Your tittle-tattlers, and those who listen to slander, by my good
will should all be hanged--the former by their read more

Your tittle-tattlers, and those who listen to slander, by my good
will should all be hanged--the former by their tongues, the
latter by the ears.
[Lat., Homines qui gestant, quique auscultant crimina,
Si meo arbitratu liceat, omnes pendeant,
Gestores linguis, auditores auribus.]

A slander is like a hornet; if you can't kill it dead the first time, better not strike at it.

A slander is like a hornet; if you can't kill it dead the first time, better not strike at it.

And truly, I'll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with. One doth not know
How read more

And truly, I'll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with. One doth not know
How much an ill word may empoison liking.

. . . For slander lives upon succession,
For ever housed where it gets possession.

. . . For slander lives upon succession,
For ever housed where it gets possession.

Done to death by slanderous tongues
Was the Hero that here lies.

Done to death by slanderous tongues
Was the Hero that here lies.

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
read more

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.

If slander be a snake, it is a winged one--it flies as well as
creeps.

If slander be a snake, it is a winged one--it flies as well as
creeps.

Never throw mud. You may miss your mark, but you will have dirty hands.

Never throw mud. You may miss your mark, but you will have dirty hands.

For enemies carry about slander not in the form in which it took
its rise. . . . The read more

For enemies carry about slander not in the form in which it took
its rise. . . . The scandal of men is everlasting; even then does
it survive when you would suppose it to be dead.