"Calumniate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations; he therefore appeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving the dining-room, ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... if he would confess his crime and accuse the queen; but he generously rejected the proposal, and said that in his conscience he believed her entirely guiltless: but for his part, he could accuse her of nothing, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than calumniate ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... saying, that the wildest colts make the best horses, if they only get properly trained and broken in. But those who upon this fasten stories of their own invention, as of his being disowned by his father, and that his mother died for grief of her son's ill fame, certainly calumniate him; and there are others who relate, on the contrary, how that to deter him from public business, and to let him see how the vulgar behave themselves towards their leaders when they have at last no farther use of them, his father showed him the old galleys as they lay forsaken and cast about ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... safe until you hear from Valmy; let no one but Villon or yourself have speech with him. Such a liar would calumniate the King himself. Now, Stephen, the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... as an article or term of communion. It is the infallibility of the whole church, whether assembled in a general council, or dispersed over the world, of which they speak in their controversial disputations. Yet this writer, at every turn, confounds these two things together only to calumniate and impose on the public. If he had proved that some popes had erred in faith, he would have no more defeated the article of supremacy, than he would disinherit a king by arraigning him of bad policy. The Catholic ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... more easily able to calumniate Metellus for the reason that the latter was numbered among the nobles and was managing military concerns excellently, whereas he himself was just beginning to come forward from a very obscure and doubtful ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... "you misunderstand and calumniate us. We do not, indeed, choose to have Dives and Lazarus on our windows; but that is not because we are moderns, but because we are Protestants, and do not like religious imagery." Pardon me: that is not the reason. Go into any fashionable lady's boudoir in Paris, and see if you will ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... peace of our liege lord, Augustus Caesar, his crown and dignity, and against the form of a statute, in that case made and provided, have moat ignorantly, foolishly, and, more like yourselves, maliciously, gone about to deprave, and calumniate the person and writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, here present, poet, and priest to the Muses, and to that end have mutually conspired and plotted, at sundry times, as by several means, and in sundry places, for the better accomplishing your base and envious purpose, taxing him falsely, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... ruin with a blood-thirstiness which nothing can assuage. They have now spread a report that you are not married. This infamous calumny—" "Ah, is that all?' said I with joy; "no, my dear Lebel, this time they do not calumniate me. The worthy creatures for once are right." "What," said Lebel, in a tone of alarm almost comic, "what, are you really not married?" "No." "Are you not the wife of the comte Guillaume du Barry?" "No." "Then you ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... these things to writing at the time, but I do now, because, in a suit between him and Cheetham, he has had a deposition of Mr. Bayard taken which seems to have no relation to the suit, nor to any other object than to calumniate me. Bayard pretends to have addressed to me, during the pending of the presidential election in February, 1801, through General Samuel Smith, certain conditions on which my election might be obtained; and that General ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and, in the tone of a man who knows much more than he is willing to say,—"Do not calumniate Maxence," he said: "it is through him, perhaps, that we will receive the help that ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... of the common scold—the last word; but I will not leave to him, in any discussion with me, the last argument, or the last semblance of it. He has crowned the audacity of this debate by venturing to rise here and calumniate me. He said that I came here, took an oath to support the Constitution, and yet determined not to support a particular clause in that Constitution. To that statement I give, to his face, the flattest denial. When it was made on a former occasion on this floor by the absent Senator from South ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... all Cowley had to endure; the royal party seemed disposed to calumniate him. When Cowley was young he had hastily composed the comedy of "The Guardian;" a piece which served the cause of loyalty. After the Restoration, he rewrote it under the title of "Cutter of Coleman Street;" a comedy which may still be read with equal curiosity and interest: a spirited picture ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... and reproach, but the reason of this their ungodly practice is this, they fear not God. For did they fear him, they would be afraid to so much as think, much more of attempting to afflict and destroy, and calumniate the children of God; but such there have been, such there are, and such there will be in the world, for all men fear ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... misfortune, then," continued the captain, "I have resolved to furnish to those who calumniate you, a proof of the confidence which may be placed in you, by giving you the post ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... be told: We need not fear—we can justify ourselves before God and man. I shall be reminded of all that has been done, and done well too, for the poor during the last generation, and bidden not to calumniate my countrymen. True, much has been done; and done well. And true also it is that no effort to make the rich and poor meet together, to bring the different classes of society into contact with each other, but has succeeded—has sown good seed—which I trust may bring forth good ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... take shapes that most weaken, beguile, and unman us, and small wonder if many of us succumb. But this other sin is wilful. Not only have Gentile officers, Federal officers, come among us and been let to insult, abuse, calumniate, and to trample upon our most sacred ordinances, but we have consorted, traded, and held relations with the Gentiles that pass by us. You have the term 'winter Mormons,' a generation of vipers who come here, marry your daughters in the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... Beaumarchais's play, might have added some very pregnant advice to his memorable counsel, "Calomniez, calomniez, il en resultera toujours quelque chose." He should have taught the world—if the world wants teaching—how to calumniate. The following recipe will be found, I think, infallible. If your enemy be a man of studious and retired habits, hint that he has gone mad; if you see him alone at a theatre or at church, report that he is separated from his wife; and in any case, declare that he drinks. He can't disprove ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... of which is to show that all organic beings, man included, are in a perpetual progress of amelioration, and that is expounded in the reverential language which we have quoted.") will be hostile, but that "he will not calumniate the author." He says he has read my book, "at least such parts as he could understand." He sent me some notes and suggestions (quite unimportant), and they show me that I have unavoidably done harm to the subject, by publishing ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... hearing that only one of the Roland brothers had been made heir to a stranger; but have not such natures as she always similar notions, without a shadow of foundation, about every honest woman? Do they not, whenever they speak, vilify, calumniate, and abuse all whom they believe to be blameless? Whenever a woman who is above imputation is mentioned in their presence, they are as angry as if they were being insulted, and exclaim: "Ah, yes, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... M. Bertomy, "victim! Dare you utter your insinuations against the honorable man who has taken care of you, loaded you with benefits, and had insured you a brilliant future! It is enough for you to have robbed him; do not calumniate him." ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... the transport of munitions to the Allies. In Greece vast sums were cheerfully disbursed by Baron Schenk to work the elections and defeat Venizelos. Roumania was overrun by bands of Germans whose functions were to calumniate, vilify, corrupt and threaten. Spain has been wrought upon in like manner by a small army of Teutons abundantly supplied with the same weapons. Persia was scoured by German agitators who deployed all ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... itself is virtue, as well as privilege; but freedom of the seas does not mean piracy, nor freedom of the land, brigandage; nor freedom of the senate, freedom to cudgel a dissident member; nor freedom of the press, freedom to calumniate and lie. So, if patriotism be a virtue indeed, it cannot mean an exclusive devotion to our country's interests,—for that is only another form of devotion to personal interests, family interests, or provincial interests, all of which, if not driven past themselves, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... were understood to imply a serious censure on the opinions of the vice president: and the great object of the national gazette, a paper known to be edited by a clerk in the department of state, was "to calumniate and blacken public characters, and, particularly, to destroy the public confidence in the secretary of the treasury, who was to be hunted down for the unpardonable sin of having been the steady and invariable friend of broad principles of national government." It was also said that his ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... towards [our own gain by] the finding of {98} beaver; the outlay he was forced to incur was described as dissipation; and his narratives were spoken of as a pack of lies. Envy as it exists in this country is no half envy; its principle is to calumniate furiously in the hope that if even half of what is said finds favour, it will be enough to injure. In point of fact, my father, thus opposed, had to his sorrow been obliged more than once to return ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... should get over this part of my domestic history. The base vermin, some of them, I know, expected that I should follow the example of higher authority and traduce my wife, as a justification for my own errors and frailties. Gracious God!—traduce my wife!—calumniate the mother of my children! Rather than have been guilty of such baseness, rather than have done this, even if she had been exactly the reverse of what she is, instead of being all truth, purity and goodness, if she had been guilty of some errors and indiscretions, even then I would rather have plucked ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... profane and insufficiently prepared ears. Moreover, all the Mysteries that are celebrated everywhere throughout Greece and barbarous countries, although held in secret, have no discredit thrown upon them, so that it is in vain he endeavors to calumniate the secret doctrines of Christianity, seeing that he does not correctly ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... had listened to Ena Rolls's warnings and had taken them deeply to heart. It had seemed to her impossible that a sister could, for any motive whatever, calumniate a brother whom she loved. And then, Win had reminded herself that her own ignorance of men was profound They were said to be "all alike" in some dreadful ways, even those who seemed the noblest, the most chivalrous—or more especially those. So she had believed Ena's words, against her ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... and made a slave. His age and infirmities induced his master, at length, to sell him to some Christian merchants; and after an absence of several years from his beloved Venice, he suddenly appeared, to the astonishment and mortification of a party who had never ceased to calumniate him; while his own noble family were compelled to preserve an indignant silence, having had no communications with their lost and enslaved relative. Magius now returned to vindicate his honour, to reinstate himself in the favour ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... sir," replied I, "I am very much obliged for your kind and considerate conduct; there are more who are inclined to calumniate than to defend." ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... desire to calumniate her? For shame, Earwaker! A poor widow toiling to support herself in a foreign country, with two ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the ancient Gentile world (as it is called) was before the time of the Jews, whose practice has been to calumniate and blacken the character of all other nations; and it is from the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them heathens. But, as far as we know to the contrary, they were a just and moral people, and not addicted, like the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... thousand grins; but if in the house of the same friend or another thou shouldst happen to stumble upon him, deal with him as though thy previous conversation had broken off but five minutes previously; but should he be proud and have all nothing to say unto thee, forthwith calumniate him to thine acquaintance as ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler |
