"Defame" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his name With lips of falsehood and deceit; A friend or brother they defame, And soothe and ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... turn from braggart pride Our race to cheapen and defame? Before the world to wail, to chide, And weakness as with vaunting claim? Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate The steadfast spirit that made us great, And rail ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... Madam! and may it please your ladyship! This old man's son, by name Bethlen Bathory, 90 Stands charged, on weighty evidence, that he, On yester-eve, being his lordship's birth-day, Did traitorously defame Lord Casimir: The lord high steward of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... see it now. You would darkly slander him whom you cannot openly defame. Go; I was wrong ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Bronte," and to my great amazement found that it was a vicious attack upon my little book published more than twenty years previously! I was accused by the writer—an American lady whose name I had never heard before and have now forgotten—of having been the first to defame Charlotte Bronte, because I had been the first to point out the singular influence over her life and character which was exercised by her teacher in Brussels, M. Heger. It is now obvious to everybody that ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,— Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, Nor mute, that the world ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... here it is!" So he took the letter and read therein these words, "After salutations galore to our uncle[FN70] the glorious King! Know that I am at hand with the baggage-train: so come thou forth to meet me with the troops." Cried the King, "Allah blacken thy brow, O Wazir! How often wilt thou defame my son-in-law's name and call him liar and impostor? Behold, he is come with the baggage-train and thou art naught but a traitor." The Minister hung his head ground-wards in shame and confusion and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now, You noble Diggers all, stand up now, The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name Your digging do disdain and persons all defame. Stand up ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... Master Tressilian," replied Giles Gosling. "There is Natural Affection whimpering into one ear, 'Giles, Giles, why wilt thou take away the good name of thy own nephew? Wilt thou defame thy sister's son, Giles Gosling? wilt thou defoul thine own nest, dishonour thine own blood?' And then, again, comes Justice, and says, 'Here is a worthy guest as ever came to the bonny Black Bear; one who never challenged ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... nations, and in Germany, Palestine, New Holland, the East Indies, and other places, the standard of truth has been erected: no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the Great Jehovah shall ...
— The Wentworth Letter • Joseph Smith
... and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite, We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night, We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fly, Who on thy counsel and thy craft rely; That worthy craft in others they condemn, But 'tis their prudence, while conducting them. "Be FLATTERY, then, thy happy infant's name, Let Honour scorn her and let Wit defame; Let all be true that Envy dooms, yet all, Not on herself, but on her name, shall fall; While she thy fortune and her own shall raise, And decent Truth be call'd, and loved as, modest Praise. "O happy child! the glorious ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... facts, the public viewed with just indignation this attempt to defame a character which was the nation's pride. Americans felt themselves involved in this atrocious calumny on their most illustrious citizen, and its propagators were frowned ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... tongue could say, To breede contempt of death, or hate of thrall, Honours reward, fame for a famous day, Wonder of eares, that men halfe gods shall call: And contrarie, a hopelesse certaine way, Into a Tyrants damned fists to fall, Where all defame, base thoughts, and infamie, Shall crowne with shame ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... me; Though woman, thou didst not forsake; Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me; Though slandered, thou never couldst shake; Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me; Though parted, it was not to fly; Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me; Nor mute, that ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... this picturesque blackguard who had told tales on the Bermudian that had brought a flush of shame even to Peter's cheeks—this degenerate, this scheming blackmailer—thief, perhaps murderer, too, the father of Beth! Incredible! The merest contact with such a man must defile, defame her. And yet if this were the fact, Coast would have a father's right to claim her, to drag her down, a prey to his vile tongue and drunken humors as she had once been when a child. Her Aunt Tillie feared this. And Aunt Tillie did not ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... became. Or canst His near discern not from His far? * Then Love's in vain and thou'rt a-rear and lame. If pine for Thee afflict my sprite, or men * Hale me to death, the rein Thy hand shall claim! So turn Thee to or fro, to me 'tis one; * What Thou ordainest none shall dare defame: My love hath naught of aim but Thine approof * And if Thou say we part I ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... angry; there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politicks against those whom he is hired to defame. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... complicity in the affair. "His Majesty cannot approve of the means one has taken to guard against a pretended plot for carrying off the Princess," said the Secretary of State; "a fear which was simulated by the Prince in order to defame the King." He added that there was no reason to suspect the King, as he had never attempted anything of the sort in his life, and that the Archduke might have removed the Princess to his palace without sending an army to the hotel of the Prince of Orange, and causing such an alarm ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sister, have I lived to see thy name Dishonored? Thou, who wast my pride, my stay; Shall Jealousy and Fraud thy love defame And I be dumb? Just Heaven, let a ray From thy majestic light illume earth's clay,[A] That through her I may scorch the slander vile, And light throughout the land a torch to-day, Which shall reveal how false and full of guile Are they who seek thy name, ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... lose it, pain; Now grown a part of me: but what use in it? To make men worse by making my sin known? Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great? Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break These bonds that so defame me: not without She wills it: would I, if she willed it? nay, Who knows? but if I would not, then may God, I pray him, send a sudden Angel down To seize me by the hair and bear me far, And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, Among ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... preserving mine! And am I then preserv'd, and art thou lost? How much too dear has that redemption cost! 'T is now my bitter banishment I feel: This is a wound too deep for time to heal. My guilt thy growing virtues did defame; My blackness blotted thy unblemish'd name. Chas'd from a throne, abandon'd, and exil'd For foul misdeeds, were punishments too mild: I ow'd my people these, and, from their hate, With less resentment could have borne my fate. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... minister have dispatched hither messengers and envoys, with strict orders never to suffer a matrimonial alliance with the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, but to do everything to prevent it. Everything to prevent it! Do you understand me, sir? To calumniate also, and accuse and defame. But all together you shall not succeed. I shall prove to the Emperor, the Elector and his minister that I do not fear their wrath, and that the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg will never, never be the vassal and servant of the German Emperor; that he feels himself ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... and thy pious deeds. The daughters of princes cast their jewels before thee, to draw thine eyes upon them when thou didst pass through the land of Egypt, but thou didst not look their way, and therefore wast thou made the father of two tribes. The magicians and the wise men of Egypt sought to defame thee before Pharaoh and slander thee, but thou didst set thy hope in the Almighty. Therefore may He who appeared unto me as El Shaddai bless thee and grant thee fertile soil and much cattle. May the blessing thy father giveth thee now, and the blessing ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Though I confess the oaths they undertake Breed little strength to our security, Yet those infirmities that thus defame Their faiths, [66] their honours, and religion, [67] Should not give us presumption to the like. Our faiths are sound, and must be consummate, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... about the Treaty of Utrecht had so splendid a literary defence set up for it. Swift, with the guidance of Bolingbroke, and put up, indeed, to the work by Bolingbroke, devoted the best of his powers to defame Marlborough, and to justify the conduct of the Tory ministry. No matter how clear one's own opinions on the question may be, it is impossible, even at this distance of time, to study the writings of Swift on this subject without ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... under the roof of a negro's cabin, is a deep disgrace in the eyes of our very refined society; and having subjected herself to the humiliation, she knows full well that it may be used against her-in fine, made a means to defame her character. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... then, is the great misdeed, the grievous crime, the sore default committed by Gisippus as a friend and by myself as a lover, to wit, that Sophronia hath secretly become the wife of Titus Quintius, and this it is for which you defame and menace and plot against him. What more could you do, had he bestowed her upon a churl, a losel or a slave? What chains, what prison, what gibbets had ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... shoot pigeons, but these are not persons who commend themselves to real gentlemen, English or American. They belong to the bad style of "fast men," and are as thoroughly distasteful to a Devonshire or Cheshire squire as to one who merits "the grand old name"—which they conspicuously defame—in their own country. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... hath!" exclaimed the mother. "I tell you, Brother John, the heart of Margaret Cooper is no longer what it was. It is softened. The toils of Brother Stevens have not been in vain. Blessed young man, no wonder they hate and defame him. He hath had a power over Margaret Cooper such as man never had before; and it is for this reason that Bill Hinkley and Ned conspired against him, first to take his life, and then to speak evil of his deeds. They beheld the beauty of my daughter, and they looked on her with ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... others. But as the AEtolians, a state of the like fabric, were reproached by Philip of Macedon to prostitute themselves; by letting out their arms to the lusts of others, while they leave their own liberty barren and without legitimate issue; so I do not defame these people; the Switzer for valor has no superior, the Hollander for industry no equal; but themselves in the meantime shall so much the less excuse their governments, seeing that to the Switz it is well enough ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... from which the best things spring. What is the secret of the strength of Sorosis? What is its value to the community and the world at large? It is, as a centre of unity. This is our Holy Grail,—and this we are bound never to defame, or defile by ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... on or oppress, ruin, damage, upon, persecute, slander, defame, injure, pervert, victimize, defile, malign, prostitute, vilify, disparage, maltreat, rail at, violate, harm, misemploy, ravish, vituperate, ill-treat, misuse, reproach, wrong. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... apostles and the martyrs; and these worshipful Christian magistrates with heathen magistrates and judges. Hearing him talk in this ribald way, he could no longer doubt the accusation brought against him; for there was no surer proof of a man or woman having dealings with Satan, than to defame and ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... plac'd laughde at his slippry state, But when he falls with heaven-peercynge bange That he the sleeve unravels all theire fate, And broken onn the beech thys lesson speak, The stronge and firme should not defame the weake. 180 ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... to vindicate the reputation of those whom writers like these defame, which would but be to anticipate by a few years the natural and inevitable reaction of the public mind, that I am devoting years of labor to the development of the principles on which the great productions ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... the sake of no long space of time, O Athenians! you will incur the character and reproach at the hands of those who wish to defame the city, of having put that wise man, Socrates, to death. For those who wish to defame you will assert that I am wise, though I am not. If, then, you had waited for a short time, this would have ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... about the payment of the L20 legacy, which I agreed to, but he would fain have had from me the copy of the deed, which he had forged and did bring me yesterday, but I would not give him it. Says [he] I perceive then you will keep it to defame me with, and desired me not to speak of it, for he did it innocently. Now I confess I do not find any great hurt in the thing, but only to keep from me a sight of the true original deed, wherein perhaps there was something else that may touch this business of the legacy which he would ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his own deserts, so he takes it for granted that others should enjoy theirs also. To deprive them were to prejudice his own claims. But he that feels himself destitute of worth, and despairs of reaching the good favour of society, is thence tempted to disparage and defame such as do. This course he takes as the best soother of his disappointed feelings and the chief solace for his conscious defects. Seeing he cannot rise to the standard of others, he would bring down that of others to his. He cannot directly get any praise, therefore he would indirectly ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... every one who wrote, uttered, or published "any false, scandalous, and malicious writing ... against the government of the United States or either House of Congress, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame said government ... or to bring them or either of them into contempt or disrepute." This measure was hurried through Congress in spite of the opposition and the clear provision in the Constitution that Congress shall make ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... associates defame the sex, you can hardly be mistaken when you suspect them of having vitiated their taste for what is excellent in human character by improper intimacies, or still more abominable vices. The man who says he has never found a virtuous female ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... that Thou hast reminded me of that Lykon," said she. "I remember. Through him Mefres accused Ramses of child murder, and today he may use the wretch to defame his sovereign. In this case not a word to any one of what I have told thee. If Ramses if in truth he is subject to such a misfortune, it may be temporary. We must not humiliate him by mentioning such reports, we must not inform him. If this is a plot of the priests ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Act provided for the punishment of persons who acted, spoke, or wrote in a seditious manner, that is, opposed the execution of any law of the United States, or wrote, printed, or uttered anything with intent to defame the government of the United States or any ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... for so vile an accusation. If it were not that his age and infirmities claimed our compassion, I would, said I, after such evil treatment, desire of Ann that she should never more cross the threshold of a man who could so cruelly defame us, and those two good women to whom we owed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and now they defame one another;—The case is greatly to be deplored. If a counsel be good, They are all found opposing it. If a counsel be bad, They are all found according with it. When I look at such counsels and plans, ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... that I like the hotels in those parts, or, indeed, the mode of life at American hotels in general. In order that I may not unjustly defame them, I will commence these observations by declaring that they are cheap to those who choose to practice the economy which they encourage, that the viands are profuse in quantity and wholesome in quality, that the attendance is quick and unsparing, and that travelers are never annoyed by ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope |
