"Detraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resumed, taking the usual course from detraction to insincere eulogy, "because of my gratitude and respect towards my cousin. It would not signify so much in a man whose talents and character ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... mother noble; since, being naught, So stiff thou stand'st for him who is nothing now, And swear'st we came not as commanders here Of all the Achaean navy, nor of thee; But Aias sailed, thou say'st, with absolute right. Must we endure detraction from a slave? What was the man thou noisest here so proudly? Have I not set my foot as firm and far? Or stood his valour unaccompanied In all this host? High cause have we to rue That prize-encounter for Pelides' ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... seize the opportunity of venting long secreted venom. This has appeared as well in books as in more ephemeral publications, and upon both sides, and even between writers on the same side. On every hand there has been a most deplorable impeachment of motive, accompanied by a detraction of character by imputation which is quite shocking. Petty personal slights have been insinuated as the ultimate cause of an expression of opinion upon an important literary question, and testimony has been impeached and judgment disparaged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... signed himself "affectionately" it meant that he really loved. Enmities he had none. If ever he had suffered injuries they were forgiven, forgotten, and buried out of sight. Even in the controversies where his strongest convictions were involved, he steadily abstained from bitterness, violence, and detraction. "Fiery hatred and malice," he said, with perfect truth, "are what I detest, and would always allay or avoid ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... of some newspapers, but not of mine,' I answered. 'But I will do this: I will print your article separately, and furnish you with as many copies as you want, and you can distribute them where you please, but I will not lumber my columns with detraction, and insult patrons to whom I am pledged to furnish a good paper for their families.' The party did not accept my proposition, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... among the great powers of the earth, and our relief from all future aggressions, encroachments, and annoyances of the mother country. From the day when our independence was declared, America has been an eyesore to all the leading Governments of Europe—the object of detraction and bitter hostility, of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. And though these feelings have been partially concealed under the cloak of studied politeness and false, hollow-hearted friendship, occasions enough have been given for them ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... He touched thy lips, and every word of thine Vibrates on chords whose deep electric thrill Shall never cease till that wide wound be healed. And then He took thee home. Ay, home, great heart! Home to His home, where never envious tongue, Nor vile detraction, nor base ingratitude, Nor cold neglect, shall sting the quiv'ring heart. Thou endedst well. One step from earth to Heaven, When His voice called "Friend, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... producer, are a number of others, whose productive powers and actual yield also are unknown to him. Each strives, with all the means at his command—cheap prices, advertisements, long credit, drummers, also secret and crafty detraction of the quality of the goods of his competitor, the last of which is a measure that flourishes particularly at critical moments—to drive all other competitors from the field. Production is wholly left to accident and to the judgment of individuals. Accident ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... just as painters heighten the effect of their pictures by the combination of light and shade, so by censure abuse detraction and ridicule of the opposite virtues secretly praise and foment the actual vices of those they flatter. Thus they censure modesty as merely rustic behaviour in the company of profligates, and greedy people, and villains, and such as have got rich by evil and dishonourable ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the detail of their errors and imperfections; and it will turn away with disgust and horror from petty scandal and evil-speaking, as offensive to benevolent feeling. It is a kind of moral sense, which recoils from detraction ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... false infamy, that is to say, by detraction which frightens virtue. Envy must be represented with the hands raised to heaven in contempt, because if she could she would use her power against God. Make her face covered with a goodly mark; show her as wounded in the ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... not be enjoyed without exciting the malevolence of envy and detraction, in the propagation of which none were so industrious as the brethren of his own order, who had, like him, made a descent upon this island, and could not, without repining, see the whole harvest in the hands of one man, who, with equal art and discretion, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... northerners quite ready to grant these demands. Rage against abolitionism, much of it, if possible, even more unreasoning, prevailed at the North. Garrison says that he found here "contempt more bitter, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among slave-owners themselves." The Church, politics, business—all interests save righteousness—seemed to bow to the false god. Of all utterances against abolitionism, those of clergymen ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the inconstancy and ingratitude of the whole kingdom to the Duke of M[arlborough], in return of the most eminent services that ever were performed by a subject to his country; not to be equalled in history. And then to be sure some bitter stroke of detraction against Alexander and Caesar, who never did us the least injury. Besides, the people that read Plutarch come upon us with parallels drawn from the Greeks and Romans, who ungratefully dealt with I know not how many of their most deserving generals: while ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... burst out. The wealthy trader, however he may abstract himself from publick affairs, will never want those who hint, with Shylock, that ships are but boards. The beauty, adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence and modesty, provokes, whenever she appears, a thousand murmurs of detraction. The genius, even when he endeavours only to entertain or instruct, yet suffers persecution from innumerable criticks, whose acrimony is excited merely by the pain of seeing others pleased, and of hearing applauses ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... that its daughters are unfittingly assigned by Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 45), who says that from envy arise "hatred, tale-bearing, detraction, joy at our neighbor's misfortunes, and grief for his prosperity." For joy at our neighbor's misfortunes and grief for his prosperity seem to be the same as envy, as appears from what has been said above (A. 3). Therefore these should not be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... camps and cities, &c. In highly figurative language, this stanza pictures the passage of Urania from 'her secret paradise' to the death-chamber of Adonais in Rome, as if the spiritual essence and external form of the goddess were wounded by the uncongenial atmosphere of human malice and detraction through which she has to pass. The whole description is spiritualized from that of Bion ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... and ephemeral, and copies are now rare and not easily come by. Both in the comprehensiveness of their charges and in the slashing hatred which informs them (however feeble the verse), One Epistle and The Blatant Beast offer as fair a sample as any two such pamphlets can of the calumny, detraction, and critical misunderstanding Pope endured, for the most part patiently, from the publication of his Essay on Criticism to the year of his death. "Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past," (Epistle to Arbuthnot, l. 358) he exclaimed ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... "Detraction's a bold monster, and fears not To wound the fame of princes, if it find But any blemish in their lives to work ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... passionate and unavailing protest. For hours she had sobbed, and when she went out into the world the next day, it was with his every word ringing in her ears, as they had rung ever since: the sceptic comment at every feast, the ironical laughter behind every door, the whispered detraction in every loud accent ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... detraction," called Cora, who had been close enough to hear the sisters' remarks. "I would not have been in your place at that table, Bess, for a ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... somewhat relieved by expression, she became ashamed of her unsociability, and Major Fane's next topic was not uncongenial. He was airing his cherished grudge, and pronouncing a severe philippic on the belles of the Dominion. Cecil was incapable of detraction, or envy at another's greater success; but in the face of Bertie's abduction of Lilla before her eyes, she did not feel particularly in charity with any ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... finished, as we have seen, the "Iliad" in 1718; but the fifth and sixth volumes, which were the last, did not appear till 1720. Its success, which at the time was triumphant, roused against him the whole host of envy and detraction. Dennis, and all Grub Street with him, were moved to assail him. Pamphlets after pamphlets were published, all of which, after reading with writhing anguish, Pope had the resolution to bind up into volumes—a great collection of calumny, which he preserved, probably, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Scipio, one had need of much wisdom and wariness to be able to entertain a conversation for two hours, without approaching the confines of evil speaking. In my own case, for instance, brute as I am, I see that with every fourth phrase I utter, words full of malice and detraction come to my tongue like flies to wine. I therefore say again that doing and speaking evil are things we inherit from our first parents, and suck in with our mother's milk. This is manifest in the fact, that hardly is a boy out of swaddling ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... own, madam, I have no pleasure in their conversation. I have myself no gratification in uttering detraction, and therefore none in ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... stage-coach, in which anyone who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... true that amidst the general applause the voice of detraction made itself heard. The defenders of Londonderry were men of two nations and of two religions. During the siege, hatred of the Irishry had held together all Saxons; and hatred of Popery had held together all Protestants. But, when the danger was over, the Englishman and the Scotchman, the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... troublesome in this plot. He had served in the campaign about Philadelphia but had been blocked in his extravagant demands for promotion; so he turned for redress to Gates, the star in the north. A malignant campaign followed in detraction of Washington. He had, it was said, worn out his men by useless marches; with an army three times as numerous as that of Howe, he had gained no victory; there was high fighting quality in the American army if properly led, but Washington despised the ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... whose thrift is usurie, meales gluttonie, exercise cousenage, whose valour bragardrie, Astolpheidas, or Rodomontadas, or if it come to action, crueltie; whose communication is Atheisme, contention, detraction, or Paillardise, most of lewdness, seld of vertue, never of charitie; whose spare-time is vanitie or villanie: yet will I not deale by them, as they doe by others. I like not reproofe where it pertaines not to me: But if they like to see their owne pictures in lively colours of their own ornaments, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... from Tennessee [Mr. Stanton] who has just taken his seat, indeed, has said there is very little, if any, difference on this question between General Taylor and all the Presidents; and he seems to think it sufficient detraction from General Taylor's position on it that it has nothing new in it. But all others whom I have heard speak assail it furiously. A new member from Kentucky [Mr. Clark], of very considerable ability, was in particular concerned about it. He ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... land and subjects. His grander dream had been a marriage with a lady of so glowing a fame for beauty and attachment to her lord that the world perforce must take her for witness to merits which would silence detraction and almost, not quite (it was undesireable), extinguish envy. But for the nature of women his dream would have been realized. He could not bring himself to denounce Fortune. It had cost him a grievous pang to tell Horace De Craye he was lucky; he had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... self-consciousness. How can a tall man help thinking of his size, when dwarfs are constantly on tiptoe beside him?—Paracelsus was a braggart and a quack; so was Cardan; but it was their merits, and not their follies, which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write concerning themselves, that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff too, though not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... liege and approve thereof; but now tell me what is incumbent in keeping the tongue from lying and folly and slandering good names and excess in speech."—"It behoveth a man to speak naught but good and kindness and to talk not of that which toucheth him not, to leave detraction nor carry tale he hath heard from one man to his enemy, neither seek to harm his friend nor his foe with his Sultan and reck not of any (neither of him from whom he hopeth for good nor of him whom he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... to hear adverse criticism is a mere pose, while with others it is cynicism. In intercourse with the uneducated, any well-bred person is properly shocked by their pleasure in detraction and in bad news of all sorts. But the detestable people who seek every occasion to vilify, and who wish to hear only harm of the world, are so exceptional as to be negligible. These rare villains are eliminated when one speaks of inability to distinguish ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... the supplication that he might be preserved from atheism, impiety and profaneness; that he might be loyal to his prince; that he might be gracious to those below him; that he might refrain from calumny and detraction; that he might be sincere in friendship, just in his dealings, grateful to his benefactors, patient in affliction; that he might have tenderness for the weak, and that, rejoicing in the good of others, he might ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... should dissent from. The State Register may do the same. All the "Woman's Rights" women claim is fair play and truthful criticism. They object, however, to any misstatements. They are willing to fall before truth, but not before detraction. The State Register will please notice and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... child without a mother." [Footnote: Prolem sine matre creatam, on the title-page.] Nor is the claim altogether unfounded, although any reader familiar with the "Politics" of Aristotle can hardly fail to observe the resemblance between that great book and the other. Nor is it a detraction from the genius of Montesquieu to say that the comparison will not be ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... I cannot help remarking, that young women do not always carefully distinguish between running into the error of detraction, and its opposite extreme of indiscriminate applause. This proceeds from the false idea they entertain, that the direct contrary to what is wrong must be right. Thus the dread of being only suspected of one fault makes them actually guilty of another. The desire of ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... high authority, I have not a thought of detraction. None can venerate the NESTORS in science who have enriched its annals, more than I, and though we reverse their judgments, their errors are confessedly our indispensable helps ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... Naval Academy, behind which at its beginning lay the initiative of some of the most reputed and accomplished senior officers of the navy, conscious of the needless difficulties they themselves had had to surmount in reaching the level they had. It involved no detraction from their professional excellence, the excellence of men professionally self-made; but none comprehend the advantages of education better than candid men who have made their way without it. By the time I entered, however, there had been a decided, though ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... treasury." (Geddes, Miscellaneous Tracts, vol. i. p. 71.) "Il n'est point d'hostilite excellente comme la Chrestienne," says old Montaigne; "nostre zele faict merveilles, quand il va secondant nostre pente vers la haine, la cruante, l'ambition, l'avarice, la detraction, la rebellion. Nostre religion est faicte pour extirper les vices; elle les couvre, les nourrit, les incite." Essais, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Discord. And where is hatred deepest and deadliest? Among the wicked. Yet they often hate the good. True: but not goodness, not the good man's virtues; these they envy, and hate him for possessing them. But more commonly the object of dislike is first stripped of his virtues by detraction; the detractor then supplies their place by the needful vices,—perhaps with his own; then, indeed, he is ripe for hatred. When a sinful act is made personal, it is another affair; it then becomes a part of the man; ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... worth to raise, Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse, We may justly now accuse 10 Of detraction from her praise, Less then half we find exprest, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... person who understood him, and never grated for an instant on his high ideal. Her temper also was the sweetest in the world, eminent as her generous spirit. She spoke of others with so much kindness, and never indulged in that spirit of detraction or that love of personal gossip which Tancred had frankly told her he abhorred. Somehow or other it seemed that their tastes ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Scriptures fifty years ago! His old teachers in Paris were up in arms: Sylvius, nostrae aetatis medicorum decus, as Vesalius calls him, wrote furious letters, and later spoke of him as a madman (vaesanus). The younger men were with him and he had many friends, but he had aroused a roaring tide of detraction against which he protested a few years later in his work on the "China-root," which is full of details about the "Fabrica." In a fit of temper he threw his notes on Galen and other MSS. in the fire. No sadder ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... against him. Spenser did not forget this, when in the Faery Queen he shadowed forth Lord Grey's career in the adventures of Arthegal, the great Knight of Justice, met on his return home from his triumphs by the hags, Envy and Detraction, and the braying of the hundred tongues of the Blatant Beast. Irish lords and partisans, calling themselves loyal, when they could not get what they wanted, or when he threatened them for their insincerity or insolence, at once ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... wanting, according to the testimony of the witness who, on his own account, certainly did not object to chronicle detraction of every kind. "The speech was admired, except by Brougham, who appeared in a considerable state of excitement. He said to Peel (whom he was standing near, and with whom he was not in the habit of communicating), '"amelioration;" that is not English. You ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... in thee and all strong powers, All virile force that overcomes detraction; Filled full, for immortality, O Soma, Take to thyself the highest praise in heaven. The sacrifice shall all embrace—whatever Places thou hast, revered with poured oblations. Home-aider, Soma, furtherer with good heroes, Not hurting heroes, to our houses come thou. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... law and the prophets, but the very life and spirit of the Gospel too: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." Which rule, that we may all duly observe, by throwing aside all scandal and detraction, all spite and rancour, all rudeness and contempt, all rage and violence, and whatever tends to make conversation and commerce either uneasy, or troublesome, may the God of peace grant for Jesus Christ his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... statue, "may regard me with envy; but I despise the world, particularly the critics who have dared to laugh at me. (Groans.) The object of my ambition is attained—I am now the equal and representative of Shakspere—detraction cannot wither the laurels that shadow my brows—Finis coronat opus!—I have done. To-morrow I retire into private life; but though fortune has made me great, she has not made me proud, and I shall be always happy to shake hands with a friend when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... thoughts as pure as the chaste morning's breath, When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away, Were clothed in words. —Sir J. Suckling—Detraction Execrated ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been left to the oblivion which inevitably awaits it, nor should my pen have been employed in its detection and exposure, had it not been characterized by the lowest attempts at concealment and treachery, falsehood and detraction.—Like Iago in the play, a wretched abandonment of character, a destitution of principle, and a fiend-like thirst for revenge, accompany the author thro' the whole of his progress, and appear to acquire additional force, ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... Underestimation. — N. underestimation; depreciation &c. (detraction) 934; pessimism, pessimist; undervaluing &c. v.; modesty &c. 881. V. underrate, underestimate, undervalue, underreckon[obs3]; depreciate; disparage &c. (detract) 934; not do justice to; misprize, disprize; ridicule &c. 856; slight ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... agitation soon quieted down. From this time we hear no more of such disgraceful scenes, but it was long before the old "Family Compact" party forgave the Governor who had dared to be impartial. By many kinds of detraction they sought to weaken his influence and damage his popularity. And as the members of this party, though they had lost their monopoly of political power, still remained the dominant class in society, the ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the host, with wealth our chieftain load; Except detraction, what hast thou bestowed? Suppose some hero should his spoil resign, Art thou that hero? Could those spoils be thine? Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore, And let these eyes behold my son no more, If on thy next ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... reflechit rarement. Such strange vicissitudes of temper—such opposite extremes of thinking and feeling, written down at the moment, without noticing the intervening links of circumstances and impressions which led to them, would appear like detraction, if they should meet the eye of any indifferent person—but I think I have taken sufficient precautions against the possibility of such an exposure, and the only eyes which will ever glance over this blotted page, when ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... wickedly malicious in Mrs. Prudence to wound you; and we were all so anxious to shield you from every misgiving on your mother's account. Some actresses have brought opprobrium upon the profession, which certainly is rather dangerous, and subjects women to suspicion and detraction; but let me assure you, Regina, that there have been very noble, lovely, good ladies who made their bread exactly as your mother makes hers. There is no more brilliant, enviable, or stainless record among gifted women ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Detraction was not silent at the home-coming of the victor. The Missionary Society gave him to understand that he had not laboured sufficiently for the spread of the Gospel, and that he had been too much of an explorer and too little of a missionary. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... that you had purified her of all stains of her past—but there may be one that remains. And that in most people's eyes would be no detraction. You look puzzled, Miss Nott—but I am coming to the explanation and the end of my story. A ship of war was sent to the island to punish the mutineers and pirates, for such they were, but they could not be found. A private expedition was sent to discover ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... moreover, those to whom it is a marvel how any great man came by his name. The particular tribute, which in the pages that follow it is desired to pay to him, consists in the careful examination of just those actions and just those qualities of his upon which candid detraction has in fact fastened, or on which candid admiration has ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... scuttling your own ship. Now as I am in a way a practical person, which is, I take it, a diminutive state of hard-headedness, any detraction against hard-headedness must appear as leveled against myself. Gimlet in hand, deep down amidships, it would look as if I were squatted and set ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... openings of the two parts. VIII. The same tone and colouring prove the same authorship. IX. False statements made about Sejanus and Antonius Natalis for the purpose of blackening Tiberius and Nero. X. This spirit of detraction runs through Bracciolini's works. XI. Other resemblances denoting the same author. XII. Policy given to every subject another cause to believe both parts composed by a single writer. XIII. An absence of the power to depict differences in persons ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... hath sought to win me Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me From over-credulous haste: but God above Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself, For strangers ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... he could entrust his safety to. Having, therefore, escaped likewise from at least a third part of his cassock, which he willingly left as his exuviae or spoils to the enemy, he fled with the utmost speed he could summon to his assistance. Nor let this be any detraction from the bravery of his character: let the number of the enemies, and the surprize in which he was taken, be considered; and if there be any modern so outrageously brave that he cannot admit of flight in any circumstance ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... 468: My favourite author, Morhof, has spoken 'comme un brave homme' upon the difficulty of literary enterprizes, and the facility and venom of detraction: I support his assertion 'totis viribus'; and to beg to speak in the same person with himself. 'Non ignotum mihi est, quantae molis opus humeris meis incumbat. Oceanum enim ingressus sum, in quo ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... pleased to observe, that the equality of your ages, your sharing the same honours and preferments, and the vicinity of your respective studies and professions, has been so far from precipitating either of you into that envious detraction of the other's merit, which most people are tormented with, that, instead of wounding your mutual friendship, it has only served to increase and strengthen it; for, to my own knowlege, he had the ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... British Isles, has been lavished upon his scientific importance is being followed abroad by what may be an unnecessary amount of detraction. This is always the worst of setting up a man on too high a pinnacle; some one has to undertake the ungrateful task of pulling him down again. Justus von Liebig addressed himself to this task with some vigour in his Reden und Abhandlung (Leipzig, 1874), where ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... and, her hands so tightly clenched that the finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily at the wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a malicious magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the harm had been wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear freshness had gone. Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows under her eyes were brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? Now she was wilting—how many gardenias had she ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... virtue, which had wholly changed its nature and character, if public opinion had been different? But it is in truth of base extraction, and ungenerous qualities, springing from selfishness and vanity, and low ambition; by these it subsists, and thrives, and acts; and envy, and jealousy, and detraction, and hatred, and variance, are its too faithful and natural associates. It is, to say the best of it, a root which bears fruits of a poisonous as well as of a beneficial quality. If it sometimes stimulates to great and generous enterprises, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... twenty prizes"; and Nelson is reported to have calmly answered, "God bless you, Blackwood, I shall never speak to you again." His habit was to refer to death with eager frankness, and as though he were in love with it, without in the least showing any lack of alertness or detraction from the hazardous objects he had set himself to fulfil. His faith in the powerful aid of the Omnipotent was as unvarying in his sphere of warfare as was Cromwell's when he had the stern realities of human unruliness to steady and chastise. Nelson, like the latter, had in his peculiar ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the Chinese are being vociferously abused, it is only fair that we should give them credit for the good qualities which they do possess. I ask with Dr. William Elliott Griffis: "In talking of our brother men, what shall be our general principle, detraction or fair play? Because lackadaisical writers picture the Christless nations as in the innocence of Eden, shall we, at the antipodes of fact and truth, proceed to blacken their characters? Shall we compare the worst in Canton, Benares or Zululand, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... whole Train of Railers of each Side tire their Horses in setting Matters right which they have said during the War between the Parties; and a whole Circle of Acquaintance are put into a thousand pleasing Passions and Sentiments, instead of the Pangs of Anger, Envy, Detraction, and Malice. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to feel and acknowledge your merits; as I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army; as my heart has ever expanded with joy when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this last stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests. But how are they to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. 'If war continues, remove into the unsettled country; there establish ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... to serve yourself: So long as fifty eyes await the turn Of yours to forestall its yet half-formed wish, I'll proffer my assistance you'll not need— When every tongue is praising you, I'll join The praisers' chorus—when you're hemmed about With lives between you and detraction—lives To be laid down if a rude voice, rash eye, Rough hand should violate the sacred ring Their worship throws about you,—then indeed, Who'll stand up for you stout as I?" If so We said, and so we ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... qualities which insured his success as a soldier had not enabled him to succeed as a statesman, but he displayed the same fortitude under apparent disaster and courage at unexpected crises when he found himself again passing "the wilderness," darkened, not with the smoke of battle, but with detraction and denunciation. Again, in the old spirit he exclaimed, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... at the seeming duplicity which denied its existence, the whole question would have sunk into the abeyance in which in France or Germany, it to-day exists. They kept it alive. And what have not the antivivisectionists suffered by detraction, by ridicule, by misrepresentation and personal abuse! The most eloquent woman to whom I have ever listened, English only by adoption, faced without flinching some of the most skilled vivisectors and controversialists ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... even if it should be necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up. But the principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. The Stoics define all these different feelings, and all those words which I have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance: for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Mr. Chapman, the laboured and understanding works of Mr. Johnson, the no less worthy composures of the ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... her a sore heart and all the patient self-denial of her sex. To be welcome to Griffith she had to speak to him of her rival, and to speak well of her. She tried talking of herself and her attachment; he yawned in her face: she tried smooth detraction and innuendo; he fired up directly, and defended her of whose conduct he had been complaining ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... orally, in lines composed by the bards, the memorable sayings and deeds which they wished to hand down to generations after them. How far they were worthy of credit, and how far they were subject to the vices of flattery or detraction we cannot tell, but we may be sure that those who were accounted great in these ancient times were anxious to have their doughty deeds immortalised, and perhaps were as sensitive to the tone of public criticism thus represented as is the statesman or warrior of to-day. ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... are but weak decorative elements, and lack tracery and glass of a decorative quality, an obvious detraction in any great architectural work. The south transept shows indications of four successive periods of construction, and contains the best glass in the church; otherwise it ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... the loins, rather than the waist, a cashmere shawl is loosely wrapt as a girdle, and an embroidered jacket, or a large silk robe with loose open sleeves, completes the costume. Nor is the fragrant water-pipe, with its long variegated serpent, and its jewelled mouth-piece, any detraction from the portrait. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... others, enmity, and hostility against those who do not favor them, envy, hatred, and revenge, and from these fierceness and cruelty; and in respect to the Divine they are denial and consequent contempt, derision, and detraction of the holy things of the church; and after death, when man becomes a spirit, these evils are changed to anger and hatred against these holy things (see above, n. 562). And as these evils breathe forth continually the destruction and murder ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... scars were soon worn off his outraged feelings by the remembrance of his divine Master's gentleness and forgiveness. How often have I seen the mandate, "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you," verified in Dr. Talmage. He could not bear detraction or uncharitableness. His heart was so broad and loving that he seemed to have room in it for the whole world; and his greeting of strangers on an Australian platform, amid the heathers of Scotland, or in the Golden Gate of California, was so free and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... kinds or forms of detraction, is the attributing of any man's conduct to corrupt or unworthy motives. A man's real motives are known only to God and to himself; indeed, very often to God alone, as from the deceitfulness and intricacy of the human heart, a man himself ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... alone, this peerless pair danced a gauntlet. On each side admiration and detraction ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... suffered at the hands of his biographer, Anthony a Wood,{1} merely because he belonged to the opposite party—the crudest possible measure of merit For the odium politicum and the odium theologicum are twin agents of detraction, and the writing of history would be dull indeed were it not for the joy of digging out an approximation to the truth from opposing opinions. Where the material is so scanty it will be safer [30]to summarize what is known, ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... commonplaces! That life is short, that marriages from mercenary motives produce unhappiness, that different men are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffectual, that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from detraction;—these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. Here and there, indeed, the pompous utterance invests them with an unlucky air of absurdity. 'Let no ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... of avenging a father; while in "Polyeucte," duty triumphs alone. Corneille did not boldly abandon himself to the guidance of his genius; he feared criticism, although he defied it. His success proved the signal for envy and detraction; he became angry at being obliged to fight his way, and therefore withdrew from the path in which he was likely to meet enemies. His decline was as rapid as his success had been brilliant. "The fall of the great Corneille," says Fontenelle, "may be reckoned as among the most remarkable examples ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... "forms of intuition," space and time, which are an original possession of the intuiting subject, but this is not sufficient, without the aid of the understanding, for the genesis of knowledge. In view of the a priori nature of space and time, though without detraction from their intuitive character (they are immediate particular representations), we may assign pure sensibility to the higher faculty of cognition and speak of ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... offices, or drilling green conscripts in sand batteries; marching steadily to the last fight at Appomattox—far out of their element—the Confederate sailors flinched not from fire nor fled from duty. Though their country grumbled, and detraction and ingratitude often assailed them; yet at the bitter ending no man nor woman in the broad South but believed they ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... land. Before the coming of the Scientific Age this group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in the equipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its less amiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and a usually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush of change in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of human life that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions and separations were ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... reputation for skill in handling barbaric potentates, he knew how to make the most of it, both abroad and in Whitehall. On rejoining his regiment, too, after some of his triumphant expeditions, he was careful to bear himself with a modesty that took the point from detraction, assuring, as it did, his brother-officers that they would have done as well as he, had they enjoyed the ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... has a certain positive power, as though each object were a magnet of given potency. Each has attraction for the eye, therefore each, while obtaining attention for itself, establishes proportional detraction for every other part. On the principle of the steelyard, the farther from the centre and more isolated an object is, the greater its weight or attraction. Therefore, in the balance of a picture it will be found that a very important object placed ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... shields against subtraction, detraction, and all the wrongs inventors endure: to wit, a choleric temper, a keen sense of humour, and a good wife. He storms and rages at his detracting pupils; but ends with roars of laughter at their impudence. I am told he still hopes to meet with justice some day, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... however: If there is a criticism to make of Mr. Bruce's book, it is that it displays a lack of personal investigation and experimentation, and bears throughout the ear-marks of a literary compilation. But this is, after all, not a serious detraction from a work of this character,—which is, as I have said before, excellently ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of succeeding, when the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers were opposed to the form of government in their day. They were denounced, they were condemned. But they had the moral courage to stand erect and defy all the storms of detraction; and that is why they are in history, and that is why the great respectable majority of their day sleep in forgotten graves. The world does ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... all the world knows: Old Anecdotes came on the tapis, new drest, And season'd with Satire, to give them a zest. But the COUNTESS was shock'd! and declar'd with much feeling, [p 17] "She hated the faults of her neighbour revealing. Detraction, of late, had been full of employment, And truly, some folks knew no other enjoyment. 'Twas said, tho' for her part, she thought it quite cruel, That Monsieur LE COQ had been kill'd in a duel. ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... Gypsy camp, vividly, brilliantly, yet with an undercurrent of tragedy—the tragedy of homeless wanderers. Because they represent life, because they are true to life, because they depict life with a wonderful union of realism and beauty, they will, in spite of critical detraction, live as long as the Bach fugues, the Beethoven sonatas or ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... properly be termed rich whose fortune is at the mercy of the winds. The beauty adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence and modesty, provokes, whenever she appears, a thousand murmurs of detraction and whispers of suspicion. The genius, even when he endeavours only to entertain with pleasing; images of nature, or instruct by uncontested principles of science, yet suffers persecution from innumerable critics, whose acrimony is excited merely ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... getting her views on the characters of her friends revised and corrected for her by competent male opinion, but it was sometimes embarrassing to be appealed to in this way, while only a very unsophisticated person would permit himself to be entirely candid, either in praise or detraction. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... moral rectitude and unimpeachable propriety of conduct—unsullied by the breath of detraction—rendered her in a great measure impervious to downright ill-nature; but still she was open to teasing and bantering; and the more she was teased, and the more she was bantered, the more impenetrable she became. We endeavoured to find out from herself—but unsuccessfully—if ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... Detraction, however, has insinuated that Mallet, his step-son's tutor, was Nugent's penholder in this instance. 'Mr. Nugent sure did not write his own Ode,' says Gray to Walpole (Gray's 'Works', by Gosse, 1884, ii. 220). Earl Nugent died in Dublin ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... bravery may only intensify courage, which is resistant and self-conquering; courage applies to matters in regard to which valor and prowess can have no place, as submission to a surgical operation, or the facing of censure or detraction for conscience' ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... it adds not a little to my other difficulties and distress to find that much more is expected of me than it is possible to perform, the more that upon the ground of safety and policy I am obliged to conceal the true state of this army from public view, and thereby expose myself to detraction and calumny." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... with; and people are in pain till they find out some extravagant expression to represent the folly on't. Only there is this difference, that as all are more forcibly inclined to ill than good, they are much apter to exceed in detraction than in praises. Have I not reason then to desire this from you; and may not my friendship have deserved it? I know not; 'tis as you think; but if I be denied it, you will teach me to consider myself. 'Tis well the side ended here. If I had not had occasion to stop there, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... hear your calling sneered at by those who pursue it. There are few professions that are not similarly girded at by some of their own members, either from disappointment or some ingrained discontent. When you hear such detraction, fix your thoughts not on the paltry accidents of your art, such as the use of cosmetics and other little infirmities of its practice, things that are obvious marks for the cheap sneer, but look rather to what that art is capable of in its highest forms, ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... attained eminence in public life, James Otis was the victim in his day of detraction and envy. A specially malignant slander was current with reference to him and his father at the period of the patriot's resigning his Crown post of Advocate-General. The motive for throwing up his appointment and pleading the people's cause against the Writs of Assistance, it was ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... I've proved to my own satisfaction And that of all 'Squires I've the honor of meeting That 'tis the most senseless and foul-mouthed detraction To say that poor people are fond of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... may guid luck hit you, And 'mang her favourites admit you! If e'er Detraction shore to smit you, May nane believe him! And ony deil that thinks to get you, Good Lord ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort which my noble friends proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous ignorance and base detraction; such a cloud hath the devil drawn over the world's judgment. Some of the stationers that had the selling of the first part of this poem, because it went not so fast away in the selling as some of their beastly and abominable trash (a shame both to our language ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... to detraction's desperation, And wedded unto one she had loved well— A man known in the councils of the nation, Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, Though apt to act with fire upon occasion, Proud of himself and her: the world could tell Nought against ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... soon dissipated, and she lived down all unpleasant rumors. She, indeed, seemed to possess some talisman, as potent as the magic ring that bewitched King Charlemagne, by whose spell she disarmed envy and silenced detraction. This attaching power she exercised on every person who came within the sphere of her influence. Even the gossiping Duchess D'Abrantes has only words of respectful admiration for her. The preconceived prejudices of Madame Swetchine, whom Miss Muloch numbers among her "Good Women," vanished at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a pair of glasses which were no detraction from her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... almost the whole world, and assailed by almost every tongue, and pen, and press, you have fearlessly and manfully stood by me, with unsurpassed zeal and undiminished friendship. When I felt as if I should sink beneath the storm of abuse and detraction, which was violently raging around me, I have found myself upheld and sustained by your encouraging voices and approving smiles. I have doubtless, committed many faults and indiscretions, over which you have thrown the broad mantle of your charity. But I can say, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... anything which he did not firmly believe to be the fact." Remarkable testimony this, concerning a great politician. From Disraeli, who would perhaps be less drawn to this qualification of a statesman, comes this word of praise, with many of detraction: "Nature had combined in Sir Robert Peel many admirable parts. In him a physical frame incapable of fatigue was united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and with great powers of application, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... before the public a work full of warning and wisdom for this terrible national crisis, we at first saw in his annotations and comments only the labor of love whereby a standard work is illustrated and made more emphatic and complete: but, ere long, we found a spirit of detraction at work, a want of sympathy with the tone and a want of understanding of the motives of the authors, which made us regret that, instead of this partisan edition, the 'Federalist' had not been reissued ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... influence led) Abused the fame that first bestow'd him bread. Slanders so mean, had he whose nicer ear Abhorr'd all scandal, but survived to hear, The fraudful tale had stronger scorn supplied, And he (at length) with more disdain had died, But since detraction is the portion here Of all who virtuous durst, or great, appear, And the free soul no true existence gains, While earthly particles its flight restrains, The greatest favour grimful Death can show, Is with swift dart to expedite the blow. So thought the Dean, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... countrymen of mine, whose dislike of America was not lessened by their unceremonious mode of departure from it; and it is to these, the mass of whom are familiarly known in the journals of this country, that we owe the most insidious, because the best informed, detraction of us. Macmillan's Magazine did us sterling service through the papers of Edward Dicey, the best literary feuilletonist in England; and Professor Newman, J. Stuart Mill, and others, gave us the limited influence of the Westminster Review. The ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... without the least tincture of affectation or pedantry; and his inimitable manner of diverting and enlivening the company made it impossible for any one to be out of humour when he was in it. Envy and detraction seemed to be entirely foreign to his constitution; and whatever provocations he met with at any time, he passed them over without the least thought of resentment or revenge. As Homer had a Zoilus, so Mr. Rowe had sometimes his; for there were ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... correct edition of his works must, therefore, be an acceptable contribution to the mass of national literature. That the present edition has, perhaps, fairer claims on public approbation than most preceding ones, we feel ourselves justified in asserting, without envious detraction of those who have gone before us. It has been our wish and diligent endeavour to give as accurate a text as possible, to which we have subjoined notes, where elucidation seemed to be required. They have been collected with care, and will ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... the newspapers, it was his name that headed the list of the junior officers mentioned for distinguished conduct. Standish had followed his career with an admiration and a joy that was without taint of envy or detraction. He gloried in Aintree, he delighted to know the army held such a man. He was grateful to Aintree for upholding the traditions of a profession to which he himself gave all the devotion of a fanatic. He ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... bringing such tales to me, a priest?" he asked. "Denis Quirk is a man who goes to his duties; not by any means a saint, but a good, honest Catholic. Tell the next man or woman who speaks about it that scandal and detraction are steps in the ladder down to the devil's kingdom. There are more souls lost that way ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we can not disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness—but this we know, that whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, and that he now shines as a fixed star in the constellation of the great lights of modern times, not only because he succeeded in crossing ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... till they finish the grand tower of the interior. Such, however as are not especially addictated to this kind, of locomotive prayer, collect together in various knots through the chapel, and amuse themselves by auditing or narrating anecdotes, discussing policy, or detraction; and in case it be summer, and the day of a fine texture, they scatter themselves into little crowds on the chapel-green, or lie at their length upon the grass in listless groups, giving way to ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... is no advantage gained to the argument by supposing two Beings, rather than one Being of a mixed nature. The facts lead to this supposition just as naturally as to the hypothesis of two principles. The existence of the evil Being is as much a detraction from the power of the good one, as if we only at once suppose the latter to be of limited power, and that he prefers making and supporting creatures who suffer much less than they enjoy, to making no creatures at all. The supposition ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... juncture, and, in fact, up to the present moment, there was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was this to be wondered at; for when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... No. What is Honour A word. What is that word Honour? Ayre: A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that dy'de a Wednesday. Doth he feele it? No. Doth hee heare it? No. Is it insensible then? yea, to the dead. But wil it not liue with the liuing? No. Why? Detraction wil not suffer it, therfore Ile none of it. Honour is a meere Scutcheon, and so ends ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... that is entirely lost, but five-story office buildings, automobiles in the afternoon parade, steaks or ham and eggs at an eight or nine o'clock breakfast, and all kinds of indescribable hats in place of dainty and graceful mantillas, seem to me a detraction, like bay-windows and porticos added ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... bard are now embodied in Seven Volumes—the sense of the ridiculous still survives among us—our men of wit and power are not all dead—we have yet our satirists, great and small—editors in thousands, and contributors in tens of thousands—yet not a whisper is heard to breathe detraction from the genius of the high-priest of nature; while the voice of the awakened and enlightened land declares it to be divine—using towards him not the language merely of admiration but of reverence—of love and gratitude due to the benefactor of humanity, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the inside of one of his legs without injury to the other was because the fighter was blessed with a pair of bow-legs that couldn't have stopped the proverbial pig in the proverbial alley. In addition to this decided detraction from his manly beauty, he was short, squatty, thick-necked, a nose of the variety commonly known as a stub, and a couple of little eyes that had a constant twinkle, half-shrewd and half-humorous, the whole surmounted with a shock of shaggy red hair. ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... his booklet on "Pre-Raphaelitism." Heedless of the outcry, Ruskin pursued his own self-confident course, and by the year 1860 he had completed his "Modern Painters," and, in spite of objurgation and detraction, had won a great name for himself as a critic and expounder, while expanding himself over almost ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... This detraction of the Sultan's suzerainty is only a corollary of the Premier's indifference towards the Muslim idea of the Caliphate. The premier's injustice in treating the Turkish question becomes graver when he thus ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... Sydney. It seems strange that a pleasing degree of three or four fingers of respectful familiarity should fill a man up and give him the panegyrics so bad. For he has them, the worst way—any one can see that. A man who is perfectly at himself does not throw cold detraction at people's architectural productions and picturesque surroundings, and let on that what he prefers is a Dubbonese dust-storm and a pleasing degree of respectful familiarity, No, these are old, old symptoms; and when they appear we know that the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... according to Ex. 23:2: "Neither shalt thou yield in judgment, to the opinion of the most part, to stray from the truth"; and the prohibition against lying (Ex. 23:7): "Thou shalt fly lying," and the prohibition against detraction, according to Lev. 19:16: "Thou shalt not be a detractor, nor a whisperer among the people." To the other two commandments no further precepts are added, because thereby are forbidden ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... some of the sick who flocked to it might be unworthy, and, not being cured, might doubt its efficacy, while in reality, their own unworthiness was to blame. "Thus," he concludes, "was all matter for detraction removed from ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... truth or doctrine but has had to fight its way to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, and persecution. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... she thought "There's a difference somewhere." Being a supreme egotist Ardita frequently thought about herself; never having had her egotism disputed she did it entirely naturally and with no detraction from her unquestioned charm. Though she was nineteen she gave the effect of a high-spirited precocious child, and in the present glow of her youth and beauty all the men and women she had known were but driftwood ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... ready to desert me first of all. It was cruel and unkind. Had I asked to be allowed to marry Mr. Dale? Had either of us ever hinted at the subject? Never! And yet my father was the first to cast suspicions and make insinuations, for I understood his unjust taunt. Sheep's clothing, indeed! Detraction was the surest way to make me love him; for if there was any one under the sun whose sentiments were noble and unselfish, whose motives were manly and disinterested, I believed it was Roger Dale. Why had my father ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... spirit of Detraction, which on Earth never fails to persecute superior Virtue, has not scrupled to assert that the affliction, to which I allude, was the mere consequence of paternal austerity. The Earth itself, though frequently accused of being eager to receive ideas that may abase the eminent, could hardly ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... to him. 'Conceive,' said he, 'the horror of sitting in a carriage with an iron apparatus, afflicted with the dreadful thought, the cruel apprehension, of having one's leg crushed by the machinery. Why are not the steps made to fold outside? The only detraction from the luxury of a vis a vis, is the double distress! for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... some satisfaction to show the young writer, that the most celebrated ancients have been as rudely subjected to the tyranny of criticism as the moderns. Detraction has ever poured ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... calls it in his farewell message to the Legislature. Regarding Port of Spain in particular, Mr. Froude is positively exuberant in the display of the peculiar qualities that distinguish him, and which we have already admitted. Ecstatic praise and groundless detraction go hand in hand, bewildering to any one not possessed of the key to the mystery of the art of blowing hot and cold, which Mr. Froude so startlingly exemplifies. As it is our purpose to make what he says concerning this Colony the crucial test of his veracity as a writer of travels, [54] and ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... a glorious career before him. So much is there in your magnificent country, hitherto undescribed and unexpressed, in scenery, manners, morals, that all may be wells from which he may be the first to drink. Yet it cannot be expected—for it has passed to a proverb that escape from persecution and detraction can never and nowhere be the lot of literature—that there will not be many instances, even in America, where every attempt on the part of gifted writers (and young writers especially, who are commonly regarded with eyes of invidious jaundice by the elders, whose waning reputations ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... of principles! How often have they clung to some plausible chimera which seemed to serve their cause, and nursed an artificial ignorance where they feared the discoveries of an impertinent curiosity! As ingenious in detraction as in silence and dissimulation, have they not too often answered imputations which they could not disprove with accusations which they could not prove, till the slanders they had invented rivalled in number and intensity the slanders which had been invented against ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... nothing to do, and that always makes mischief. They gather in each other's rooms and spend hours in consultation about others. If they had to walk a half mile before they got to the willing ear of some listener to detraction they would get out of breath before reaching there, and not feel in full glow of animosity or slander, or might, because of the distance, not go at all. But rooms 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 are on the same corridor, and when one carrion crow goes "Caw! Caw!" all the other crows hear it and flock ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... of the truths here related. He died at a good old age, having seen his three-score years and ten, leaving behind him, in addition to a very ample estate, not only a good character, which means neither more nor less than what "the neighbours," amid their ignorance, envy, love of detraction, jealousy and other similar qualities, might think proper to say of him, but the odour of a well-spent life, in which he struggled hard to live more in favour with God, than in favour with man. It was remarked in him, for the last forty ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Library at Cambridge, who had come upon Bunyan preaching in a barn at Toft, they were "angry with the tinker because he strove to mend souls as well as kettles and pans," and proved himself more skilful in his craft than those who had graduated at a university. Envy is ever the mother of detraction. Slanders of the blackest dye against his moral character were freely circulated, and as readily believed. It was the common talk that he was a thorough reprobate. Nothing was too bad for him. He was "a witch, a ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... that which was before her, she might have been aware of certain happenings just above her. Why did not some good fairy whisper in her ear just at that moment: "An' had you one eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortune before you," but there were apparently ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson |
