Detraction Quotes

Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue. (Leonardo da Vinci)
Absent, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.
Ambrose Bierce
Detraction paves the way for the very perfections which it doubts and denies.
Frederick Douglass
I thank your Excellency for your generous and obliging offer. Most certain, my inclination leads me to a resignation. My reputation I value more than any advantages of gain; and I consider it in great danger. I wrote your Excellency lengthy upon this subject yesterday, and therefore shall say but little upon it to-day. I intend to write to Congress to day, upon the subject of my apprehensions and determination; and, if they do not give me those kinds of assurances, which are necessary to guard my reputation from malice and detraction. I shall insist upon leaving the business. The politics of Congress are really alarming, and the state of the finances astonishing; where they will end, time only can unfold.
Nathanael Greene
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defense is unnecessary; but as I was saying before, I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain; not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many a good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.
Socrates
Foul canker of fair virtuous action, Vile blaster of the freshest blooms on earth, Envys abhorrèd child, Detraction, I here expose, to thy all-tainting breath, The issue of my brain: snarl, rail, bark, bite, Know that my spirit scorns Detraction's spite.
John Marston
How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.
W. E. B. Du Bois
ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.
Ambrose Bierce
Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistable force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts.
Heinrich Heine