C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Detraction

Black detraction will find faults where they are not.

Massinger.

The low desire, the base design
That makes another’s virtues less.

Longfellow.

Detraction’s a bold monster, and fears not
To wound the fame of princes, if it find
But any blemish in their lives to work on.

Massinger.

A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.

Pope.

Mankind praise against their will,
And mix as much detraction as they can.

Dr. Young.

’Tis not the wholesome sharp morality,
Or modest anger of a satiric spirit,
That hurts or wounds the body of a state,
But the sinister application
Of the malicious, ignorant, and base
Interpreter, who will distort and strain
The general scope and purpose of an author
To his particular and private spleen.

Ben Jonson.

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