"Backbiting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... singular attainments; and it is more woful still, that many young people should be scared away into irreligion or unbelief by the wretched delusion, that these creatures, wickedly caricaturing Christianity, are fairly representing it. I have beheld more deliberate malice, more lying and cheating, more backbiting and slandering, denser stupidity, and greater self-sufficiency, among bad-hearted and wrong-headed religionists, than among any other order of human beings. I have known more malignity and slander conveyed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of her own gender. Any girl or woman that she did chance to meet always took a fancy to her, because she was so nice to them, which made the transitory nature of these friendships tantalizing. She was incapable of jealousies or backbiting. Let men beware of such—there is coiled in their fibre a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the remark, but he did not like the lady any the better for it. He meditated in silence. He remembered that, when they were in the garden. Zoe had hung behind, and interpreted Fanny ill-naturedly; and here was Fanny at the same game, literally backbiting, or back-nibbling, at all events. Said he to himself, "And these two are friends! female friends." And he nursed ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... enslave his horse and his dog, Making them serve him for their bare keep and for nothing further, Shooting them, selling them for vivisection when they can no longer profit him, Backbiting them and beating them if they fail to please him; For his horse and his dog can bring no action for damages, Wherefore, then, should he not enslave them, shoot them, sell them ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... such he became, thus got an early footing at Court, which another would have improved and maintained. But, when he grew too big to be whipped, he had no other means of rendering himself acceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting humour, a malicious wit, and an envy of others more prosperous than the possessor of such amiable qualities, have not, indeed, always been found obstacles to a courtier's rise; but then they must be amalgamated ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "By backbiting, or by poison, base pander!" said Julian; "these are thy means of vengeance. But mark me—I know your vile purpose respecting a lady who is too worthy that her name should be uttered in such a worthless ear. Thou hast done me one injury, and thou see'st ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... calumny, aspersion, libel, vilification, scandal, abuse, traducement, backbiting, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... brought that annoyance on me, what would enemies be saying of me? That it was in my breed to be cracked or to have a thorn in the tongue. There's a generation of families would be great with you, and behind you they would be backbiting you. ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... of her husband's aunts, the "jealousies and bitter backbiting of her own intimate circle of friends," the infamous accusations brought against her by her sisters-in-law, the attacks of the Comte de Provence, and the indifference of the king himself, all ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... very week following, a sound began to spread in the parish, that one of my lassies had got herself with bairn, which was an awful thing to think had happened in the house of her master, and that master a minister of the gospel. Some there were, for backbiting appertaineth to all conditions, that jealoused and wondered if I had not a finger in the pie; which, when Mr Auld heard, he bestirred himself in such a manful and godly way in my defence, as silenced the clash, telling that I was utterly incapable of any ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... faces by the other children at school; and when they came home crying, Lars Peter of course had to bear his share too. No-one dared say anything to him, himself—let them try if they dared! The rag and bone man's fingers tingled when he heard all this backbiting—why couldn't he and his be allowed to go in peace. He wouldn't mind catching one of the rogues red-handed. He would knock him down in cold blood, whatever the consequences ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... poetic warfare was exchanged between them. Bellincioni's suspicious and quarrelsome nature is revealed in his letters to his patron, in which he is always complaining of the envious detractors whose wicked tongues are employed in backbiting him day and night. His own character was by no means free from the same imputations; and the Ferrarese poet, Tebaldeo, the friend of Raphael and Castiglione, composed a witty epitaph, in which he ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright |
