If there be, mine may become equal to it (because they are homogeneous) by detraction of some part or parts.
If all these secret Springs of Detraction fail, yet very often a vain Ostentation of Wit sets a Man on attacking an established Name, and sacrificing it to the Mirth and Laughter of those about him.
Thus we see how many dark and intricate Motives there are to Detraction and Defamation, and how many malicious Spies are searching into the Actions of a great Man, who is not always the best prepared for so narrow an Inspection.
The worst Evil I ever observed this Man's Falsehood occasion, has been that he turnedDetraction into Flattery.
Some hold that detraction and calumny are distinct species, because calumny adds mendacity to defamation; others say that detractions about specifically different sins are distinct kinds of detraction (e.
Detraction blackens a reputation by revealing faults or defects that are real; calumny (slander) injures reputation by stories that are untrue.
By reason of the injury done defamation is either detraction or calumny.
Thus, God Himself is said to hate detractors, that is, detraction (Rom.
Thus, it differs in manner from contumely, detraction and whispering, which are spoken seriously.
Those who listen to detraction in such a way as to consent to what is said share in the guilt of the detraction.
To carry stories from one monastery or house to another (even of the same Order) is a form of detraction to outsiders, according to St. Alphonsus.
Example: Detraction is from its nature worse than theft; but, if thedetraction does only small harm and the theft great harm, the theft is worse on account of the circumstances.
The common opinion on the line of action to be observed seems to be as follows: (a) the penitent is obliged as a rule in serious matters to tell whether his defamation was simple detraction or calumny.
Had but Lucullus ended his days in the field, and in command, envy and detraction itself could never have accused him.
Thus Fortune, deferring her displeasure and jealousy of such great success to some other time, let Aemilius at present enjoy this victory, without any detraction or diminution.
In nearly all his prologues he defends himself against the malevolence and detractionof an old poet, 'malevolus vetus poeta,' whose name is said to have been Luscius Lavinius, or Lanuvinus.
He has been exposed to more serious detraction in modern times, as the corrupter of the pure stream of early Roman poetry.
There is no trace in him of the malice or the love of detraction which is seldom wholly absent from satiric writing.
Detraction is never idle in such cases; it seizes eagerly upon the foibles, the neglect, the faults of those who have been degraded by any weakness: alas, it omits nothing!
What made their Enmity the more entertaining to all the rest of their Sex was, that in Detraction from each other neither could fall upon Terms which did not hit herself as much as her Adversary.
They are to be known by their modesty and precision of speech, avoiding scurrility and detraction and light words and lies and oaths.
The hostility of the Prime Minister and the tireless machine-like detraction of the party press had not been without effect.
These rare villains are eliminated when one speaks of inability to distinguish betweendetraction and adverse criticism.
In intercourse with the uneducated, any well-bred person is properly shocked by their pleasure in detraction and in bad news of all sorts.
Of course, if it was by truth and not falsehood, by detraction and not calumny, that you assailed and injured the reputation of another, there is no gainsaying the truth; you are not justified in lying in order to make truth less damaging.
It may be objected that since detraction deals with secret sins, if the facts related are of public notoriety, there is no wrong in speaking of them, for you cannot vilify one who is already vilified.
It is precisely the truth of such talk that makes it detraction; if it were not true, it would not be detractionbut calumny--another and a very different fault.
TO absolve oneself of the sin of detraction on the ground that nothing but the truth was spoken is, as we have seen, one way of getting around a difficulty that is no way at all.
TO the malice of detraction calumny adds that of falsehood.
Catholic, and forbidding all detraction of his disciples.
Such niggardly persons, in their detraction of Henry Irving, are prompt to declare that he is a capital stage manager but not a great actor.
Even then detraction steadily followed him, and its voice--though impotent and immeasurably trivial--has not yet died away.
I have exposed myself to detraction and calumny" because "I am obliged to conceal the true state of the army from public view.
The tongue of detractionwas never more busy with his alleged infidel doctrines or to more damaging effect.
I found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless; prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among slaveowners themselves.
Would you have thought, after this simple relation, that there was any room for malice and detraction to build up their inventions?
If a contrary deportment argue vanity, self-detraction seems to be the offspring of pride.
They all allude to the envy and detraction to which he was subject, and which must have amounted to a storm of abuse and perhaps ridicule; and they all tax the English vocabulary to extol Smith, his deeds, and his works.
He suffered detraction enough, but he suffered also abundant eulogy both in verse and prose.
No better encomium is needed than the detractionof some people.
All mud sticks, but no mud is immortal, and that senile fling at the name of Seward is the last flickering, dying word of detraction that can be heard in the town that was his home for full half a century, or in the land he served so well.
Read through my own “Temper,” never saw so many faults in it before; still I like some of the remarks on detraction so well, that I think of inserting them in my new book.