Quotes & Sayings About Libel

I am dumbfounded that there hasn't been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet. — Walter Cronkite

If you call your opponent a politician, it's grounds for libel. — Mark Russell

I don't think that there is absolute freedom of the press. We operate under laws - against libel, for instance. The idea that there is some absolute press freedom is kind of a myth. — Bill Keller

I am suing Lord Beaverbrook for libel and hope for some lovely tax-free money in damages. He has very conveniently told some lies about me. — Evelyn Waugh

Sometimes the Church patently tried to profit from such incidents: the Benedictine monks of Norwich Cathedral in England, encouraged by their bishop, were pioneers in the blood-libel business when in the 1140s they tried to foster in their own church a cult of an alleged young victim of the Jews called William. Unfortunately for the monks, the good folk of Norwich loathed their cathedral more than they did the Jews, and the pilgrimage to little St William never amounted to much. Other cults were more successful (see chapter 2, p. 59), and the blood-libel has remained a recurring motif in the worst atrocities against the Jews. — Diarmaid MacCulloch

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves. — Albert Einstein

Deceit for personal gain is one of history's most recurring crimes. Man's first step towards change would be thinking, counter-arguing, re-thinking, twisting, straightening, perfecting, then believing every original idea he intends to make public before making it public. There is always an angle from which an absolute truth may appear askew just as there is always a personal emotion, or a personal agenda, which alienates the ultimate good of mankind. — Criss Jami

RUMOUR:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. — William Shakespeare

Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go ahead. — Lee Kuan Yew

I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. — George Orwell

Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman? — Mahatma Gandhi

It [the Holocaust] is something like a religion ... The Intellectual Adventure is that we are reversing this entire trend within the space of one generation - that in a few years time no one will believe this particular legend anymore. They will say, as I do, that atrocities were committed. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, but there were no factories of death. All that is a blood libel against the German people. — David Irving

In Britain, libel damages are small and people build them into the cost of doing business. In America, libel is very rare and much harder to prove, but the damages are enormous. — Graydon Carter

I shall make it my business to take my chances in the matter of libel suits. — Victoria Woodhull

I tell the truth, and truth is the ultimate defense against libel. — Tucker Max

An editorial of the Journal AMA, Jan 8, 1949, discussed the Gerson Therapy under the heading 'Frauds and Fables'. At that time, Dr. Gerson's lawyer wrote a letter to the JAMA, threatening a suit for libel ... The editorial was withdrawn ... (leaving) columns which were blank. — Charlotte Gerson

Sometimes you feel as though you've slandered yourself, but the joke's on them. — Criss Jami

It is a libel to suggest that children need rewards for attending to tasks, apart from intrinsic interest and satisfaction. Children work very hard in their purposeful endeavors in the world, when they have ends they want to accomplish themselves. It is meaningless teaching, not learning, that demands irrelevant incentives. — Frank Smith

As she dressed that night, Lucy remembered Catherine's words: "If it's true, it isn't libel. — Leslie Meier

And this is as good a picture as any of how counterculture communities like the Haight took care of the war's mangled souls: a doctor from a hippie clinic carrying a dying, emaciated soldier in his arms. For decades after the war, up to this very day, right-wing politicians and pundits have spread the libel about how peace activists and hippies greeted returning Vietnam vets with gobs of spit and contempt. — David Talbot

The same law applies to me. Nobody has sued me for libel because I do not defame my enemies. — Lee Kuan Yew

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.
[Stage direction, Henry IV, Part 2, Induction] — William Shakespeare

There were moments when I wondered at the gossamer veil that stops licence from being libel. I suspect that taking on the job of England manager puts you outside the protection of the courts. It must be part of the job description that you will be held hostage by media speculation and can have your character tortured, molested and finally executed at the public whim, in exchange for a lifetime's supply of money. — A.A. Gill

Newspapermen learn to call a murderer "an alleged murderer" and the King of England "the alleged King of England" in order to avoid libel suits. — Stephen Leacock

Titles are tinsel, power a corrupter, glorya bubble, and excessive wealth a libel on its possessor. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true. — Criss Jami

People of religious distinction maintain that human beings exclusively possess souls, on the strength of which they may gain admittance to heaven.

Only human beings lie, devise pogroms, murder for recreation, steal, libel, slander and perform crossword puzzles. This says nothing new about the condition of being human, but it does help to illuminate the special contributions of the soul. — Brooke McEldowney

Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy. — William Hazlitt

Elizabeth Taylor is pre-feminist woman. This is the source of her continuing greatness and relevance. She wields the sexual power that feminism cannot explain and has tried to destroy. Through stars like Taylor, we sense the world-disordering impact of legendary women like Delilah, Salome, and Helen of Troy. Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary clich?. But the femme fatale expresses women's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all men's relations with women. — Camille Paglia

In a world that loves lies, truth is subject to the greatest libels. — Orrin Woodward

had come out and said - if not in so many words - that he was innocent of libel and that another truth existed. Precisely because she had not used the word "innocent," his innocence — Stieg Larsson

Libel settles nothing. — George Orwell

We want to protect freedom of speech, but it is not unlimited freedom of speech. There has always been rules around defamation, slander and libel, and in Victoria, we have effective rules on racial and religious vilification. — Denis Napthine

The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts. — Bill Maher

Although much has been written of the exploits of Canadians who answered the call to arms in World Wars I and II, nothing has been written about the young men who flocked to join the Cold War. Thanks to Canada's menacing presence, Russia has never invaded Germany.
The author menaced Russia, as a fighter pilot based in NATO Europe during the 1950s. Much of the material herein is derived from his diaries of that period. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Accounts have been embellished. No harm or libel is intended. The harm is to the author's self-image. The diaries reveal that he was brash and intolerant. He considers it one of life's miracles that his friends put up with him. — R.J. Childerhose

Banning guns because of their misuse is like banning the First Amendment because one might libel or slander. — Ron Paul

Now that the very name "space" seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it 'dead'; he felt life pouring in at every moment. — C.S. Lewis

If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy ... to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous ... let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb."
[Letter Addressed To The Addressers On The Late Proclamation, 1792 (Paine's response to the charge of "seditious libel" brought against him after the publication of The Rights of Man)] — Thomas Paine

Oscar Wilde was suing the Marquis of Queensbury in 1895 for libel accusing Wilde of homosexuality
Counsel: Have you ever adored a young man madly?
Wilde: I have never given adoration to anyone except myself. — Oscar Wilde

It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using blanks or asterisks. — James Payn

Wart hogs should sue for libel. It is a terrible name and they are fine fellows and devoted family men and it is rare to see one by himself; the little woman and the kiddies are usually close at hand. — Ilka Chase

Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible. — Sarah Palin

And it does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the sub-sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages- all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronized, put-down and underpaid person.' — Doris Lessing

I mean, in some cases with libel laws, you know, they can write things about people who have no course of action, because they can't afford to take legal action against them. — Elton John

I've made a lot of enemies in all the right places, and there aren't enough hours in the day to respond to either the well-financed corporate hacks or the lowly stalkers who seek to libel me or make a buck off the fact that I'm a well-known person. — Michael Moore

Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary cliche. But the femme fatale expresses woman's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all of men's relationships with women. — Camille Paglia

Consider the Holocaust: the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi death camps was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominately secular way, its roots were religious, and the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued throughout the period. The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914.*3 And both Catholic and Protestant churches have a shameful record of complicity with the Nazi genocide. Auschwitz, — Sam Harris

Seditious libel is the doctrine that flourished in England during and after the Star Chamber. It is the hallmark of closed societies throughout the world. Under it, criticism of government is viewed as defamation and punished as a crime. — Harry Kalven

The libel laws in Australia are a lot tougher than they are in America. — Jacki Weaver

More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels. — John Selden

No other country in the world gives protection like that, but it is not absolute protection. People sometimes meet that high burden and win libel suits, and in those cases I think they ought to win. — Floyd Abrams

To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?
[To the Women of India (Young India, Oct. 4, 1930)] — Mahatma Gandhi

It is as though in the middle of a chess tournament one competitor should suddenly begin screaming that the other is guilty of arson or bigamy. The point that is really at issue remains untouched. Libel settles nothing ... — George Orwell

The Christian should never have to put others down in order to feel good about himself. Instead, he can simply check out the media's insistent portrayal of Christianity and feel grateful that he isn't as deceived as the masses who really swallow the garbage. Ignorance is ultimately how people put themselves down, and the mere Christian who knows what entails the mere Christian is ultimately free from such. — Criss Jami

It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world. — Richard Dawkins

Saying someone is gay who is gay no longer constitutes defamation or slander or libel. You cannot defame someone by telling the truth. — Larry Kramer

Ay - 'The Green Fool' business, the libel action over the head of it - did me a lot of damage. It destroyed the momentum. — Patrick Kavanagh

It's a libel to say that I use my newspapers to support my other business interests. The fact is, I haven't got any other business interests. — Rupert Murdoch

The Conservative party found him an embarrassment because he was apt to criticize the party leader in public, the Liberals naturally wanted to defeat him, and the newspapers were out to get him. It was a dreadful campaign on his part, for he lost his head, bullied his electors when he should have wooed them, and got into a wrangle with a large newspaper, which he threatened to sue for libel. He was defeated on election day so decisively that it was obviously a personal rather than a political rejection. — Robertson Davies

Every libel, which is called famosus libellus, is made either against a private man, or against a public person. If it be against a private man, it deserves a severe punishment. — Edward Coke

Journalists who make mistakes get sued for libel; historians who make mistakes get to publish a revised edition. — Bill Moyers

No significant American group hates like the left does. If you differ with them - from global warming, to race relations, to same-sex marriage, to the extent of rape on college campuses - they will humiliate, defame, libel and try to economically crush you. — Dennis Prager

If God is good half the Bible is libel. — Michael R. Burch

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

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed. — William Shakespeare

The blood libel took possession of the popular mind most rabidly in Germany, where the well-poisoning charge too had originated in the 12th century. — Barbara W. Tuchman

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more ... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.
[I saw hate in a graveyard
Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005] — Stephen Fry

Libel actions, when we look at them in perspective, are an ornament of a civilized society. They have replaced, after all, at least in most cases, a resort to weapons in defense of a reputation. — Henry Anatole Grunwald

All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up. — Ian Hislop

If when I am libelled I take no notice, the world believes the libel. If I sue, I have to pay about one hundred pounds' costs for the privilege, and gain the smallest coin the country knows for recompense. — Charles Bradlaugh

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true. — G.K. Chesterton

In a society where dirt sells, for every good story told as it is, you will hear the whole of that day's 10 bad stories sensationalized; although in reality, it could be that 100 good deeds happened that day which went unsung. — Criss Jami

What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave. — Criss Jami

The problem is that in our country, they make it almost impossible for politicians to win anything. In England it's easier to win a libel suit. — Rand Paul

Morgan was sent copies and decided to sue both publishers for libel. — David Cordingly

The Bible urges us to be respectful to all people, especially people with whom we have disagreements, to never libel people, to never label people. — Max Lucado

Every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart. — Theodore Dwight Weld

Middle-aged adolescents are a libel on the real thing. — Mason Cooley

Keep your finger on the pulse of society, take controversies with a grain of salt, lick your finger and then lift it to the wind; always know what is going on, my friend, so this world can never steer you wrong again. — Criss Jami

Then I thought about Adrian. My old friend who had killed himself. And this had been the last communication he had ever received from me. A libel on his character and an attempt to destroy the first and last love affair of his life. And when I had written that time would tell, I had underestimated, or rather miscalculated: time was telling not against them, it was telling against me. — Julian Barnes

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel. — James Thurber

Wild Bill had his faults, grievous ones, perhaps ... He would get drunk, gamble, and indulge in the general licentiousness characteristic of the border in the early days, yet even when full of the vile libel of the name of whiskey which was dealt over the bars at exorbitant prices, he was gentle as a child, unless aroused to anger by intended insults ... He was loyal in his friendship, generous to a fault, and invariably espoused the cause of the weaker against the stronger one in a quarrel. — Jack Crawford

The Italians are said to be noisy and to gesticulate, but that is a libel dreamed up by the English. — Jean Giono

For what is history, but ... huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species. — Washington Irving

His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for libel, and have recovered heavy damages. — Charles Dickens

Those who have greatest cause for guilt and shame
Are quickest to besmirch a neighbour's name.
When there's a chance for libel, they never miss it;
When something can be made to seem illicit
They're off at once to spread the joyous news,
Adding to fact what fantasies they choose.
By talking up their neighbour's indiscretions
They seek to camouflage their own transgressions,
Hoping that other's innocent affairs
Will lend camouflage to theirs,
Or that their own black guilt will come to seem
Part of a gerenal shady color-sheme — Moliere

There isn't any way to libel the human race. — Mark Twain

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down. — Jonathan Swift

Victor Klemperer, a literary scholar of Jewish origin, turned his philological training against Nazi propaganda. He noticed how Hitler's language rejected legitimate opposition: The people always meant some people and not others (the president uses the word in this way), encounters were always struggles (the president says winning), and any attempt by free people to understand the world in a different way was defamation of the leader (or, as the president puts it, libel). Politicians — Timothy Snyder

The Latin proverb, homo homini lupus - man is a wolf to man - ... is a libel on the wolf, which is a gentle animal with other wolves. — Geoffrey Gorer

The greater the truth the greater the libel. — Edward Law, 1st Earl Of Ellenborough

As any editor will tell you, startling newsroom revelations are generally met with queries about where the information came from and how the reporter got it. Seriously startling revelations are followed by the vetting of libel lawyers. — Graydon Carter

Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The — A.W. Tozer

When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. — J. William Fulbright

Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on. — Anne Lamott

I've stopped caring about skeptics, but if they libel or defame me they will end up in court. — Uri Geller

No case of libel by a negro against a white would even reach a southern court. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

A reckoning is coming on the state of the internet journalism, because right now, the way it's set up, there is so much room for libel to squeak through that you're going to see ... they're going to rewrite the rule book on journalism very soon. They have to, because the bloggers are getting away with so much rumor-mongering about public officials and even private figures because they don't have editors and they don't have fact checkers and they don't have lawyers. There is going to be a price to pay somewhere down the line. — Rod Lurie

You can not libel the dead, I think, you can only console them. — Anne Enright