A generous confession disarms slander.
A man calumniated is doubly injured — first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.
Backbite. To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.
Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.
I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with. How shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has? Answer. Commend her among her female acquaintances.
I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.
In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.
It is harder to kill a whisper than even a shouted calumny.
It takes an enemy and a friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart. The one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.
Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.
Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish that, when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens the water about him till he becomes invisible.
Slander expires at a good woman's door.
Slander is a poison which kills charity, both in the slanderer and the one who listens.
Slander-mongers and those who listen to slander, if I had my way, would all be strung up, the talkers by the tongue, the listeners by the ears.
Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.
The slanders poured down like Niagara. If you take into consideration the setting — the war and the revolution — and the character of the accused — revolutionary leaders of millions who were conducting their party to the sovereign power — you can say without exaggeration that July 1917 was the month of the most gigantic slander in world history.
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.