"Calumnious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bracciolini's third son, Jacopo, joined, and was hanged for his pains in front of the first floor windows of that Prince's palace,—Poliziano says that Jacopo Bracciolini was "specially remarkable for calumny," in which respect," adds the historian, "he was exactly like his father, who was a MOST CALUMNIOUS MAN:"—"Ejus praecipua in maledicendo virtus, in qua vel patrem HOMINEM MALEDICENTISSIMUM referebat" (Politiani Opera, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... commence informer against others, who received me, whatever may be their public misconduct, as a guest and friend, I declare to you that I consider your questions as an insult infinitely more offensive than your calumnious suspicions; and that, since my hard fortune permits me no other mode of resenting them than by verbal defiance, you should sooner have my heart out of my bosom than a single syllable of information on subjects which I could only become acquainted ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... by courageous and talented men, who did their best to serve their country by their writings, whatever their opinions might be, how many more had editors who were mere slander-mongers, and columns all the more eagerly read, the more calumnious they were, and the more they pandered to every envious and subversive passion. Such men were the spokesmen of that increasingly numerous class of speculators, who relinquish any useful career to seek fortune ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the mind of some one of those who never enjoyed the privilege of knowing Mrs. Browning the woman, to couple together the stupidly calumnious insinuations to which she refers in the first letter I have given, with the admiration she expresses for the third Napoleon in the second letter. I differed from her wholly in her estimate of the man, and in her views of his ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... In criminal cases an oath has to be taken against calumnious allegations (Extra, De juramento calumniae, cap. Inhaerentes): and this would not be the case if it were lawful to defend oneself with calumnies. Therefore it is not lawful for the accused to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... "There are many incidents connected with this inheritance of M. de Rennepont, which appear very complicated—many phantoms, which seem un usually menacing—and yet, nothing could be really more simple and natural. Let us proceed in regular order. Let us put aside all these calumnious imputations; we will return to them afterwards. M. Gabriel de Rennepont—and I humbly beg him to contradict me, if I depart in the least instance from the exact truth—M. Gabriel de Rennepont, in acknowledgment of the care formerly bestowed on him by the society ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to all he ought to hold dear? The Countess' confessor, who based his hopes of a bishopric quite as much on the families he governed as on the services he rendered to an association of which he was an ardent propagator, was much disappointed by Granville's refusal, and tried to insinuate calumnious explanations: "If Monsieur le Comte had such an objection to provincial life, it was perhaps because he dreaded finding himself under the necessity of leading a regular life, compelled to set an example of moral conduct, and to live with the Countess, from whom nothing could have alienated him ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... of calumnious imputations fomented by an Ulysses who could not console himself for the departure of Calypso, and complacently listened to, you have been prosecuted for cruelty to ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... that could be heard by all present, that she was going to speak the truth at last in the sight of Heaven. Thereupon she confessed that all that she had said during the last fortnight against Grandier was calumnious and false, and that all her actions had been done at the instigation of the Franciscan Pere Lactance, the director, Mignon, and the Carmelite brothers. Pere Lactance, not in the least taken aback, declared that her confession was a fresh wile of the devil to save her master Grandier. She then made ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pen. If, on inquiry, these charges should be made good, (a thing very unlikely,) the party accused would become a just object of animadversion. If they should be found (as in all probability they would be found) false and calumnious, and supported by forgery, then the censure would fall on the accuser; at the same time the necessity would be manifest for proper measures towards the security of government against such infamous accusations. It is as necessary to protect the honest fame of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Sinclair bow himself down to the ground for a considerable time. This alleged act of cowardice on the part of Sinclair appears, however, not to have really taken place; but it was made the groundwork of a calumnious imputation. It must, however, be acknowledged, that there was nothing in the subsequent conduct of the Master of Sinclair, as far as the battle of Sherriff Muir was concerned, to raise his character as a man ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... Mr. David Black of St. Andrews, one of the most zealous and honoured ministers of the Church, had made an enemy of Balfour of Burley, who has already been referred to in connection with outrages on citizens of St. Andrews. In revenge, Balfour raised calumnious charges against Black of disloyal utterances in the pulpit, and got them conveyed, through acquaintances among the courtiers, to the King's ears; Melville, as his friend, and as having been the means of bringing him to the city, being also reported ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... And keepe within the reare of your Affection;[2] [Sidenote: keepe you in the] Out of the shot and danger of Desire. The chariest Maid is Prodigall enough, [Sidenote: The] If she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone:[3] Vertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes, [Sidenote: Vertue] The Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring [Sidenote: The canker gaules the] Too oft before the buttons[6] be disclos'd, [Sidenote: their buttons] And in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth, Contagious ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... Aphorisms? Words, words. High Air-castles are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic-mortar, wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge. The whole is greater than the part: how exceedingly true! Nature abhors a vacuum: how exceedingly false and calumnious! Again, Nothing can act but where it is: with all my heart; only, WHERE is it? Be not the slave of Words: is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, and long for it, and mourn for it, Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Oglethorpe, who was at this time the victim of unfavorable reports and calumnious stories, that had been spread by disaffected members of the infant settlements in Georgia, and by some of the officers who had served under him in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the town of Saint Augustine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... to have collected his information for the Life of Napoleon only from those libels and vulgar stories which gratified the calumnious spirit and national hatred. His work is written with excessive negligence, which, added to its numerous errors, shows how much respect he must have entertained for his readers. It would appear that his object was to make it the inverse of his novels, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it is! What can one say dear Sir? 'Tis a calumnious age. Many a scurril knave will make scornful rhymes concerning you. Ere half a year is out, you will be all men's fable; people will stop and gaze after you on the high roads; 'twill be: "Look, look; there rides Sir Nils Lykke, that fared north to Ostrat to trap Inger Gyldenlove, ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... measure these disasters when his host re-entered the apartment and proceeded, without a word, to envelop the refined and urbane Challoner in a long ulster of the cheapest material, and of a pattern so gross and vulgar that his spirit sickened at the sight. This calumnious disguise was crowned and completed by a soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and several sizes too small. At another moment Challoner would simply have refused to issue forth upon the world thus travestied; ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... proud reliance say, it is not the South—it is not the South! Sir, every charge of disunion which is made on that part of the South which I in part represent, and whose sentiments I well understand, I here pronounce to be grossly calumnious. The conduct of the State of Mississippi in calling a convention has already been introduced before the Senate; and on that occasion I stated, and now repeat, that it was the result of patriotism, and a high resolve to preserve, if possible, our constitutional Union; that ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... blasphemous, and heretical." The same prelate argues as follows: "Who would not believe, my very dear brethren, from what this impostor says, that the authority of the church is proved only by her own decisions, and that she proceeds thus: 'I decide that I am infallible, therefore so I am.' A calumnious imputation, my very dear brethren! The constitution of Christianity, the spirit of the Scriptures, the very errors and the weakness of the human mind tend to show that the church established by Jesus Christ is infallible. We declare that, as the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... one hand, and Bisyas, on the other, and he realizes that without proper care, reprisals might be made on him. Again, if the visitor has penetrated into his district, his suspicion may be aroused to its full force by calumnious reports or rumors that may have preceded the visitor's arrival. My own visits were frequently preceded by rumors to the effect that I had magic power to poison or to do other things equally wonderful, that I was a solider[sic] in disguise, or by other ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... ludicrously unjust. If, as has without due cause been imputed to Bacon, the charge in the essay on Plantations of the sinfulness of 'forsaking or destituting a plantation once in forwardness' refer to Ralegh, Bacon would be as calumnious. In 1590 White prosecuted the search for his daughter and grandchild, and the rest of the vanished planters. Ralegh despatched other expeditions for the same object, and with as little success. One, under Samuel Mace, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... regular standing in the church of Christ, because they happen to hold slaves! They pretend to decide who, and who are not Christians!" It is marvellous that so learned and so distinguished a man should have fallen into such a mistake; and, on hearsay, ventured to utter a most calumnious accusation against the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... 1842. So many of the charges against yourself and your friends which I have seen in the public journals have been, within my own knowledge, false and calumnious, that I am not apt to pay much attention to what is asserted with respect ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... then gives directions for the extirpation of any abuses which may creep in. These words, by which our faith and practice are regulated, are too clear to need comment, and sufficiently justify catholics from the foolish and calumnious charge of idolatry. The true Catholic practice is well expressed in a work attributed to Alcuin "We prostrate our bodies before the cross, and our souls before the Lord: we venerate the cross by which we have been redeemed, and we ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... calumnious attacks sprang largely from Cooper's personal unpopularity. It is equally plain that his personal unpopularity was mainly due to the censorious tone he had assumed in the criticism of his country and his countrymen. It may accordingly be said that, in one sense, he deserved ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... in his life, has won the high admiration of every one not bitterly hostile to him. And even his enemies maintained and justified their hatred only by inventing calumnious falsehoods about him. Unfounded rumors of an evil nature began to circulate during his lifetime, and naturally increased in virulence and volume after his death. At that period in human history, it was popularly recognized that nothing good could ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... in departing for once, and in such a quarrel, from his general rule of conduct; and for a paramount purpose of comprehensive service to all mankind, we entirely agree with Mr. James, that Charlemagne had a sufficient plea, and that he has been censured only by calumnious libellers, or by the feeble- minded, for applying a Roman severity of punishment to treachery continually repeated. The question is one purely of policy; and it may be, as Mr. James is disposed to think, that in point of judgment the emperor erred; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... circulating reports to the prejudice of my literary talents, as well as my accomplishments as a pedagogue, and transferring the fame thereof to mine own usher. Secondly, against my spouse, Dorothea Cleishbotham, for transferring the sad calumnious reports to my ears in a prerupt and unseemly manner, and without due respect either to the language which she made use of, or the person to whom she spoke,—treating affairs in which I was so intimately concerned as if they were ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... that I was found by the editor of that paper lying-drunk in the channel of Castle Cumber Main-street, opposite his office—that he brought me in, recovered me, and then helped me home. Now, gentlemen, I'll just mention one circumstance that will disprove the whole base and calumnious charge—it is this—on rising next morning I found that I had eight and three halfpence safe in my pocket—and yet that reptile says that he carried me into his house!!! Having thus, gentlemen, triumphantly refuted ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... 716; oppose &c 708; denounce, accuse &c 938. Adj. detracting &c v.; defamatory, detractory^, derogatory, deprecatory; catty; disparaging, libelous; scurrile, scurrilous; abusive; foul- spoken, foul-tongued, foul-mouthed; slanderous; calumnious, calumniatory^; sarcastic, sardonic; sarcastic, satirical, cynical. critical &c 932. Phr. damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer; and without sneering, teach the rest to sneer [Pope]; another lie nailed to the counter; cut men's throats with whisperings [B. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... mother burst into a vehement exposition of the reasons of discord, beginning with the calumnious stories she had heard at Mrs. Jolliffe's, and ending with the outrageous arrogance of Mrs. Mumford's latest remark. ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... sire, these compliments are only an insinuating prelude to calumnious accusations against your ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... of the age. I venture to call such moralists insincere. At any excess or perversion of a natural appetite, their lyre sounds of itself with relishing denunciations; but for all displays of the truly diabolic—envy, malice, the mean lie, the mean silence, the calumnious truth, the backbiter, the petty tyrant, the peevish poisoner of family life—their standard is quite different. These are wrong, they will admit, yet somehow not so wrong; there is no zeal in their assault on them, no secret element ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
