"Detractor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... increased bitterness of such a death would have counted for nothing with you? Confine your attention to this one question: does any of our oppressors survive? is there any ground for anxiety, any vestige of our past misery? If not, if all is peace, then none but an envious detractor would attempt to deprive me of the reward of my labours by inquiring into the ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... detractor is not formidable in the flesh, the evil that he does lives after him. Freeman's view of Froude is not now held by any one whose opinion counts; yet still there seems to rise, as from a brazen head of Ananias, dismal and monotonous chaunt, "He was careless of the ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... be no doubt," he exclaimed, and he went out of the room, making for the playground, intending to find his detractor; but he was not to ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Douglas was the first to point out the fact) that Hogg had calmly looted Lockhart's biography of Burns, then he will think that the "scorpion," instead of using his sting, showed most uncommon forbearance. This false friend, virulent detractor and ungenerous assailant describes Hogg as "a true son of nature and genius with a naturally kind and simple character." He does indeed remark that Hogg's "notions of literary honesty were exceedingly loose." But (not to mention the Burns ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... then punish the flattery by which they are assailed, since they are so much afraid of the libel that always contains some good truths: besides, the public are there to judge the detractor; and no unjust satire ever circulated a fort-night, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... complain, because I am deeper taxed for a less estate. I am, ridiculously enough, accused to be a contemner of universities; that is, in other words, an enemy of learning; without the foundation of which, I am sure, no man can pretend to be a poet. And if this be not enough, I am made a detractor from my predecessors, whom I confess to have been my masters in the art. But this latter was the accusation of the best judge, and almost the best poet, in the Latin tongue. You find Horace complaining, that, for taxing some verses in Lucilius, he himself was blamed by others, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... correct public opinion by showing the injustice of praise. Fame, though it may have been both unexpected and undeserved, is apt to be claimed and valued as part and parcel of a man's good name; and the dissenting critic, though ever-so candid, is liable to be thought an envious detractor. It would seem in general most prudent to leave mankind to find out for themselves how far any commendation bestowed on individuals is inconsistent with truth. But, be it remembered, that celebrity is not a virtue; nor, on the other hand, is experience the cheapest of teachers. A good ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... but that in quick action it jammed so badly that often the Canadians furtively swapped them for Lee-Enfields whenever the chance came. There was no excuse for the Ross rifle, and Hughes ought to have admitted it. There never should have been a chance for any detractor of his to insinuate that the Minister had stock in the Ross Rifle Company. We had cellulose nitrate and Grant Morden, who has never had an equal over here for making sudden wealth out of next to nothing and getting popular credit for doing it. What the ex-Minister of Militia made out of ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Thomas Barguillos. I regret that his noble biographer, than whom no one can more truly sympathise with the emotions of genius, has censured the bard for his querulous or his intrepid tone, and for the quaint conceit of his title-page, where his detractor is introduced as a beetle in a vega or garden, attacking its flowers, but expiring in the very sweetness he would injure. The inscription under BOILEAU'S portrait, which gives a preference to the French satirist over Juvenal and Horace, is known to have been written by himself. Nor ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... because I never heard of any one speaking ill of me, but I immediately saw how far short he came of the full truth. For, if he was wrong or exaggerated in his particulars, I had offended God much more in other matters that my detractor knew nothing about. And, methought, God favoured me much in not proclaiming my secret sins to all men. And, thus, I am very glad that my detractor should ever report a trifling lie about me, rather ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... of conciliation. There seemed to be a fair opening for such a course. It was not he, but his father, who had given the offence which drove Bahram into rebellion, and almost forced him to vindicate his manhood by challenging his detractor to a trial of strength. Bahram could have no personal ground of quarrel with him. Indeed that general had at the first, if we may believe the Oriental writers, proclaimed Chosroes as king, and given out that he took up arms in order to place him upon the throne. It was thought, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Almost immediately he was obliged to leave for Naples in order to meet the detractor of his valor, and, to his surprise, the Queen spoke lightly of the quarrel. "It is a question of law," said she. "An inquiry shall be had. There must be ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... them, and your two letters have entirely justified you. I can now give myself up without regret to my enthusiasm for you and your works. It would have been too cruel for me to have learnt with certainty that he whom I regarded as the first writer of the age had become my detractor without motive, without provocation. That it is not so I give thanks to Providence. "M. the duc d'Aiguillon did not deceive you when he told you that I fed on your sublime poetry. I am in literature a perfect novice, and yet am sensible ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... unprincipled young man were in condition to see him. "Black Bill" and his host had been having a night of it. Button was in high fettle over the amazingly truthful and unlooked-for articles in the Mail, and as eager to know and reward their author as he had been to apprehend and punish the earlier detractor. Button had begun to "wobble," as Bill expressed it, in his spleen against Lanier until so suddenly "braced" by the truculent stand of Captain Snaffle, whose half-drunken words the previous night were by this time known all ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King |
