"Defamation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... error of asserting 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 ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... 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 and the work; a thing, if ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... blasphemers!—may their days shorten as they grow fewer!"—the sheik spoke with the feeling of a man repelling a personal defamation—"they will tell you, I say, that our horses of the best blood are derived from the Nesaean pastures of Persia. God gave the first Arab a measureless waste of sand, with some treeless mountains, and here and there a ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... lies of a more serious character and of more dangerous import—all such as misrepresent Germany's attitude and defame German character. Such defamation is designed to disturb old friendships and transform them into bitter estrangement; such defamation can also attain its hostile purpose wherever people do not say daily to themselves, "It is an enemy that reports such things about Germany; let us be wise ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... gentleman "aspire" to the Presidency of the United 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 will be dark with a flight of dead cats. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the cause of others. I will be delighted to meet an accusation of sentimentality and exaggeration by any man or woman who has gone to a Southern mill as an operative and worked side by side with the children, lived with them in their homes. It is defamation to use the word "home" in connection with the unwholesome shanty in the pest-ridden district where the remnant of the children's lives not lived in the mill is passed. This handful of unpainted huts, raised on stilts from ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... about their own age and their own affairs. For every newspaper that fosters good feeling and good understanding between nations, by trying to rightly inform its neighbors and to study them without reservations, how many spread defamation and distrust! What unnatural and dangerous currents of opinion set in motion! what false alarms and malicious interpretations of words and facts! And in domestic affairs we are not much better informed ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... 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 imprisonment, far less apology and retraction ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... 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 village ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... important in its effect upon the author's fortunes than any action of the outraged government was the resentment which her defamation of certain illustrious persons awakened in the breast of the dictator of letters. In chosing [Transcriber's note: sic] to expose in the character of her chief heroine, Ismonda, the foibles of Mrs. Henrietta Howard, the neighbor of Pope, the friend of ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... only to be guilty of being impertinent: but as they cannot go on for ever talking of nothing, as common matters will not afford a sufficient fund for perpetual continued discourse, where subjects of this kind are exhausted they will go on to defamation, scandal, divulging of secrets, their own secrets as well as those of others—anything rather than be silent. They are plainly hurried on in the heat of their talk to say quite different things from what they first intended, and which they afterwards wish unsaid: or improper things, which ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... mistaken opposition. I was at present in a state of warfare: and were judges like these to give the meed of victory? How many creatures had the powerful and the proud obedient to their beck; ever ready to affirm, deny, say and unsay; and, by falsehood and defamation, involve in ruin men whose souls were the most pure, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... tradesmen and others, do herein 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 charge and command ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... pretender. The caricature of the royal physiognomy as a pear is one of the most famous in history. Louis-Philippe wore his hair piled in a species of pyramid over his forehead, which lent plausibility to this defamation; this pyramid was known as the toupet, and was naturally largely imitated; those whose locks were not sufficient in quantity for the purpose, purchased false ones. Whiskers were also in fashion, but not moustaches, and no official functionary was permitted to wear ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... and this time by the report that the black cloud of bigamy hung over Ames. It was a fat season for the newspapers, and they made the most of it. As a result, several of them found themselves with libel suits on their hands. The Beaubien herself was confronted with a suit for defamation of character, and was obliged to testify before the judge whom Ames owned outright that she had but the latter's word for the charge, and that, years since, in a moment of maudlin sentimentalism, he had confessed to her ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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 ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... faults worse than mere 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 |
