Mary Stewart Quotes

A man calumniated is doubly injured - first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.

… poison tongues …

Nothing is so swift as calumny; nothing is more easily uttered; nothing more readily received; nothing more widely dispersed.

Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick. Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret

On Rumor's tongue continual slanders ride.

It destroys you when people say complete mistruths about your family.

Yet my humble capacity has not preserved me from calumnies.

Slander is worse than cannibalism.

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

Slander strongly and some will stick.

Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.

You work hard, you sacrifice for everything you do, and in one second, someone can tarnish your name - someone can bad-mouth you, and someone can say things. People let all of the good things gets washed away because someone spoke ill of them.

Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows on fair reputations, the corroding dew that destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is primarily the squint of suspicion, and suspicion is established before it is confirmed.

A tongue prone to slander is the proof of a depraved mind.

He that easily believes rumors has the principle within him to augment rumors. It is strange to see the ravenous appetite with which some devourers of character and happiness fix upon the sides of the innocent and unfortunate.

Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, and insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.

Into the space of one little hour sins enough may be conjured up by evil tongues to blast the fame of a whole life of virtue.

Malicious tongues spread their poison abroad and nothing here below is proof against them.

Close thine ear against him that shall open his mouth secretly against another. If thou receivest not his words, they fly back and wound the reporter. If thou dost receive them, they fly forward and wound the receiver.

Many a wretch has rid on a hurdle who has done less mischief than utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal, and clippers of reputation.

Gossip is poison.

There is a lust in man no charm can tame: Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame: On eagles wings immortal scandals fly, while virtuous actions are born and die.

Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

Calumny is only the noise of madmen.

A lot of nasty and untrue things have been said about me.