"Detraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say that Juno went to Candia to find Falsehood. But if any one were to ask me where fraud and hypocrisy might truly be found, I should know of no other place to name than the Court, where detraction always wears the mask of amusement; where, at the same time, people cut and sew up, wound and heal, break and glue together—of which I will give you one instance in the story that I am going to ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... all things else contrarious were these two: The one a man upon whose laureled brow Gray hairs were growing! glory ever new Shall circle him in after years as now; For spent detraction may not disavow The world of knowledge with the wit combined, The elastic force no burden e'er could bow, The various talents and the single mind, Which give him moral power and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... dividences; no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were never ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... word of this Proclamation a killing thunderbolt to the detractors of this portion of our fellow beings, now so inhumanly persecuted.' Yes—when peril rears its crest, and invasion threatens our shores, then prejudice is forgotten and the tongue of detraction is still—then the people of color are no longer brutes or a race between men and monkeys, no longer turbulent or useless, no longer aliens and wanderers from Africa—but they are complimented as intelligent, patriotic citizens from whom much is expected, and who have ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... there are both good and bad fishes, Matt. 13, 47. It is, verily, a true saying, namely, that there is no remedy against the attacks of the slanderer. Nothing can be spoken with such care that it can escape detraction. For this reason we have added the Eighth Article, lest any one might think that we separate the wicked and hypocrites from the outward fellowship of the Church, or that we deny efficacy to Sacraments administered by hypocrites or wicked men. ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... and write down Thy crime alone, and leave the rest unknown? Or wilt thou the succeeding years should see And teach thy person to posterity? No, hope it not; for know, most wretched man, 'Tis not thy base and weak detraction can Buy thee a poem, nor move me to give Thy name the honour in my verse to live. Whilst yet my ship did with no storms dispute, And temp'rate winds fed with a calm salute My prosp'rous sails, thou wert the only man That with me then an equal fortune ran; ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... shew how easily imbecility and selfishness may pervert this most innocent of all arts to the vilest purposes. He may be allowed also to disclaim an opinion too generally prevalent; namely, that envy and detraction are the natural offspring of the art. That Artists should possess a portion of these vices, in common with Poets, Musicians, and other candidates for fame, is reasonably to be expected; but that they should exclusively monopolise them, or even hold an ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... I send, With this let your collection end. Thus I consign you down to fame A character to praise or blame: And if the whole may pass for true, Contented rest, you have your due. Give future time the satisfaction, To leave one handle for detraction. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... translation of the Iliads (1611 ) denounces without mentioning any name 'a certain envious windsucker that hovers up and down, laboriously engrossing all the air with his luxurious ambition, and buzzing into every ear my detraction.' It is suggested that Chapman here retaliated on Shakespeare for his references to him as his rival in the sonnets; but it is out of the question that Chapman, were he the rival, should have termed those high compliments ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... detraction's desperation, And wedded unto one she had loved well— A man known in the councils of the nation, Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, Though apt to act with fire upon occasion, Proud of himself and her: the world could tell Nought against either, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... be bringing such tales to me, a priest?" he asked. "Denis Quirk is a man who goes to his duties; not by any means a saint, but a good, honest Catholic. Tell the next man or woman who speaks about it that scandal and detraction are steps in the ladder down to the devil's kingdom. There are more souls lost that ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... he resided at court, tasting the sweets and bitters of ambition—the caresses of a powerful king, and a still more powerful cardinal—mingled with the envious intrigues and malicious detraction of jealous rivals. Poussin loved not such a life; his free spirit languished, his noble heart was pained; and in 1642, he requested and obtained leave to visit Italy, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... remains now to be done is to true up the balance and bring it to poise. The practice frequently adopted to poise a plain balance is to file it with a half-round file on the inside, in order not to show any detraction when looking at the outer edge of the rim. A better and quicker plan is to place the balance in a split chuck, and with a diamond or round-pointed tool scoop out a little piece of metal as the balance revolves. In doing this, the spindle of the lathe ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... a variety of circumstances, and especially from the change in your honour's conduct towards me, that some person, as well inclined to detract, but better skilled in the art of detraction than the author of the above stupid scandal, has made free with my character. For I can not suppose, that malice so absurd, so barefaced, so diametrically opposite to truth, to common policy, and, in short, to everything but villany, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... statue, "may regard me with envy; but I despise the world, particularly the critics who have dared to laugh at me. (Groans.) The object of my ambition is attained—I am now the equal and representative of Shakspere—detraction cannot wither the laurels that shadow my brows—Finis coronat opus!—I have done. To-morrow I retire into private life; but though fortune has made me great, she has not made me proud, and I shall be always happy to shake hands with a friend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... person hath gained any reputation for a Cure performed, especially where Physicians have been concerned, though the Patients neglect or obstinateness, have been the sole cause of this non-performance, and by their continued detraction from Physicians, and applauding themselves, hoping by the former, that people will think such Mountebanks able to do better Cures then learned Physicians, and then they can easily insinuate themselves superior to such Mountebanks, and consequently to Physicians. By the ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... unimpeachable propriety of conduct—unsullied by the breath of detraction—rendered her in a great measure impervious to downright ill-nature; but still she was open to teasing and bantering; and the more she was teased, and the more she was bantered, the more impenetrable she became. We endeavoured ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... assailed by almost every tongue, and pen, and press, you have fearlessly and manfully stood by me, with unsurpassed zeal and undiminished friendship. When I felt as if I should sink beneath the storm of abuse and detraction, which was violently raging around me, I have found myself upheld and sustained by your encouraging voices and approving smiles. I have doubtless, committed many faults and indiscretions, over which you have thrown the broad mantle ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... have a habit of succeeding, when the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers were opposed to the form of government in their day. They were denounced, they were condemned. But they had the moral courage to stand erect and defy all the storms of detraction; and that is why they are in history, and that is why the great respectable majority of their day sleep in forgotten graves. The world does not ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... wisdom and wariness to be able to entertain a conversation for two hours, without approaching the confines of evil speaking. In my own case, for instance, brute as I am, I see that with every fourth phrase I utter, words full of malice and detraction come to my tongue like flies to wine. I therefore say again that doing and speaking evil are things we inherit from our first parents, and suck in with our mother's milk. This is manifest in the fact, that hardly is ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... religious enthusiasts had done picturing, or, rather, caricaturing his debased moral and mental condition. He has been made the victim of the most exalted panegyric by one set of fanatics, and of the most painful, malignant abuse and detraction by another set. The one has painted him as a sort of angel, and the other as a sort of devil; when, in fact, he is neither one nor the other; when, simply, he is a man, a member of the common family, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... understand what it is to love Him. In a little while, I saw these virtues renewed within me; still they were not strong, for they were not sufficient to sustain me in justice. I never spoke ill in the slightest degree whatever of any one, and my ordinary practice was to avoid all detraction; for I used to keep most carefully in mind that I ought not to assent to, nor say of another, anything I should not like to have said of myself. I was extremely careful to keep this resolution on all occasions though not so perfectly, upon some great occasions that presented themselves, as not ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... advised by his physician to resort to this clime for the restoration of his health; as an American citizen, he had not expected that his right to come here would be questioned; as a stranger, or if not entirely so, known mainly by the detraction which the ardent advocacy of the rights of the South had brought upon him, he had supposed that neither his coming nor his going would attract attention. But his anticipations had proved erroneous. The polite, the manly, elevated men, lifted above the barbarism which makes stranger ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... perfect friendship would not have room for such grudging sympathy, but would rejoice more for the other's success than for his own. The envious, jealous man never can be a friend. His mean spirit of detraction and insinuating ill-will kills friendship at its birth. Plutarch records a witty remark about Plistarchus, who was told that a notorious railer had spoken well of him. "I'll lay my life," said he, "somebody has told him I am dead, for he can speak ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... each ministry is a little town by itself, whence women are banished; but there is just as much detraction and scandal as though the feminine population were admitted there. At the end of three years, Monsieur Marneffe's position was perfectly clear and open to the day, and in every room one and another asked, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... order to give the subject more prominence he added a supplement to that number in the shape of a lithograph reproduction of my portrait by Kietz. But after a time even he became anxious and confused in his judgment of my works, when he saw the systematic and increasingly virulent detraction, depreciation, and scorn to which they were subjected. He confessed to me later that he had never imagined such a desperate position as mine against the united forces of journalism could possibly exist, and when he heard my view of the question, he smiled and gave me ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... practises. As if they had anew revived & celebrated the feasts of the Roman Goddes Flora, or the beasly practieses of the madd Bacchinalians. Morton likewise (to shew his poetrie) composed sundry rimes & verses, some tending to lasciviousnes, and others to the detraction & scandall of some persons, which he affixed to this idle or idoll May-polle. They chainged allso the name of their place, and in stead of calling it Mounte Wollaston, they call it Merie-mounte, as if this joylity would have ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... giving his usual Wednesday lecture at the neighbouring "college for young ladies;" where, blooming misses—in addition to their curriculum of "accomplishments" and "all the 'ologies"—were taught the noble art of family multiplication, domestic division, male detraction, feminine sedition, and, the ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is, in all its faults, very like to a young individual; and this is one in which the comparison holds good. But there are other causes for, and other incentives to this practice, besides the false idea that it is a proof of courage. Slander and detraction are the inseparable evils of a democracy; and as neither public nor private characters are spared, and the law is impotent to protect them, men have no other resource than to defend their reputations with their lives, or to deter the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... which in heaven unceasingly hear "Holy, Holy, Holy," vouchsafed on earth to be filled with: "Thou hast a devil,—Crucify him, Crucify him!" to the intent that thine ears might not be deaf to the cry of the poor, nor, open to idle tales, should readily receive the poison of detraction or of adulation. That fair face of him that was fairer than the children of men, yea, than thousands of angels, was bedaubed with spitting, afflicted with blows, given up to mockery, to the end that thy face might be enlightened, and, being enlightened, might be strengthened, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... then? No. What is Honour A word. What is that word Honour? Ayre: A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that dy'de a Wednesday. Doth he feele it? No. Doth hee heare it? No. Is it insensible then? yea, to the dead. But wil it not liue with the liuing? No. Why? Detraction wil not suffer it, therfore Ile none of it. Honour is a meere Scutcheon, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,' Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 10, 1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson's Works, vi. 288. Swift, in his Lines on Censure ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... a sore heart and all the patient self-denial of her sex. To be welcome to Griffith she had to speak to him of her rival, and to speak well of her. She tried talking of herself and her attachment; he yawned in her face: she tried smooth detraction and innuendo; he fired up directly, and defended her of whose conduct he had been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... fact, exhausting all that poetic vein which, properly applied, might have produced epics; these and many more traits set forth in his biography bring forth his character in its true light, dispel those clouds which malice and detraction may at times have cast over it, and leave it in the full ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... America was not lessened by their unceremonious mode of departure from it; and it is to these, the mass of whom are familiarly known in the journals of this country, that we owe the most insidious, because the best informed, detraction of us. Macmillan's Magazine did us sterling service through the papers of Edward Dicey, the best literary feuilletonist in England; and Professor Newman, J. Stuart Mill, and others, gave us the limited ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... this letter, the sagacious and well-ordered inferences of which must be candidly admitted, that a claim for superiority of discernment over Nelson has been made for its writer. It must be remembered, however, not as a matter of invidious detraction from one man, but in simple justice to the other, whose insight and belief had taken form in such wonderful work, that Nelson also had fully believed that the enemy, if they left the Mediterranean, would proceed to Ireland; ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... morbid self-communing was renewed. At night the day's contribution of detraction, innuendo and malicious conjecture would be canvassed in her mind, and then she would drift into a course of thinking. As her thoughts ran on, the indignant tears would spring to her eyes, and she would spit out fierce little ejaculations at intervals. But finally ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... was only sham courage. I was morally a coward, and could not possibly face the evil spirit of detraction. Therefore, the morning found me feverish in body and faint in spirit. I kept out of sight of my boarders, except Mr. Seabrook, who looked into the kitchen with a sympathizing face, and inquired very kindly after Bennie, as he pet-named Benton. When my dinner was over that day, I asked ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... that her high worth to raise, Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse, We may justly now accuse 10 Of detraction from her praise, Less then half we find exprest, Envy bid ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... will you stand forth? This detraction through years For my people has made me an oaf, Hides my poetry's fount in the fog of its fleers, So it merely a pool of self-worship appears; Like a clumsy troll I Am contemned with affront, Whom all "cultured" folk fly, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... it is a detraction from Andreas's worth to mention that another characteristic of his was the habit of awaking us in the still watches of the night, for the purpose of imparting his views on recondite phases of the great Eastern question. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... brief, is the general charge of inadequacy which may be urged against natural science, not in the spirit of detraction, but for the sake of a more sound belief concerning reality. The philosopher falls into error no less radical than that of the dogmatic scientist, when he charges the scientist with untruth, and attaches to his concepts the predicate of unreality. ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... Detraction do its worst! for if this be not his, it deserves to be. For my part, I declare for Distributive Justice! and from this, and what follows, he certainly deserves those advantages, which he acknowledges, to have received from the opinion ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... Universal prevalence of detraction and slander. Proofs. Shakspeare. Burns the poet. Self-knowledge, how much to be desired. Reference to the work of Mrs. Opie—to our ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... and, in fact, up to the present moment, there was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was this to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... cannot help remarking, that young women do not always carefully distinguish between running into the error of detraction, and its opposite extreme of indiscriminate applause. This proceeds from the false idea they entertain, that the direct contrary to what is wrong must be right. Thus the dread of being only suspected of one fault makes them actually guilty of another. The desire of avoiding the imputation of envy, ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... underestimation; depreciation &c. (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c. v.; modesty &c. 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon[obs3]; depreciate; disparage &c. (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c. 856; slight &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... magnificent country, hitherto undescribed and unexpressed, in scenery, manners, morals, that all may be wells from which he may be the first to drink. Yet it cannot be expected—for it has passed to a proverb that escape from persecution and detraction can never and nowhere be the lot of literature—that there will not be many instances, even in America, where every attempt on the part of gifted writers (and young writers especially, who are commonly regarded with eyes of invidious jaundice by the elders, whose waning reputations ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... and distinct Rights. Actions, by directing those in general, and particular, to the Honour of the Deity and Welfare of the Community: Expression, by the penal Interdiction of prophane Cursing and Swearing, Obscenity, Scurrility, Calumny, and Detraction, yet with a full Indulgence of proper Satire against such as merited popular Reprehension, or Contempt; the Satirist's Pen in those Days being as much dreaded, or rather more so, than the Magistrate's Rod, and consequently as diligently avoided ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... large, artistic spirit she has followed, requires that there shall be something more than narration and conversation. That she has now and then commented unnecessarily, and in a too-learned manner, is a very small detraction from the interest ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... snatch the favourable opportunity of precipitating the downfall of the man they had so long feared! But it was neither creditable nor politic for the representatives of England to stand by while these schemes were executed to the detraction of the man who had then given six years' disinterested and laborious effort to the regeneration of the Soudan and the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... preferment as he had (it was never very great) to a chance opportunity of preaching at St. Paul's and a recommendation to Laud. That prelate—to whom all the infinite malignity of political and sectarian detraction has not been able to deny the title of an encourager, as few men have encouraged them, of learning and piety—took Taylor under his protection, made him his chaplain, and procured him incorporation at Oxford, a fellowship at All Souls, and finally ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... nourished with any thing but what was substantial and lasting. He considered the ancients and moderns not as parties or rivals for fame, but as architects upon one and the same plan, the art of poetry; according to which he judged, approved, and blamed, without flattery or detraction. If he did not always commend the compositions of others, it was not ill-nature, (which was not in his temper,) but strict justice, that would not let him call a few flowers set in ranks, a glib measure, and so many couplets, by the name of poetry: ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... schools, nor the officers and agents of those charitable and missionary associations of the North, whose especial work and purpose was the elevation and enlightenment of the colored man, see fit to unite in that torrent of detraction which swept over the country in regard to the "Bureau" and its agents. But then, it may be that none of these classes were able to judge truly and impartially of its character and works! They may have been prepossessed in its favor to an extent ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... detraction dumb, I propose also to publish a selection of congratulations from other Continental potentates, but of this, as SHAKSPEARE says, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... and approve thereof; but now tell me what is incumbent in keeping the tongue from lying and folly and slandering good names and excess in speech."—"It behoveth a man to speak naught but good and kindness and to talk not of that which toucheth him not, to leave detraction nor carry tale he hath heard from one man to his enemy, neither seek to harm his friend nor his foe with his Sultan and reck not of any (neither of him from whom he hopeth for good nor of him whom he feareth for mischief) save of Allah Almighty; for He indeed is the only one who harmeth or profiteth. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... farmer who did not triumph at the tythe in kind, which had been paid to the rector; and it became a general threat to sweep the parish of moles, weazles, stoats, polecats and vermin of every species, and tenant the rectory with them, if any thing more was heard on the subject of tythes. Neither did detraction forget to remind the rector of his age, and how shameful it was for a man with one foot in the grave to quarrel with and rob the poor farmers, whom he was hired to guide, console, and love. The poor farmers forgot that, in the eye of the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... whose couches are Spintries; whose thrift is usurie, meales gluttonie, exercise cousenage, whose valour bragardrie, Astolpheidas, or Rodomontadas, or if it come to action, crueltie; whose communication is Atheisme, contention, detraction, or Paillardise, most of lewdness, seld of vertue, never of charitie; whose spare-time is vanitie or villanie: yet will I not deale by them, as they doe by others. I like not reproofe where it pertaines not to me: But if they like to see their owne pictures in lively colours of ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... to be the fact." Remarkable testimony this, concerning a great politician. From Disraeli, who would perhaps be less drawn to this qualification of a statesman, comes this word of praise, with many of detraction: "Nature had combined in Sir Robert Peel many admirable parts. In him a physical frame incapable of fatigue was united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and with great powers of ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... seems that its daughters are unfittingly assigned by Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 45), who says that from envy arise "hatred, tale-bearing, detraction, joy at our neighbor's misfortunes, and grief for his prosperity." For joy at our neighbor's misfortunes and grief for his prosperity seem to be the same as envy, as appears from what has been said above (A. 3). Therefore these should not be assigned ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... enough, that truth possesses some inherent vitality and power that give it an assured prevalence over falsehood; that a good name cannot be permanently defiled and irreparably ruined by detraction, but, like a star, shines all the brighter for the shadow through which it is seen; that justice cannot be stayed by injustice; that vice is powerless against virtue. I could quote from their great writers hundreds of utterances affirmative of these propositions. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... as the chaste morning's breath, When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away, Were clothed in words. —Sir J. Suckling—Detraction Execrated ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Reputation is the opinion of many touching another's life and conduct. Honour is paid to a man to his face, whereas his reputation is bruited behind his back. Honour is taken away by insult, reputation by detraction. If the detraction involve a falsehood, it is called calumny or slander. The name backbiting, given to detraction, points to the absence of the person spoken of. But no one meets with an insult except where he is present, either in person or by ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... of place to enter into petty theological questions in a comparatively trivial work such as this—to inquire, for instance, into the question whether it may not be as possible to be damned for detraction as to be damned for adultery; but we may at least believe that Lady Purbeck spent her later years in contrition for the past and virtue ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... Before the coming of the Scientific Age this group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in the equipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its less amiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and a usually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush of change in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of human life that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions and separations were violently broken down. All the old settled mental habits and traditions of men ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... dashing cavalry leaders—Murat, the Frenchman, and Custer, the American. Both smelled powder as the aides-de-camp of their chiefs; both rose rapidly from grade to grade, and from rank to rank, until they stood at the top; both labored at the end under the burden of criticism and detraction; and both met their death through a mistake, and fell ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... ministrations to the poor, sick and afflicted, not without much suffering from the relentless attacks of party spirit,—sufferings which shortened his days on earth,—and the daily beauty of his life made ugly the countenance of detraction and defamation. Public confidence, a plant of slow growth, grew about him. Public justice was rendered to him without a movement of his own. He fell, at his post, with all his armor on. At the time of the evening sacrifice, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... returned to Pisa. This circumstance was duly reported to Father Rocco by his correspondent at Florence; but, whether he was too much occupied among the statues, or whether it was one result of his cautious resolution never to expose himself unnecessarily to so much as the breath of detraction, he made no attempt to see Nanina, or even to justify himself toward her by writing her a letter. All his mornings continued to be spent alone in the studio, and all his afternoons to be occupied by his clerical ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... "Calumny and detraction," says Boerhaave, "are sparks, which if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."—Murphy's Johnston, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... censorious civilians, while he had in his pocket copies of dispatches which they had sent to Richmond furiously denouncing him. Not one word was he ever heard to say in comment or rebuke, while censure and detraction were most frequent against him, and his zealous, paternal care for his army was never relaxed. His majestic presence, calm and noble face and superb dignity, might themselves—it would seem—have overawed and hushed the cavilers. Surely, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... intercepting their letters, disconcerting their rendezvous; in one word, disturbing their amours by everything which a rival, prodigal, indefatigable, and full of artifice, can be imagined to do. The straitest ties of blood could not secure any one from his detraction. His nephew, the Count de Guiche, was a victim: he had in truth, offended the Count de Grammont, by having supplanted him in the affection of the Countess de Fiesque, whom he loved afterwards for the space of twelve years. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... those of another persuasion. His conversation was pleasant, witty, and learned, without the least tincture of affectation or pedantry; and his inimitable manner of diverting and enlivening the company made it impossible for any one to be out of humour when he was in it. Envy and detraction seemed to be entirely foreign to his constitution; and whatever provocations he met with at any time, he passed them over without the least thought of resentment or revenge. As Homer had a Zoilus, so Mr. Rowe ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... other by his Blood interested therein. But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort, which my noble friends (from the freedom of their spirits) proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous ignorance, and base detraction; such a cloud hath the Devil drawn over the world's judgment, whose opinion is in few years fallen so far below all ballatry, that the lethargy is incurable: nay, some of the Stationers, that had the selling of the First Part of this Poem, because it went not so fast away in the sale, as some ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... conversation generally turned on Europe, general literature, art, science, or the events of the day. I must say that I never heard one remark that could be painful to an English ear made, even in jest. There was none of that vulgar boastfulness and detraction which is to be met with in less educated society. Most of the gentlemen whom I met, and many of the ladies, had travelled in Europe, and had brought back highly cultivated tastes in art, and cosmopolitan ideas, which insensibly affect the circles ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... a very fierce contest before the people, characterized by lavish detraction and personal abuse—one of the most bitter, prolonged, and memorable in the history of the State —and the question of making Illinois permanently a Slave State was put to rest by a majority of about two thousand votes. The census of 1850 was the first that enumerated ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... have no pleasure in their conversation. I have myself no gratification in uttering detraction, and therefore ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... repeatedly in that ambassador's dispatches from Rome at the time of the event. This omission is yet another proof of the malicious spirit by which the "relation" was inspired. The suppression of anything that might justify a deed attributed to Cesare reveals how much defamation and detraction were the aims ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... unchanging passions and feelings; and we need not make literal contrasts, as did the British matron who remarked of "Antony and Cleopatra" that it was "so unlike the home life of our beloved queen." Bernard Shaw, who has said much in detraction of Shakespeare, writes in one of his admiring moods, "that the imaginary scenes and people he has created become more real to us than our actual life—at least until our knowledge and grip of actual life begins to deepen and glow beyond ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... Naval Academy, behind which at its beginning lay the initiative of some of the most reputed and accomplished senior officers of the navy, conscious of the needless difficulties they themselves had had to surmount in reaching the level they had. It involved no detraction from their professional excellence, the excellence of men professionally self-made; but none comprehend the advantages of education better than candid men who have made their way without it. By the time I entered, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... most attractive. It will be a long time before that is entirely lost, but five-story office buildings, automobiles in the afternoon parade, steaks or ham and eggs at an eight or nine o'clock breakfast, and all kinds of indescribable hats in place of dainty and graceful mantillas, seem to me a detraction, like bay-windows and porticos added ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... instrument of popular power. I know that the arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of reckless ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing, the pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration and the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism, the party watch-words and the party nick-names, the schemes of the few paraded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth is in the votes ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... gallant soldiers are a helpin' him onward, they are a cuttin' down the trees so's he can get through 'em and dash at the enemy. You see as you look on him that he will get through it all. No envy, nor detraction, nor jealousy, no such low underbrush full of crawlin' reptiles, nor no high solid trees, no danger of any sort can keep him back. His big brave, generous heart is sot on helpin' ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... marvel how any great man came by his name. The particular tribute, which in the pages that follow it is desired to pay to him, consists in the careful examination of just those actions and just those qualities of his upon which candid detraction has in fact fastened, or on which candid admiration ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... to shield you from every misgiving on your mother's account. Some actresses have brought opprobrium upon the profession, which certainly is rather dangerous, and subjects women to suspicion and detraction; but let me assure you, Regina, that there have been very noble, lovely, good ladies who made their bread exactly as your mother makes hers. There is no more brilliant, enviable, or stainless record among gifted women than that of Mrs. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Dr. Johnson. A correct edition of his works must, therefore, be an acceptable contribution to the mass of national literature. That the present edition has, perhaps, fairer claims on public approbation than most preceding ones, we feel ourselves justified in asserting, without envious detraction of those who have gone before us. It has been our wish and diligent endeavour to give as accurate a text as possible, to which we have subjoined notes, where elucidation seemed to be required. They have been collected with care, and will prove our impartiality by their occasional censures ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... fortune, was one of the most troublesome in this plot. He had served in the campaign about Philadelphia but had been blocked in his extravagant demands for promotion; so he turned for redress to Gates, the star in the north. A malignant campaign followed in detraction of Washington. He had, it was said, worn out his men by useless marches; with an army three times as numerous as that of Howe, he had gained no victory; there was high fighting quality in the American army if ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... situations, is sometimes irresistibly droll, in contrast with formal phrases. He was a gentleman of prudence and sagacity: "he lifted up his heart to God; took his pocket compass," and thus escaped some perils, both by sea and land; and carried to England a reputation, from which detraction has taken nothing, and which friendship would scarcely desire ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... enter a coach was torture to him. 'Conceive,' said he, 'the horror of sitting in a carriage with an iron apparatus, afflicted with the dreadful thought, the cruel apprehension, of having one's leg crushed by the machinery. Why are not the steps made to fold outside? The only detraction from the luxury of a vis a vis, is the double distress! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... manifest, and are even brought to the seance by other and more experienced spirit people, so that they may be helped. The influence of the sitters in moulding the conditions is too little realized. If they introduce an atmosphere of suspicion, doubt, distrust, or detraction, they break the continuity of the flow of psychic energy that has to be employed. By thus severing the current and dissipating the power, they mar the conditions essential to success; and, as all such disturbances of necessity ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... congratulate the venerated author of the book, not only that the greatness of his achievement and its enduring influence upon the progress of knowledge have won him a place beside our Harvey; but, still more, that, like Harvey, he has lived long enough to outlast detraction and opposition, and to see the stone that the builders rejected become the ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... character we have been taught to admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we cannot disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness, which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness,—but this we know, that, whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, and that he now shines as a fixed star in the constellation of the great lights of modern times, not alone because he succeeded in crossing the ocean, when once embarked on it, but for surmounting ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... consequences which would have flowed, had a defeat been suffered instead. He even held this language to Egmont himself after his return to Brussels. The conqueror, flushed with his glory, was not inclined to digest the criticism, nor what he considered the venomous detraction of the Duke. More vain and arrogant than ever, he treated his powerful Spanish rival with insolence, and answered his observations with angry sarcasms, even in the presence of the King. Alva was not likely to forget the altercation, nor to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I begin not to be able to name you anything, for there is not a word for you that will do! "Highness" you are: but that leaves gaps and coldnesses without end. "Royal," yet much more serene than royal: though by that I don't mean any detraction from your royalty, for I never saw a man carry his invisible crown with so level a head and no haughtiness at all: and that is the ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... as their origins. The evils flowing from these loves are contempt of others, enmity, and hostility against those who do not favor them, envy, hatred, and revenge, and from these fierceness and cruelty; and in respect to the Divine they are denial and consequent contempt, derision, and detraction of the holy things of the church; and after death, when man becomes a spirit, these evils are changed to anger and hatred against these holy things (see above, n. 562). And as these evils breathe forth continually the destruction ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... opposes them, on the contrary, and still more, if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... and beneficent life could not be led by woman; yet the poisonous alchemy of detraction turned all her ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in the remarks of General Halleck it is quite likely that he merely meant to say that the troops hurriedly collected at Harrisburg were untried, and therefore ought not to be entrusted with any critical service. But the words, as they stand, carry with them a sweeping detraction and are nothing less than calumnious. The Brooklyn Twenty-Third—or rather the Division, taken as a whole, with which it was incorporated—has only to point to its record as given very imperfectly in the following History, and especially to the farewell ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... strength in the affections and devotedness of the people, for the purpose (not of acting with violence or intimidation towards the King,[290] but) of convincing his enemies that the machinations of jealousy and detraction would (p. 304) have no power permanently to blast his reputation, and crush his influence, the alienation was soon happily terminated by the frank and filial conduct of the Prince, who as anxiously sought a full reconciliation as his father willingly conceded it: Thirdly, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... careful man, with the necessary credit or capital, and the result was, the realization of princely fortunes, and the enriching even the nation itself. On the expiration of their partnership, Arkwright went on by himself at Cromford, and the Strutts for themselves at Belper. A spirit of detraction would make it appear that Arkwright stole the invention of another, but Mr. William Strutt, who knew him well, and is a competent judge on such subjects, assured me that Arkwright was a man of very superior talents as a mechanic, and quite equal to such an invention. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... No man, perhaps, ever passed through so much abuse, and none, I am confident, ever bore up against its virulence with more nobleness of spirit, with a steady perseverance in the pursuit of the sublimest of human professions. He has travelled on heedless of the sneers, the ridicule, or the detraction of his enemies, and he has arrived at that point where the lustre of his works will not fail to illuminate the dark regions of barbarism and distaste long after their bright ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Swift, Steele, and Addison. Before Marvel's time, to be witty was to be strained, forced, and conceited; from him—whose memory consecrates that cottage—wit came sparkling forth, untouched by baser matter. It was worthy of him; its main feature was an open clearness. Detraction or jealousy cast no stain upon it; he turned aside, in the midst of an exalted panegyric to Oliver Cromwell, to say the finest things that ever were said ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Carthage is so illustrious a city that it were an honour to her that a philosopher should beg to be thus rewarded, but I wished the boon you have bestowed on me to have its full value with no taint of detraction, to suffer no loss of grace by any petition on my part, in a word to be wholly disinterested. For he that begs pays so heavily, and so large is the price that he to whom the petition is addressed receives, that, where the necessaries of life are concerned, one had rather ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... true of some newspapers, but not of mine,' I answered. 'But I will do this: I will print your article separately, and furnish you with as many copies as you want, and you can distribute them where you please, but I will not lumber my columns with detraction, and insult patrons to whom I am pledged to furnish a good paper for their families.' The party did not accept my proposition, but left ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... countenance. The mossy walls, often scraped, the mossified pavement, the greenish tombs of marble under the maples and firs, showed the effect of shade, solitude, and humidity upon all things of brick in this climate, where wood was already rising into favor as building material, but to the detraction of picturesqueness and all the appearance ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... telling criticism of that work in the Analectic Magazine, to which Caldwell replied in 1816. To finish the story, there is to be found in the Port Folio of 1820, page 153, an article on S. S. Smith, with portrait, which is as ample in praise of the essay as Caldwell was liberal in detraction. Caldwell resigned his editorship in 1816. In the next month Oliver Oldschool the Fourth made his appearance in the person of ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... your merits; as I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army; as my heart has ever expanded with joy when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this last stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests. But how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. 'If war continues, remove into the unsettled country; there ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the seeds of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... who now in their malignant envy hope for the permanent dismemberment of America, will then hail her resuscitation with a zeal which will be none the less advantageous to us for being forced from them in spite of their present hate and detraction. If the division of our country would destroy its influence abroad, and subject the parts to constant intrigues and interference from foreign powers, the restoration of the Union with even more than its former glory will give us unexampled weight in the counsels of mankind. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... command over her passions, and maintained a constant calmness of temper, and sweetness of disposition, that could not be ruffled by adverse accidents. She was in the utmost degree an enemy to ill-natured satire and detraction; she was as much unacquainted with envy, as if it had been impossible for so base a passion to enter into the human mind. She had few equals in conversation; her wit was lively, and she expressed her thoughts in the most ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... proposition. The Christians would neither admit that they worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor deny the divinity of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction from the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced into the theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary assertions, and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a reductio ad absurdam. The entire ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... the host, with wealth our chieftain load; Except detraction, what hast thou bestowed? Suppose some hero should his spoil resign, Art thou that hero? Could those spoils be thine? Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore, And let these eyes behold my son no more, If on thy next offence this hand forbear To strip those arms thou ill ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... deprive me of those enjoyments, social and domestic, which my time of life required, and to which my circumstances entitled me; and a vigorous execution of the duties must inevitably expose me to the resentment of disappointed and designing men, and to the calumny and detraction of the envious and malicious. I was therefore determined not to engage in so arduous an undertaking. But the solicitations of my friends, acquaintance, and fellow citizens, a full conviction of the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... were required to set litigation afloat at Hong-Kong, Mr Romer was sent thither as the fittest man for such work, with rich assurance of future guerdon. Who so happy then as Mr Romer! But even among the pure there is room for envy and detraction. Mr Romer had not yet ceased to wonder at new worlds, as he skimmed among the islands of that southern ocean, before the edict had gone forth for his return. There were men sitting in that huge court of Parliament on whose ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Enmities he had none. If ever he had suffered injuries they were forgiven, forgotten, and buried out of sight. Even in the controversies where his strongest convictions were involved, he steadily abstained from bitterness, violence, and detraction. "Fiery hatred and malice," he said, with perfect truth, "are what I detest, and would always allay ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... 1645—Jan. 1645-6), but which are not included in that volume, either because they were too late to come in their places after the Ten Sonnets contained in it, or because Milton thought it better not then to print them. "On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises" is the title given by Milton himself in MS. to the two Sonnets together; but they may have been ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... rare and not easily come by. Both in the comprehensiveness of their charges and in the slashing hatred which informs them (however feeble the verse), One Epistle and The Blatant Beast offer as fair a sample as any two such pamphlets can of the calumny, detraction, and critical misunderstanding Pope endured, for the most part patiently, from the publication of his Essay on Criticism to the year of his death. "Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past," (Epistle to Arbuthnot, l. 358) he exclaimed in his ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... My favourite author, Morhof, has spoken 'comme un brave homme' upon the difficulty of literary enterprizes, and the facility and venom of detraction: I support his assertion 'totis viribus'; and to beg to speak in the same person with himself. 'Non ignotum mihi est, quantae molis opus humeris meis incumbat. Oceanum enim ingressus sum, in quo portum invenire difficile est, naufragii periculum a syrtibus et scopulis ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and cities, &c. In highly figurative language, this stanza pictures the passage of Urania from 'her secret paradise' to the death-chamber of Adonais in Rome, as if the spiritual essence and external form of the goddess were wounded by the uncongenial atmosphere of human malice and detraction through which she has to pass. The whole description is spiritualized from ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... much more is expected of me than it is possible to perform, the more that upon the ground of safety and policy I am obliged to conceal the true state of this army from public view, and thereby expose myself to detraction and calumny." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... quoth he, 'Verily these ten damsels are a free gift from me to the Commander of the Faithful.' Hearing these words I refused to receive them and promised on my return to the Caliph that I would defend their lord from all detraction, but he cried, 'O Ibrahim, unless thou take them I will forward them with other than thyself' And lastly, O Prince of True Believers, he presented to me fifty slave-girls and as many Mamelukes and an hundred and fifty negro-serviles and twenty ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton |
