Quotes about slander

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.

— Joseph Addison

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.

— George Bancroft

Slander is a poison which kills charity, both in the slanderer and the one who listens.

— St. Bernard

Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

— Ambrose Bierce

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.

— Benjamin Franklin

A generous confession disarms slander.

— Thomas Fuller

Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.

— William Hazlitt

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

— Herodotus

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

— Samuel Johnson

You have got to be careful quoting Ronald Reagan, because when you quote him accurately it is called mudslinging.

— Fritz Mondale

Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.

— Plato

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.

— Titus Maccius Plautus

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.

— Edgar Allan Poe

Slander expires at a good woman's door.

— Danish Proverb

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

— William Shakespeare

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

— Socrates

I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

— Adlai E. Stevenson

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

— Mary Stewart

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.

— Leon Trotsky

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.

— Mark Twain

What is said of a man is nothing. The point is, who says it.

— Oscar Wilde

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.

— A. N. Wilson