedy, no fines or even ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... had been made against him in the course of the trial, that it was time to put a stop to the malignant and mischievous slanders which had been current in the neighborhood. He instituted prosecutions of Procter and others for defamation, and recovered against them all. After this, we hear no more of him until he experienced religion and was received into the First Church. Whether he and Procter became reconciled again is not known. Probably they did; for they seem to have had points of ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Eppendorff, inherited Hutten's bitter disgust with Erasmus and persecuted him for years. Getting hold of one of Erasmus's letters in which he was denounced, he continually threatened him with an action for defamation of character. Eppendorff's hostility so thoroughly exasperated Erasmus that he fancied he could detect his machinations and spies everywhere even after the actual persecution had ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... wrongfull defamation, which would make Us shunne this happy haven of our rest, This end of ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... this reason allowed them to cover an eleven days' distance in three days. [459] Their murmurs and complaints, however, were not silent, but quite loud, for they were anxious that God should hear their wicked words. In punishment for their defamation of the Divine glory, God sent upon them a fire emanating from the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... hold of the unspeakable sheet and are preparing to reproduce the article: that is such parts of it as they may put forward (with innuendoes and sous-entendus to eke out the rest) without exposing themselves to a suit for defamation. Poor Leonie de Villepreux has been with us constantly and Jeanne and her husband have telegraphed that we may expect them day after to-morrow. They are evidently immensely emotionnes, for they almost never telegraph. They wish so to receive Gaston. We have determined all the same to be intensely ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... thing, the Supreme Court at Berlin (CRIMINAL-COLLEGIUM) have been sitting on, for some time; and, in regard to Schlubhut, they have brought out a result, which Friedrich Wilhelm not a little admires at. Schlubhut clearly guilty of the defamation, say they; but he has moneys, landed properties: let him refund, principal and interest; and have, say, three or four years' imprisonment, by way of memento. "Years' imprisonment? Refund? Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let off for refunding?" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... year was uneventful, except for the court-martialling of Lee and his duel with Laurens, who challenged him for his defamation of Washington. Then came the eventful winter of 1779-80, when the army went into quarters at Morristown, Washington and his military family taking possession of a large house belonging to the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Topnote, the well-known revue artiste, is bringing an action for defamation against the dramatic editor of The Morning Chatterbox, who recently published a statement that her salary was fifteen hundred a week. The lady informs us that as a matter of fact she is now drawing thirty-five shillings, with half ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... manager's smouldering dislike, and he saw himself, in consequence, discharged and black-listed, and perhaps roaming for months in quest of a job. He knew the efficiency of that far-reaching system of defamation whereby the employers of labour pursue and punish the subordinate who incurs their displeasure. In the case of a mere operative this secret persecution often worked complete ruin; and even to a man of Amherst's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... 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 of Character." ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... remained altogether within the house. Were he so minded, ample time was allowed to him for the destruction of any document. In the town, preparation went on in the usual way for the assizes, at which the one case of interest was to be the indictment of Mr Evans for defamation of character. It was now supposed by the world at large that Cousin Henry would come into court; and because this was believed of him there was something of a slight turn of public opinion in his favour. It would hardly be the case that the man, if really ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... at himself. But instead of producing, as might be wished, private compunction and immediate reformation, it kindled only rage and resentment. He charged his minister, in a publick paper, with scandal, defamation, and falsehood. The minister, thus reproached, had his own character to vindicate, upon which his pastoral authority must necessarily depend. To be charged with a defamatory lie is an injury which no man patiently ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... deserve his fate? What conceivable defence is open to him, after his public defamation of all that is noblest? On the public which listened to him, too, the spectacle of his condign punishment will have a healthy effect; we shall see no more ridicule of Philosophy. Tame submission ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... defamation, calumny, aspersion, libel, vilification, scandal, abuse, traducement, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... childhood. Fairholme, glad of an 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 ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Presbyterian Board, charges the opponents of Calvinism in general, and the Methodists in particular, with not only violently contesting, but also with shockingly caricaturing, and shamefully misrepresenting and vilifying Calvinism—with "systematic and wide-spread defamation"—with "wholesale traduction of moral character, involving the Christian reputation of some three or four thousand accredited ministers of the gospel." His charity suggests an apology for much of our "misrepresentation of ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... me that if what he says is false, the proper name for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... plundered: there was not so much as a shirt-collar left in his drawers, and the very bed and blankets had been carried away by these FAITHFUL attendants. Who had slain Ivanhoe? That remains a mystery to the present day; but Roger de Backbite, whose nose he had pulled for defamation, and who was behind him in the assault at Chalus, was seen two years afterwards at the court of King John in an embroidered velvet waistcoat which Rowena could have sworn she had worked for Ivanhoe, and about which the widow ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't know," said Mr. Slick, "p'raps their old name was so infarnal dry rotted, they wanted to change it for a sound new one. You recollect when that super-superior villain, Expected Thorne, brought an action of defamation agin' me, to Slickville, for takin' away his character, about stealing the watch to Nova Scotia; well, I jist pleaded my own case, and I ups and sais, 'Gentlemen of the Jury,' sais I, "Expected's character, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... States? During his canvass (and he is expected to "run," not merely to "stand") he will have from his own party a support that should make him blush, and from all the others an opposition that will stick at nothing to accomplish his satisfactory defamation. After his election his partition and allotment of the loaves and fishes will estrange an important and thenceforth implacable faction of his following without appeasing the animosity of any one else; and during his entire service his sky ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce |
