Quotes about Slander

Always remember, no one can debase you but yourself. Slander, satire, falsehood, injustice-these can never rob you of your manhood. Men may lie about you, they may denounce you, they may cherish suspicions manifold, they may make your failings the target of their wit or cruelty. Never be alarmed; never swerve an inch from the line your judgment and conscience have marked out for you. They cannot, by all their efforts, take away your knowledge of yourself, the purity of your character, and the generosity of your nature. While these are left, you are unharmed.

While extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, you must also guard against an extreme into which some people fall, who, in their desire to speak evil of no one, actually uphold and speak well of vice. If you have to do with one who is unquestionably a slanderer, do not excuse him by calling him frank and free-spoken; do not call one who is notoriously vain, liberal and elegant; do not call dangerous levities mere simplicity; do not screen disobedience under the name of zeal; or arrogance, of frankness; or evil intimacy, of friendship. No, my friends, we must never, in our wish to shun slander, foster or flatter vice in others: but we must call evil evil, and sin sin, and so doing we shall serve God's glory.

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything . . . that smacks of discrimination or slander.

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

Christmas and New Year Bells The time draws near the birth of Christ: The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist. Four voices of four hamlets round, From far and near, on mead and moor, Swell out and fail, as if a door Were shut between me and the sound: Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. This year I slept and woke with pain I almost wish'd no more to wake, And that my hold on life would break Before I heard those bells again: But they the troubled spirit rule, For they controll'd me when a boy; They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, The merry, merry bells of Yule. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the press. Care has been taken that the art of printing should be encouraged, and that it should be easy and cheap and safe for any person to communicate his thoughts to the public. And you, Messieurs printers, whatever the tyrants of the earth may say of your paper, have done important service to your country by your readiness and freedom in publishing the speculations of the curious. The stale, impudent insinuations of slander and sedition with which the gormandizers of power have endeavored to discredit your paper are so much the more to your honor; for the jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

We are prone to magnify weaknesses and to imagine vices in others that do not exist. We chew the cud of slander with satisfaction - slander, "whose whisper over the world's diameter, as level as the cannon to its blank, transports his poisoned shot." Talk about battles yet to be fought! Backbiting and evil speaking head the list!

He who is influenced neither by the soaking in of slander nor by the assault of denunciation may indeed be called enlightened.

No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness.