Quotes & Sayings About Calumny

And so the blasts of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good man's head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider fame. Preserve only a good conscience toward God, and a loving purpose toward your fellow men, and you need not wince nor tremble, though the pack of the spaniel-hearted hounds snarl at your heels. — William Morley Punshon

Calumniate, calumniate; there will always be something which sticks. — Pierre Beaumarchais

Enter Justine Putet, of whom it is now time to speak. Imagine a swarthy-looking, ill-tempered person, dried-up and of viperish disposition, with a bad complexion, an evil expression, a cruel tongue, defective internal economy, and (over all this) a layer of aggressive piety and loathsome suavity of speech. A paragon of virtue of a kind that filled you with dismay, for virtue in such a guise as this is detestable to behold, and in this instance it seemed to be inspired by a spirit of hatred and vengeance rather than by ordinary feelings of kindness. An energetic user of rosaries, a fervent petitioner at her prayers, but also an unbridled sower of calumny and clandestine panic. In a word, she was the scorpion of Clochemerle, but a scorpion disguised as a woman of genuine piety. — Gabriel Chevallier

I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it. — Robert Emmet

If our credit be so well built, so firm, that it is not easy to be shaken by calumny or insinuation, envy then commends us, and extols us beyond reason to those upon whom we depend, till they grow jealous, and so blow us up when they cannot throw us down. — Edward Hyde, 1st Earl Of Clarendon

What may be the significance of so many forms of "spirituality" on this planet that are antagonistic to "life" - and Christianity at the head of that list, with its "calumny" against life, its faith that just because nothing in life is eternal therefore life itself contains no value, nothing that makes it worth living, investing our souls in, committing our consciences to? — Kenny Smith

The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers. I, on the contrary, maintain that they ought to be praised in their lifetime if they merit it; but jealousy and calumny, roused against their virtue or their talent, labour to degrade them if any one ventures to bear testimony to them. It is unjust criticism that they should fear to hazard, not sincere praise. — Luc De Clapiers

After upwards of two thousand years Epicurus has been exonerated from the reproach that the doctrines of his philosophy recommended the pleasures of sensuality and voluptuousness as the chief good. Calumny may rest on genius a considerable part of a world's duration; what then is the value of fame? — William Benton Clulow

And why should I not confess that this friendship, and the testimony here and there of persons unknown to me, have upheld me in my career, both against myself and against unjust attacks; against the calumny which has often persecuted me, against discouragement, and against the too eager hopefulness whose utterances are misinterpreted as those of overwhelming conceit? I had resolved to display stolid stoicism in the face of abuse and insults; but on two occasions base slanders have necessitated a reply. Though the advocates of forgiveness of injuries may regret that I should have displayed my skill in literary fence, there are many Christians who are of opinion that we live in times when it is as well to show sometimes that silence springs from generosity. — Honore De Balzac

I have performed my duty to my God, my country, and my family. I have nothing to fear in approaching death. To me it is the mere shadow of God's protecting wing ... Here I will rest in quiet and peace beyond the reach of calumny's poisoned shaft, the influence of envy and jealous enemies, where treason and traitors or State backsliders and hypocrites in church can have no peace. — Andrew Johnson

Mobs may assemble, calumny may defame, but the work of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent ... — Joseph Smith Jr.

I am Calumny Spinks.
Between me and the satin blue sky hangs the hempen noose.
It has swung there in the faintest of breezes, waiting for me, all my life. — Piers Alexander

Work or die' - this is the essence of slavery, of compulsion. And yet this is our world. Most of our world is enslaved but does not know it. Only the homeless are free, and for their freedom we sentence them to death. To refuse compulsion is to earn death, suffering, and calumny. It is not to refuse work - the homeless work very hard, endure many hardships we cannot imagine in our comfortable slavery. And yet we call our slavery freedom. We do not know what freedom means, yet. — Robert Peate

Calumny spreads like an oil-spot: we endeavor to cleanse it, but the mark remains. — Jeanne Julie Eleonore De Lespinasse

There are calumnies against which even innocence loses courage. — Horace

The myth persists in Egypt to this day that Napoleon's soldiers actually disfigured some of these ruins, and are even said to have used the Sphinx as target practice for their cannons, shooting off its nose. This last is a calumny: it is known that the Sphinx was defaced as early as the eighth century by the Sufi iconoclast Saim-ed-Dahr,28 and was further damaged in 1380 by fanatical Muslims prompted by the Koran's strictures against images. During these early times the Sphinx was not regarded as a precious historical object, but instead inspired fear: through the centuries it became known to the Egyptians as Abul-Hol (Father of Terrors), and would only begin to be regarded more favorably when it became a tourist attraction in the later nineteenth century. — Paul Strathern

If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. — William Shakespeare

His (Deschamps') complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb. — Barbara Tuchman

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an individual weight of calumny will be super-added. — Samuel Johnson

It is she who has a hold on him. Doesn't she see how much he needs her? She has nothing to be afraid of, her conscience is clear. It is he who should be ashamed, and terrified of her giving him away. But that is just what she will never do. To do this she does not have the necessary ruthlessness
Komarovsky's chief asset in dealing with subordinates and weaklings. This is precisely the difference between them. And it is this that makes the whole of life so terrifying. Does it crush you by thunder and lightning? No, by oblique glances and whispered calumny. It is all treachery and ambiguity. Any single thread is as fragile as a cobweb, but just try to pull yourself out of the net, you only become more entangled. And the strong are dominated by the weak and ignoble. — Boris Pasternak

AS the falling rain prepares the earth for the future crops of grain and fruit, so the rains of many sorrows showering upon the heart prepare and mellow it for the coming of that wisdom that perfects the mind and gladdens the heart. As the clouds darken the earth but to cool and fructify it, so the clouds of grief cast a shadow over the heart to prepare it for nobler things. The hour of sorrow is the hour of reverence. It puts an end to the shallow sneer, the ribald jest, the cruel calumny; it softens the heart with sympathy, and enriches the mind with thoughtfulness. Wisdom is mainly recollection of all that was learned by sorrow. Do not think that your sorrow will remain; it will pass away like a cloud. Where self ends, grief passes away. — James Allen

No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back- wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? — William Shakespeare

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out [of] malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said. The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it. — William Hazlitt

Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick. — Francis Bacon

O flowers, country, love, inaction,
O fields! I am your devotee!
I always note with satisfaction
Onegin's difference from me,
Lest somewhere a sarcastic reader
Or publisher or such-like breeder
Of complicated calumny
Discerns my physiognomy
And shamelessly repeats the fable
That I have crudely versified
Myself like Byron, bard of pride,
As if we were no longer able
To write a poem and discuss
A subject not concerning us. — Alexander Pushkin

Calumny is like the wasp which worries you, and which it is not best to try to get rid of unless you are sure of slaying it; for otherwise it returns to the charge more furious than ever. — Nicolas Chamfort

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 say the work is done. — Joseph Smith Jr.

Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny makes ever after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputations! — Oliver Goldsmith

Calumnies are answered best with silence. — Ben Jonson

Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic. The first moment of the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy and calumny. — Edward Gibbon

I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored to belie me.-It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions. — Ben Jonson

In the soul of all liars, the unparalleled truth is a sickness.
The unparalleled truth shall come out but first the liars will stretch their calumny.
His past crimes shall haunt his heart. His evil ways shall torment his soul.
The web of lies will fill up his brain cells.
His secrets however hidden shall eventually come out. ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from my K.H. Trilogy — Angelica Hopes

It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it. — Seneca The Younger

But are his needs any more shocking than the needs of any other animals and men? Are his deeds more outrageous than the deeds of the parent who drained the spirit from his child? The vampire may foster quickened heartbeats and levitated hair. But is he worse than the parent who gave to society a neurotic child who became a politician? Is he worse than the manufacturer who set up belated foundations with the money he made by handing bombs and guns to suicidal nationalists? Is he worse than the distiller who gave bastardized grain juice to stultify further the brains of those who, sober, were incapable of progressive thought? (Nay, I apologize for this calumny; I nip the brew that feeds me.) Is he worse, then, than the publisher who filled ubiquitous racks with lust and death wishes? Really, no, search your soul, lovie
is the vampire so bad? — Richard Matheson

Calumny is only the noise of madmen. — Diogenes

Calumny ever pursues the great, even as the winds hurl themselves on high places. — Ovid

Pessimism like calumny is easy to do, and attracts immediate attention. The gossiper and the writer may find this out soon enough, and a little encouragement from the current mood will procure them successes that bring endless imitators in their trail. On the other hand saying good things about life in general and individuals in particular and making it interesting is a serious task which few can achieve with credit. — Bernard Berenson

There is something mean in human nature that prefers to think evil, that gives a willing ear and a ready welcome to calumny, a sort of jealousy of goodness and greatness and things of good report. — Richard Le Gallienne

True devotion must not get dispirited; nor elated or satisfied with lesser gains; it must fight against failure, loss, calumny, calamity, ridicule and against egoism and pride , impatience and cowardice . — Sathya Sai Baba

It is in the habits of lawyers that every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny; it is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men. — Alphonse De Lamartine

To persevere in one's duty, and be silent is the best answer to calumny — George Washington

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; envy and calumny and hate and pain, and that unrest which men miscall delight, can touch him not and torture not again; from the contagion of the world's slow stain, he is secure. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny. — Eric Hoffer

False praise can please, and calumny affright
None but the vicious, and the hypocrite. — Horace

Contempt is the only way to triumph over calumny. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

Calumny is a vice of curious constitution; trying to kill it keeps it alive; leave it to itself and it will die a natural death. — Thomas Paine

Nothing is so swift as calumny, nothing is more easily propagated, nothing more readily credited, nothing more widely circulated. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Taking our stand on the immovable rock of Christ's character we risk nothing in saying that the wine of miracle answered to the wine of nature, and was not intoxicating. No counter proof can equal the force of that drawn from His attributes. It is an indecency and a calumny to impute to Christ conduct which requires apology. — Abraham Coles

The wounds of calumny, the reproaches of the proud, the venom of the bigoted, the treachery of the false, and the weakness of the true, we have known in our measure; and therein have had communion with our Lord Jesus. — Charles Spurgeon

The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God. — Charles Caleb Colton

There are innumerable civilized people who would shrink from murder or incest, and who yet do not hesitate to gratify their avarice, their aggressiveness and their sexual lusts, and who have no compunction in hurting others by lying, fraud and calumny, so long as they remain unpunished for it; and no doubt this has been so for many cultural epochs. If — Sigmund Freud

The generation that followed did not have the same concerns; none of its members attempted to follow the example of the past generation. There was no longer anyone with the noble determination to get to know the great men of the world, or if there were some individuals consumed with this curiosity, they were few in number. From then on, there remained only vulgar minds given over to hatred, envy and discord, who took an interest only in things which did not concern them, gossip, slander, calumny of one's neighbors, all those things which are the source of the worst of our troubles. — Cheikh Anta Diop

Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. "You're my sacred ones," I told the books. "No one but me still cares about you. But I'm going to keep you with me forever. And one day I'll make you important again." I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell. — Gary Shteyngart

But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them. — Joseph Addison

Calumniators are those who have neither good hearts nor good understandings. We ought not to think ill of any one till we have palpable proof; and even then we should not expose them to others. — Robert Emmet

Just the minute another person is drawn into some one's life, there begin to arise undreamed-of complexities, and from such a simple beginning as sexual desire we find built up such alarming yet familiar phenomena as fetes, divertissements, telephone conversations, arrangements, plans, sacrifices, train arrivals, meetings, appointments, tardiness, delays, marriages, dinners, small pets and animals, calumny, children, music lessons, yellow shades for the windows, evasions, lethargy, cigarettes, candies, repetition of stories and anecdotes, infidelity, ineptitude, incompatibility, bronchial trouble, and many others, all of which are entirely foreign to the original urge and way off the subject. — E.B. White

Where there is calumny, there is Satan himself. — Pope Francis

In this passage we are taught how hateful a thing is calumny in all free States, as, indeed, in every society, and how we must neglect no means which may serve to check it. And there can be no more effectual means for checking calumny than by affording ample facilities for impeachment, which is as useful in a commonwealth as the other is pernicious. And between them there is this difference, that calumny needs neither witness, nor circumstantial proof to establish it, so that any man may be calumniated by any other; but not impeached; since impeachment demands that there be substantive charges made, and trustworthy evidence to support them. — Niccolo Machiavelli

So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence. — Plutarch

His calumny is not only the greatest benefit a rogue can confer on us, but the only service he will perform for nothing. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

Calumny is like counterfeit money; many people who would not coin it circulate it without qualms. — Diane De Poitiers

Neglected, calumny soon expires, show that you are hurt, and you give it the appearance of truth. — Tacitus

It is an old saying, "A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword"; and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrile and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-plays, or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever. — Robert Burton

It is harder to kill a whisper than even a shouted calumny. — Mary Stewart

He made a pit and digged it. He was cunning in his plans and industrious in his labors. He stooped to the dirty work of digging. He did not fear to soil his own hands. He was willing to work in a ditch if others might fall therein. What mean things men will do to wreak revenge on the godly. They hunt for good men as if they were brute beasts - they that will not give them the fair chase afforded to the hare or the fox, but must secretly entrap them because they can neither run them down nor shoot them down. Our enemies will not meet us to the face for they fear us as much as they pretend to despise us. But let us look on to the end of the scene. The verse says he has fallen into the ditch that he has made. Ah, there he is. Let us laugh at his disappointment. Lo, he is himself the beast. He has hunted his own soul. The chase has brought him a goodly victim. So should it ever be. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny-fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear. — Margaret Chase Smith

Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow. — Charles Caleb Colton

Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. It was not mere pleasure; it was perfect bliss. Escaped from the frightful torments of persecution and of calumny, I felt that I was answering all in rising above all.
[Said after making man's first ascent by hydrogen balloon in 1783] — Jacques Charles

The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief. — Aristotle.

Genius involves both envy and calumny. — Alexander Pope

No innocence can shield a man from the calumnies of the wicked. [ ... ] As a shadow follows its substance, so envy pursues goodness. It is only at the tree laden with fruit that men throw stones. If we would live without being slandered we must wait until we get to heaven. Let us be very heedful not to believe the flying rumors which are always harassing gracious men. If there are no believers in lies, there will be but a dull market in falsehood, and good men's characters will be safe. Ill will never spoke well. Sinners have an ill will to saints; therefore, be sure that they will not speak well of them. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Calumny is the offspring of Envy. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation; and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character. — Thomas Paine

As long as there are readers to be delighted with calumny, there will be found reviewers to calumniate. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Even those who have an air of being wise judge of others only, and do not know themselves. It cannot be in reason to know others and not to know oneself. Therefore one who knows himself may be said to be a man who has knowledge. Though our looks be unpleasing, we do not know it. We do not know that our skill is poor. We do not know that our station is lowly. We do not know that we grow old in years. We do not know that sickness attacks us. We do not know that death is near. We do not know that we have not attained the Way we follow. We do not know what evil is in our own persons, still less what calumny comes from without. — Yoshida Kenko

There is nothing which wings its flight so swiftly as calumny, nothing is uttered with more ease; nothing is listened to with more readiness, nothing disbursed more widely. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The newspaperman has become a walking plague. He spreads the contagion of lies and calumnies. — Mahatma Gandhi

The guiding hand at one's pony; the voice at one's porridge bowl; the splendid athlete one watched from one's books in the cold tower window, while outside in the sunshine he rode at the ring, threw his spears, matched his sword with the master-at-arms. The brother who had cared for him, a grown man in illness, and defended him against calumny, and who at length, heartbroken at his defection, had turned his back on him a year ago in Scotland. — Dorothy Dunnett

I never think it necessary to repeat calumnies; they are sparks, which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves. — Herman Boerhaave

Calumny is a monstrous vice: for, where parties indulge in it, there are always two that are actively engaged in doing wrong, and one who is subject to injury. The calumniator inflicts wrong by slandering the absent; he who gives credit to the calumny before he has investigated the truth is equally implicated. The person traduced is doubly injured
first by him who propagates, and secondly by him who credits the calumny. — Herodotus

Something of calumny always sticks. — Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Curses are like chickens, they always come home to roost. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I am tired of the misrepresentation, calumny and detraction, heaped upon me by wicked men; and desire and claim, only those principles guaranteed to all men by the Constitution and laws of the United States and of Illinois. — Joseph Smith Jr.

A man calumniated is doubly injured - first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it. — Herodotus

Do you never look at yourself when you abuse another person? — Plautus

Those who ought to be secure from calumny are generally those who avoid it least. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

All that comes to pass is as familiar and well known as the rose in spring, and the grape in summer. Of like fashion are sickness, death, calumny, intrigue, and all that gladdens or saddens the foolish. — Marcus Aurelius