Character Assassination Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Character Assassination. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Character assassination. What a wonderful idea. Ordinary assassination only works once, but this one works every day.
Terry Pratchett (The Truth: Stage Adaptation)
The left no longer makes arguments about policies’ effectiveness. Their only argument is character assassination.
Ben Shapiro (How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them: 11 Rules for Winning the Argument)
Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. An honest woman can sell tangerines all day and remain a good person until she dies, but there will always be naysayers who will try to convince you otherwise. Perhaps this woman did not give them something for free, or at a discount. Perhaps too, that she refused to stand with them when they were wrong — or just stood up for something she felt was right. And also, it could be that some bitter women are envious of her, or that she rejected the advances of some very proud men. Always trust your heart. If the Creator stood before a million men with the light of a million lamps, only a few would truly see him because truth is already alive in their hearts. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them. He who does not have Truth in his heart, will always be blind to her.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
The cemetery has ... an inscription: 'Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will Fear No Evil, For Thou Art With Me.' Yes, it does feel deceptively safer with two; but Thou is a slippery character. Every Thou I've known has had a way of going missing.
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
No one cared when you were doing nothing. If they now criticize, ridicule, & character assassinate you means you’re doing something great...
Assegid Habtewold (The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For continued success in leadership)
Sometimes what you love to do could even make many people to hate you. You may go through non-formal torments, character assassinations, verbal assaults and societal rejections, but if you are convinced about your love for what you are doing, you will never give up.
Israelmore Ayivor (Dream big!: See your bigger picture!)
What is the source of Character Assassination? Jealousy. Jealousy originates from Limitation. A jealous person sees you as having a gift, skill, charisma, talent, or ability that he or she does not have. The mindset of a jealous person is manipulation. How does a Jealous Person manipulate? A Jealous Person controls a group's perception of you, the Gifted Person, by possessing a group's opinion by claiming you are full of fault.
Deborah Bravandt
Libby was a hero. Parisa was a villain. Their goals were overarching, appositional. Nico and Reina were so impartial and self-interested as to be wholly negligible. Tristian was a soldier, he would follow where he was most persuasively led. It was Callum who was an assassin.
Olivie Blake (The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1))
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought.
Margaret Chase Smith
Attempts at character assassination occur when it is too conspicuous to pierce your target with a bullet.
Sardonyx Jade
Cicero was nothing if not a genius at character assassination.
Anthony Everitt (Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician)
Backstabbers and malicious people are not worth your attention, but you can thank them for deeming you worthy of theirs.
J.S. Wolfe (The Pathology of Innocence)
Yes, it does feel deceptively safer with two; but Thou is a slippery character. Every Thou I've known has had a way of going missing. They skip town or turn perfidious, or else the drop like flies and then where are you?
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us. Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other.
Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
When they fail to kill your genius, they try to assassinate your character.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Rumors are hard to prove, but they’re even harder to disprove. We both know that character assassination is easy. All it takes is a suggestion. A well-placed word in someone’s ear.
Louise Penny (A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #12))
This document outlines our plan to perpetrate insurance fraud, insider trading, and character assassination. ...hopefully tripling our paycheck on this job. Okay, see? Those words I understand just fine. Use them more often. -Lieutenant Massey Reynstein & Captain Tagon
Howard Tayler (Emperor Pius Dei (Schlock Mercenary, #7))
We're living amid an artificial reality, persuaded to believe it's real by astroturf engineered to look like grassroots.
Sharyl Attkisson (The Smear: How the Secret Art of Character Assassination Controls What You Think, What You Read, and How You Vote)
You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.
P.J. O'Rourke (Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer)
As dye soaks fibres, drawn into them to change their colour forever, so does a memory, stinging or sweet, change the fibre of a man’s character.
Robin Hobb (Fool's Assassin (The Fitz and The Fool Trilogy, #1))
The unkindest thing you can do to a human is to tarnish their reputation in front of others just to make yourself look good.
Sijdah Hussain (Red Sugar, No More)
They can't kill your dreams, so they assassinate your character.
Nitya Prakash
Character assassination of a politician is a victimless crime
Dean Cavanagh
These bullies must keep up the assault, the slander, the character assassinations, stirring up the emotions of the public to a fever pitch, acting like saviors when in actuality they are frauds, phony patriots and very evil men in disguise, wrapping themselves in the flag.
Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun)
I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, and I don't mean to seem arrogant, but if you want to be foreverly remembered as anything great you have to live your life alone, hated, ignored, and character assassinated, and if you believe this to be true than you truely are a hater.
B.L. Kennison
The saddest thing you can do as a human is to discuss one person with another for the sake of it. The unkindest thing you can do to a human is to tarnish their reputation in front of others just to make yourself look good. An unfortunate thing that you can do to a person is to be unapologetically direct and not understand their side. However, the WORST thing you can do is to slip in ‘little’ white lies just to save yourself from confrontations & emotional conversations. Complain about each other to each other. Have your freedom … G E N T L Y. Discuss your mind – politely.
Sijdah Hussain (Red Sugar, No More)
The smear artist reveals himself by his disparate treatment of people and situations. He drapes himself in a superhero cape, claiming to defend the aggrieved. He pretends to right societal wrongs. In fact, though, he's motivated primarily by paid interests and his own selfish agendas. By definition, the job requires that morality and conscience be cast aside
Sharyl Attkisson (The Smear: How the Secret Art of Character Assassination Controls What You Think, What You Read, and How You Vote)
You would finish with hard, hurried fucks, punching every inch of my cunt.” Vulgarity could be a form of torture, along with character assassination.
Pepper Winters (Take Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Possession)
He says he is subjected to a relentless character assassination.
George Pell
Deep Throat seemed impressed by the groundwork they had done. Suddenly he walked to the front of one of the cars in the garage and, standing erect, placed his gloved hands authoritatively on the hood as if it were a rostrum. “From this podium, I’m prepared to denounce such questions about gentle Colson and noble Mitchell as innuendo, character assassination, hearsay and shoddy journalism. The questions themselves are fabrication and fiction and a pack of absurdities and cometh from the fountain of misinformation.” Woodward, who was very tired, started laughing and couldn’t stop. Deep Throat “Ziegler” continued the denunciation: “. . . that small Georgetown coterie of self-appointed guardians of public mistrust who seek the destruction of the people’s will—
Carl Bernstein (All the President's Men)
It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.” She continued: I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American…. I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation…. Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: The right to criticize; The right to hold unpopular beliefs; The right to protest; The right of independent thought.
Jon Meacham (The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels)
Truth arises by an invisible hand from our many errors, and both error and truth must be protected. The heretic, however, is now exposed to public intimidation and abuse on a scale inconceivable before the invention of the internet. Of course, we have moved on a bit from the Middle Ages. It is not the man who is assassinated now, but only his character. But the effect is the same. Free discussion is being everywhere shut down, so that we will never know who is right - the heretics, or those who try to silence them.
Roger Scruton
Tacit collaboration by millions who bite their lip is even more essential than lip service by thousands of favor seekers. Hence, to stimulate at least passive cooperation, the party strives to give the impression that “everybody” is already on its side. (The Rise of Political Correctness)
Angelo M. Codevilla
All of this evokes the dicta of successful historic propagandists described earlier. From Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: >"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." >"Keep the pressure on. Never let up." > "development of operations that will keep a constant pressure on the opposition." >"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." >"Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose." >"Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.
Sharyl Attkisson (The Smear: How the Secret Art of Character Assassination Controls What You Think, What You Read, and How You Vote)
[Juan Speaking] "Sixth, know that there is hemlock near, there always is and it's always easy to drink it freely or have it forced down your throat. Now days, the hemlock is called differently: departing 'voluntarily' after withering harassment, 'termination for cause', character assassinations circulated without remorse, call it what you will, but they can and will and love to administer the hemlock. You must either strive to join the powers that be, and hand out the hemlock, or strive to avoid taking the hemlock they will be thrusting upon you; there is no middle ground, no defense, no recourse.
Craig Robertson (The Innerglow Effect)
Worse still, they implement all of these things with brute force: violence, censorship, character assassination, smear campaigns, doxing, trolling, deplatforming, and online witch hunts. Tricks that are deliberately designed to leave people down and out. Ideally, jobless and without the resources to push back.
Dave Rubin (Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason)
In the forensics novels the contents of a victim’s pockets on the night of her death Say Something about her character. My Ford’s Theatre ticket stub and Jimmy Carter key chain say that I am the corniest, goody-goody person in town. Luckily, I survived the evening unscathed so no one will ever find out about that losery Jimmy Carter key chain.
Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation)
you and me today. Do you know that when He blesses you, no one—no prophet, no sorcerer, and no devil—can reverse it? You are irreversibly blessed! You can never be cursed! No generational curse or any other curse can come upon you because God has already blessed you! That includes being redeemed from the curse of the law as recorded in Galatians 3:13: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).” When God blesses you, no one can reverse it. When your enemies say negative things about you out of envy, jealousy, and fear, or if there are people spreading nasty lies about you to assassinate your character, know this: the Lord is your defender. It is God who gives influence to words, and He can cause their words to fall to the ground. He can even, as we have just read, turn their curses into blessings. You don’t have to get all flustered, agitated, and angry. Just know that the Lord is on your side and that when He has blessed you, no one can reverse it. Amen!
Joseph Prince (The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction)
....His trust in God was as firm as a mountain. Indeed, mountains might come crashing down, and yet the Prophet’s faith would remain unshaken. At moments of extreme danger, he was full of confidence that the truth he preached would triumph. At the moment of his greatest triumph he showed humility and gave due thanks to the Almighty. With yesterday’s enemies – the very ones who plotted his assassination and determined to exterminate his community – at his mercy, he was remarkably magnanimous. The sight that gave him most satisfaction at the end of his blessed life was that of his followers offering a congregational prayer in his mosque. He felt then that he had delivered God’s message and fulfilled his task.
Adil Salahi (Muhammad: His Character and Conduct)
Your mentality can assassinate your character. What a person thinks, he or she becomes. If you want a change or to change. Then change your mentality.
De philosopher DJ Kyos
Damn! Stop criticizing the character of a donkey based on laying eggs and the character of a duck based on giving birth
'LORD VISHNU' P.S.JAGADEESH KUMAR
There is not one man in seventy-five hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended to express. There is not one man in five hundred that can go into a court-room and be sure that he will not mistake some harmless innocent of a juryman for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet such people talk of "character" and presume to interpret "expression" in pictures.
Mark Twain (The Innocents Abroad)
Leaning toward a certain party is one thing (Matthew did it, Simon did it, and Jesus allowed it), but it is important to see that a partisan spirit can actually run against the Spirit of God. If there ever was a partisan crowd in the Bible, it was the crowd that pressured Pilate to crucify Jesus instead of Barabbas. Barabbas, a true criminal, went free while Jesus, an innocent man, was executed after having his impeccable character assassinated. This is the essence of partisanship. Partisans inflate the best features of their party while inflating the worst features, real or contrived, of the other party. They ignore the weaknesses of their own party while dismissing the other party’s strengths. I have good friends on both sides of the political aisle. I trust them. Many of them—on both sides—have a strong commitment to their faith. Because of this I grow perplexed when Christian men and women willingly participate in spin—ready, willing, and armed to follow the world in telling half-truths to promote their candidates, while telling more half-truths to demonize their opponents. Have we forgotten that a half-truth is the equivalent of a full lie? What’s more, political spin is polarizing even within the community of faith.
Scott Sauls (Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides)
You could fall in love with me, you can talk to my shrink, you can hide a tape recorder in my bedroom, see what I talk about from wherever I am when I sleep. You want to do that? You can put together clues, develop a thesis, or several, about why characters reacted to the Trystero possibility the way they did, why the assassins came on, why the black costumes. You could waste your life that way and never touch the truth.
Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49)
Watch what you say. Stop telling lies about other people with the intention of spreading hate or character assassination. You are cursing yourself. Tomorrow you will be wondering why your things are not working out. Why you're not making it, with the qualification, connection and experience your having. Forgetting that , it is because of the karma of lies you told about other people. Proverb 18:21 | Ephesians 4:29 | Psalms 1:1
De philosopher DJ Kyos
How much do I love our family? This much. When any kind of emergency strikes, good or bad, we snap together like parts in a machine, like a submarine crew at war in the tin-can clutter of our home, none of the usual debate, character assassination, woeful monologues, and turgid hand-wringing. I've learned to love crises for this reason, how they make us pull together and forget our separateness and sadness; this was the second great gift of the moonfish.
Shaun Tan (Tales from the Inner City)
I’ve been the reader sending that letter or small gift to a writer I’ve never met. I sent them because I wanted that writer to know that I’d met their characters. Their characters had become my friends. I hadn’t read a story; I’d shared a life.
Robin Hobb (Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1))
Democrats have become the party of socialism, open borders, sanctuary cities, the elimination of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), underfunding the military, abortion on demand, infanticide, environmental extremism, gun confiscation, higher taxes, radical identity politics, suppression of free speech and religious expression, and among some Democratic members of Congress, undisguised anti-Semitism. They’re also the party of intolerance, smears, lies, character assassination, besmirchment, and fake Russian dossiers.
Sean Hannity (Live Free or Die: America (and the World) on the Brink)
to suggest that I am racist is to deliver a deep moral blow—a kind of character assassination. Having received this blow, I must defend my character, and that is where all my energy will go—to deflecting the charge, rather than reflecting on my behavior. In this way, the good/bad binary makes it nearly impossible to talk to white people about racism, what it is, how it shapes all of us, and the inevitable ways that we are conditioned to participate in it. If we cannot discuss these dynamics or see ourselves within them, we cannot stop participating in racism.
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
Bernie’s entire campaign was a character assassination—a moral-high-ground argument that she was less pure than he was. Of course, that was true in the sense that she believed in moving forward by building political coalitions. Bernie didn’t work with anyone. He didn’t do it in the House. He didn’t do it in the Senate. His “coalition” on the campaign trail was almost entirely white and disproportionately male. Hell, he was only competitive in states where just a handful of people showed up for caucuses or large portions of the electorate were independents, not Democrats.
Jonathan Allen (Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign)
The basic rule of Roman history is that those who were assassinated were, like Gaius, demonised. Those who died in their beds, succeeded by a son and heir, natural or adopted, were praised as generous and avuncular characters, devoted to the success of Rome, who did not take themselves too seriously.
Mary Beard (SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome)
I'd been so tired of 'strong female characters' for so long by then. I was so tired of the way female strength was made to look cold and humorless; the way it was characterized as deviant and 'unnatural' and always lonely and exceptional. I was tired of the grim undertone of tragedy that lurked under its surface. 'Strong female characters' were never funny, and they never had any fun, either. More often than not, they were celibate, friendless, and clinically depressed. Their monomaniacal devotion to crime fighting made them lean, cranky, and impatient. Naturally, they had axes to grind: they were avenging brides, poker-faced assassins, gloomy ninjas with commitment issues. Who were these characters? What were they trying to tell us? Why didn't they ever say goodbye before hanging up the phone? And why were they always being reborn or remade as killing machines after losing everything they held dear? ...I don't want to see another symbolic woman start all over again. I want to see the symbolic world change to acknowledge her existence. I don't want to see a young girl get a makeover or go shopping with her boyfriend's credit card. I want to watch her blow up the Death Star - metaphorically, of course.
Carina Chocano (You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages)
You can never trust the deceptive, manipulative and abusive financial solicitors/beggars of political funds of handsome putschists who commit defamation, calumny, polemics mongering, gossip-mongering, mob lynching, group bullying, cyber libel, threats, blackmail, digital aggression, character assassination, mudslinging and Machiavellian manipulators who habitually commit various crimes: forgery, fraud, libel, slander, identity theft, racketeering, and malversation of funds. ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from Sfidatopia Book 2, Stronzata Trilogy Genre: Inspirational, political literary novel © Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn
Angelica Hopes
If you try to change things constructively in the social sciences or try to reconcile conflicts, rather than take sides, you’ll be attacked through character assassination and every other means of skullduggery not excluding physical assault. It is inevitable and inescapable. It will disgust you to the point of befuddlement and, at times, rage. That beautiful beatitude in the Bible should be changed to read: Blessed are the peacemakers in heaven; because on Earth, they shall catch hell. Nonetheless, I’ll stress that the time is finally right, on our planet, for the expansive light of true civilization. Well-informed voices both prophesying and forcing that maturation, suddenly, are being heard everywhere.
Robert Humphrey (Values For A New Millennium: Activating the Natural Law to: Reduce Violence, Revitalize Our Schools, and Promote Cross-Cultural Harmony)
The formula for a public assassination is: the character assassination before the physical assassination; so one has to be made killable before the eyes of the public in order for their eventual murder to then be deemed justifiable. And when the time arrives for these hits to be carried out, you’re not going to see a C.I.A. agent with a suit & tie, and a badge that says "C.I.A." walk up to someone, and pull the trigger. What they will do is out-source to local police departments in the region of their target, and to employ those that look like the target of interest to infiltrate the workings in order to set up the environment for the eventual assassination (character, physical/incarceration, exile) to take place.
Malcolm Shabazz
While making racism bad seems like a positive change, we have to look at how this functions in practice. Within this paradigm, to suggest that I am racist is to deliver a deep moral blow—a kind of character assassination. Having received this blow, I must defend my character, and that is where all my energy will go—to deflecting the charge, rather than reflecting on my behavior. In this way, the good/bad binary makes it nearly impossible to talk to white people about racism, what it is, how it shapes all of us, and the inevitable ways that we are conditioned to participate in it. If we cannot discuss these dynamics or see ourselves within them, we cannot stop participating in racism. The good/bad binary made it effectively impossible for the average white person to understand—much less interrupt—racism.
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
The cemetery has a wrought-iron gate, with an intricate scrollwork archway over it, and an inscription: Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I Will Fear No Evil, For Thou Art With Me. Yes, it does feel deceptively safer with two; but Thou is a slippery character. Every Thou I’ve known has had a way of going missing. They skip town, or turn perfidious, or else they drop like flies, and then where are you?
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
. . .biographers tend to regard as character those elements of personality that remain constant, or nearly so, throughout. . .Like practitioners of fractal geometry, biographers seek patterns that persist as one moves from micro- to macro-levels of analysis, and back again. . . . It follows from this that the scale across which we seek similarity need not be chronological. Consider the following incidents in the life of Stalin between 1929 and 1940, arranged not by dates but in terms of ascending horror. Start with the parrot he kept in a cage in his Kremlin apartment. The dictator had the habit of pacing up and down for long periods of time, smoking his pipe, brooding, and occasionally spitting on the floor. One day the parrot tried to mimic Stalin's spitting. He immediately reached into the cage with his pipe and crushed the parrot's head. A very micro-level event, you might well say, so what? But then you learn that Stalin, while on vacation in the Crimea, was once kept awake by a barking dog. It turned out to be a seeing-eye dog that belonged to a blind peasant. The dog wound up being shot, and the peasant wound up in the Gulag. And then you learn that Stalin drove his independently minded second wife, who tried to talk back to him, into committing suicide. And that he arranged for Trotsky, who also talked back, to be assassinated halfway around the world. And that he arranged as well the deaths of as many of Trotsky's associates that he could reach, as well as the deaths of hundred of thousands of other people who never had anything to do with Trotsky. And that when his own people began to talk back by resisting the collectivization of agriculture, he allowed some fourteen million of them to die from the resulting starvation, exile, or imprisonment. Again, there's self-similarity across scale, except that the scale this time is a body count. It's a fractal geometry of terror. Stalin's character extended across time and space, to be sure, but what's most striking about it is its extension across scale: the fact that his behavior seemed much the same in large matters, small matters, and most of those that lay in between.
John Lewis Gaddis (The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past)
The brutality of the regime knows no bounds. It does not remain neutral towards the people here; it creates beasts in its own image out of ordinary people who might have been neighbors instead. Even more dangerous was the fact that the fundamentals of humanity and the ABCs of life have been eviscerated from the hearts of many people here. State television destroys human compassion, the sort of fundamental empathy that is not contingent upon a political or even a cultural orientation, and through which one human being can relate to another. The al-Dunya channel stirs up hatred, broadcasts fake news and maligns any opposing viewpoint. I wasn't the only one subjected to internet attacks by the security services and the Ba'thists, even if the campaign against me may be fiercer because I come from the Alawite community and have a lot of family connections to them -- because I am a woman and it's supposedly easier to break me with rumors and character assassinations and insults. Some of my actress friends who expressed sympathy for the children of Dar'a and called for an end to the siege of the city were subjected to a campaign of character assassinations and called traitors, then forced to appear on state television in order to clarify their position. Friends who expressed sympathy for the families of the martyrs would get insulted, they would be called traitors and accused of being foreign spies. People became afraid to show even a little bit of sympathy for one another, going against the basic facts of life, the slightest element of what could be called the laws of human nature -- that is, if we indeed agree that sympathy is part of human nature in the first place. Moral and metaphorical murder is being carried out as part of a foolproof plan, idiotic but targeted, stupid yet leaving a mark on people's souls.
Samar Yazbek
My guess would be that the girl was worried about her sister’s heart.” “Her heart?” “Yes. For the young ruler had no one to love, save for the little sister, and the sister wished for the young ruler to have someone to love in case . . . in case anything ever happened to her.” I stare into Isabeau’s eyes and see that she knows full well that she is not long for this world. That she worries about her sister at a time like this is a testament to her remarkable character.
Robin LaFevers (Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin, #3))
As for the liberty of the press, like every other privilege, it must be restrained within certain bounds; for if it is carried to a breach of law, religion, and charity, it becomes one of the greatest evils that ever annoyed the community. If the lowest ruffian may stab your good-name with impunity in England, will you be so uncandid as to exclaim against Italy for the practice of common assassination? To what purpose is our property secured, if our moral character is left defenceless? People
Tobias Smollett (The Expedition of Humphry Clinker: A Norton Critical Edition (Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions))
The boy who wears his comic books like armor often sits alone. He is more comfortable with Iron Man and his own thoughts than he will ever be with a woman. Because of his nervous ticks, no matter how long they are together, she will never feel commonplace to him. She will always know she is special. The boy who wears his comic books like armor tries to tell her that he loves her every day. She does not understand. When he says, You remind me of Psylocke, he is not saying he actually thinks she is a scantily clad assassin. He is just saying, Damn girl, you must be psychic. How else could you always know the right thing to make me smile? You have to be a ninja. How else could you have stolen my heart so easily? He is saying, Dammmmmmmmnnnnnn girl, you absolutely have to be Psylocke! She is the only character I have ever read about who is as graceful and daring as you are. She does not understand. The boy who wears his comic books like armor is not a good lover. The way he barely touches her makes her feel unattractive. Like he is only doing this because she wants him to. This could not be further from the truth. He is simply treating her like the only thing that has ever been this important to him before: comic books. He removes her clothes like he would the slipcover from a brand new issue, as careful not to wrinkle her clothing as he is not to damage the plastic. One day, she will leave him because feeling special isn’t as important as feeling loved. He does love her. She can’t understand. He will spend the rest of his life wishing he were Peter Parker, knowing that if he had a mask to remove, then, just like Mary Jane, she would be with him forever. But he doesn’t have a mask to remove, just an awkward smile. He hopes that one day that’s enough.
Jared Singer (Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Self-Destruction)
Believe in Yourself Why must we see something to believe in its existence?The wind itself cannot be seen by man, but all have felt it's gentle touch and watched the mighty trees bow as it swept past. We cannot see love yet its nurturing warmth is the essence of our being and sorrow can touch our very soul. For remorse is like a ripple on the ocean, once given it remains only in the heart of the receiver. Yet all of these cannot be seen only felt. Why then do you doubt your self-worth? For though it cannot cast a reflection in the mirror you have only to look in the eyes of those you love to See it clearly. Prologue To Kiss a King To Kiss a King Copyright © 2017 by Julie Brookshier and Robin Woods All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or use of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without written permission of one or more of the authors. This is a fictional work. Names, characters, places, and events are merely the product of the authors' imaginations or used fictitiously, purely for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead or any business establishments, events or places past, present, or future, is entirely coincidental.
Grace Willows (To Kiss a King)
If this were a game, like the countless stupid things I’ve played over the years, I’d be heading down there to pick off the guards one by one and free them. Then we’d take back the colony and put an end to this terror. But I don’t have the skills or the weapons that my character would have. There aren’t handy weapon caches stored in secret places that I can raid to arm myself and my fellows. None of the games I’ve ever played have built in total failure from the start. I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to tackle one of the guards and take their weapon. There’s no engine to interpret my clumsy actions and translate them into flawless silent assassinations. There is no heroism in me without the supporting game narrative.
Emma Newman (Planetfall (Planetfall, #1))
I want to say something here, a lot of times, each of us may have been guilty of labeling someone materialistic because they have a high standard or expectation from those they want to relate with or deal with. In our minds, we are pissed off. How can they elevate the standards so high, so high that we are excluded, it must be selfish of them and in fact wicked. They are saying that we are not fit to be their friends, etc, etc. We spend so much energy trying to analyse and sometimes even dare to dictate to others what standards they should keep and maintain so we can fit in, I think with respect, it is a flawed way of thinking about the situation. It is a manner of thinking about the situation that may never solve of problems, our inadequacy. The government may set standards and regulations about how we ought t conduct our affairs in the public, but it will hardly, rarely and barely concern itself with the regulation of personal and private life, except those private actions that have or bring about public consequences. As such, each one of us has the power to make Rules and Regulations for the Admission of Persons into our lives, it is not in your capacity to cry when someone chooses to set his as high as the Eiffel tower Finally, instead of dying of envy, jealousy or resulting in character assassination, what you may do is spend time climbing the ladder of life, that you may become relevant to those you wish to dine and wine with. This is the hard part and most of us will rather squirm and cry-fowl. The rules of the game was set by nature, quitting, is a choice too.
Magnus Nwagu Amudi
In Dream Street there are many theatrical hotels, and rooming houses, and restaurants, and speaks, including Good Time Charley's Gingham Shoppe, and in the summer time the characters I mention sit on the stoops or lean against the railings along Dream Street, and the gab you hear sometimes sounds very dreamy indeed. In fact, it sometimes sounds very pipe-dreamy. Many actors, male and female, and especially vaudeville actors, live in the hotels and rooming houses, and vaudeville actors, both male and female, are great hands for sitting around dreaming out loud about how they will practically assassinate the public in the Palace if ever they get a chance. Furthermore, in Dream Street are always many hand-bookies and horse players, who sit on the church steps on the cool side of Dream Street in the summer and dream about big killings on the races, and there are also nearly always many fight managers, and sometimes fighters, hanging out in front of the restaurants, picking their teeth and dreaming about winning championships of the world, although up to this time no champion of the world has yet come out of Dream Street. In this street you see burlesque dolls, and hoofers, and guys who write songs, and saxophone players, and newsboys, and newspaper scribes, and taxi drivers, and blind guys, and midgets, and blondes with Pomeranian pooches, or maybe French poodles, and guys with whiskers, and night-club entertainers, and I do not know what all else. And all of these characters are interesting to look at, and some of them are very interesting to talk to, although if you listen to several I know long enough, you may get the idea that they are somewhat daffy, especially the horse players.
Damon Runyon (The Short Stories of Damon Runyon - Volume I - The Bloodhounds of Broadway)
When you have an honest heart, you do not get engaged nor get involved with any smear campaigns nor black propaganda! When you have an honest heart, you do not malign nor take advantage of generous people who helped and trusted you! When you have an honest heart, you do not shit on people whom you used and abused for three years! Do not fall into a political naïvety and become a victim or a doormat nor have your generosity and honest heart be used and abused by unscrupulous political movers, abusive, aggressive political harridans who scam gullible generous hearts by asking donations, funds, services, foods, urgent favours, and after using you and abusing your generosity, trust, and kindness; whereby these unscrupulous and deceptive political movers, abusive, aggressive political harridans intentionally and maliciously create forged screenshots of evidence convincing their audience or political groups that you are a mentally ill person, a brain-damaged person as they even brand you as "Sisang Baliw," or crazy Sisa, a threat, a risk, a danger, they maliciously and destructively red-tag your friends as communists, and they resort to calumny, libel and slander against you, to shame you, defame you, discredit you, blame you, hurt you, make you suffer for having known the truth of their deceptive global Operandi, and for something you didn’t do through their mob lynching, calumny, polemics mongering, forgery, and cyberbullying efforts. Their character assassination through libel and slander aims to ruin your integrity, persona, trustworthiness, and credibility with their destructive fabricated calumny, lies, identity theft, forged screenshots of polemics mongering, and framing up. Amidst all their forgery, fraud, libel and slander they committed: you have a right to defy and stop their habitual abuse without breaking the law and fight for your rights against any forms of aggression, public lynching, bullies, threats, blackmail, and their repetitive maltreatment or abuse, identity theft, forgery, deceptions fraud, scams, cyber libel, libel, and slander. When you defend human rights, you fight against corruption and injustice, help end impunity: be sure that you are not part of any misinformation, disinformation, smear campaigns and black propaganda. Do not serve, finance, or cater directly or indirectly for those dirty politicians. Those who are engaged in abusively dishonest ways do not serve to justify their end. Deceiving and scamming other people shall always be your lifetime self-inflicted karmic loss. Be a law-abiding citizen. Be respectful. Be honest. Be factual. Be truthful. You can be an effective human rights defender when you have clean and pure intentions, lawful and morally upright, and have an honest heart." ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from Calunniatopia Book 1, Stronzata Trilogy Genre: inspirational, political, literary novel © 2021 Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn
Angelica Hopes
Let’s come back to the question of the gospel of grace causing division. Is it possible to preach the gospel of grace and cause division to the extent that people would even want to kick you out of their cities? Yes! This happened in the early church. Paul was “speaking boldly in the Lord” and preaching “the word of His grace” when in the very next verse, you find that “the multitude of the city was divided: part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles”8. There was even a “violent attempt… made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them”9. Thus, it is clear that when you preach the same good news that Paul preached, it doesn’t mean that everybody will be united and say, “Hallelujah!” There will be those who would want to kick you out of their cities and say all kinds of things about you to assassinate your character. But just because there was division, it certainly did not mean that what Paul preached was not true. That is precisely why Paul warned that even when God declares something so good, there are those who will refuse to believe — “you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you”. If you are believing the Lord for a miraculous breakthrough, then be sure that you are hearing “the word of His grace” and not the word of His law. That is why the gospel that Paul preached is not a man-pleasing gospel. Paul did not preach to be welcomed everywhere he went. He preached the truth of the gospel even if it meant being stoned by his opponents and being expelled from cities. He did it because the gospel is THE POWER OF GOD to salvation!
Joseph Prince (Destined To Reign)
But sympathy in novels need not be simply a matter of the reader’s direct identification with a fictional character. It can also be driven by, say, my admiration of a character who is long on virtues I am short on (the moral courage of Atticus Finch, the limpid goodness of Alyosha Karamazov), or, most interestingly, by my wish to be a character who is unlike me in ways I don’t admire or even like. One of the great perplexities of fiction-and the quality that makes the novel the quintessentially liberal art form-is that we experience sympathy so readily for characters we wouldn’t like in real life. Becky Sharp may be a soulless social climber, Tom Ripley may be a sociopath, the Jackal may want to assassinate the French President, Mickey Sabbath may be a disgustingly self-involved old goat, and Raskolnikov may want to get away with murder, but I find myself rooting for each of them. This is sometimes, no doubt, a function of the lure of the forbidden, the guilty pleasure of imagining what it would be like to be unburdened by scruples. In every case, though, the alchemical agent by which fiction transmutes my secret envy or my ordinary dislike of “bad” people into sympathy is desire. Apparently, all a novelist has to do is give a character a powerful desire (to rise socially, to get away with murder) and I, as a reader, become helpless not to make that desire my own.
Jonathan Franzen
3 And why do you behold the mote that is in your brother’s eye (the Believer is not to be looking for fault or wrongdoing in the lives of fellow Believers), but consider not the beam that is in your own eye? (We have plenty in our own lives which need eliminating, without looking for faults in others. The “mote” and “beam” are contrasted! The constant judging of others portrays the fact that we are much worse off than the one we are judging.) 4 Or how will you say to your brother, Let me pull out the mote out of your eye (the seriousness of setting ourselves up as judge, jury, and executioner); and, behold, a beam is in your own eye? (Once again draws attention to the fact that the person doing the judging is in far worse spiritual condition than the one being judged.) 5 You hypocrite (aptly describes such a person), first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then you shall see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother’s eye (the very fact that we do not address ourselves, but rather others, portrays the truth that our personal situation is worse; when we properly analyze ourselves, then, and only then, can we “see clearly”; this is speaking of character assassination and not the correction of doctrine).
Jimmy Swaggart (The Expositor's Study Bible)
Given the assumption that their ideology is really science, progressives dress up their subjective and frequently irrational prejudices in pseudo-science. Contrived statistics are a favorite device, for numbers with decimal points appear objective and inarguable. There’s the false claim that women earn only 77% of what men make, or that 20% of college co-eds suffer sexual assault, or that 97% of scientists endorse anthropogenic global warming. These numerical confections, like the dancing needles in the E-meter gauge, imply that these issues are no more a matter for debate than are the law of gravity or the spherical earth. Of course, in reality such statistics are camouflage for ideological, not scientific beliefs. But to progressives, they are scientific facts, so anyone who disagrees is either hopelessly ignorant or willfully evil, blinded by bigotry or in thrall to religious superstition. This explains the nastiness of progressive attacks on those who disagree with them, the quick recourse to ad hominem smears of the sort that appear only on the conservative fringe. Just as Scientology defames critics and defectors with false accusations and character assassination, so too progressives frequently hurl epithets like “racist” at those who criticize Obama, or indulge preposterous tropes like the “war on women,” or throw ugly names like “denier,” redolent of Holocaust denial, at anyone who questions that anthropogenic global warming is a scientific fact rather than a hypothesis. And progressives are eager to use the power of government and institutions like the IRS and college administrations to silence and stigmatize those who oppose them.
Anonymous
Brennan exuded a strength of purpose and possessed a command of character that permitted him to play virtually any nationality in any setting. In Hangmen Also Die! (April 15, 1943), Fritz Lang’s film about the assassination of Hitler’s henchman, Reinhard Heydrich, Brennan jettisons his avuncular and rustic persona for a powerful performance as a Czech professor.
Carl Rollyson (A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan (Hollywood Legends))
However,” Bob continued, and the word came down like a sledgehammer, “there is a line at which a likable bad boy becomes a nasty entitled bastard whom the public would rather see hung out to dry in the street than pay to watch prance about a stage in his bloomers. And when somebody starts abusing their fans, making an absolute arse of themselves in public places, and alienating the people who paid for their bloody Ferrari, they may consider that line crossed.” Lainie wondered if an actual “Hallelujah” chorus had appeared in the doorway, or if it was just the sound of her own glee. She still had no idea why she was the privileged audience to this character assassination, but she warmly appreciated it.
Lucy Parker
In 1991 a Tamil Tiger (radical Sri Lankan terrorist), the “bra bomber” (actually it was a belt), didn’t sweat through her bomb, though, and she accomplished her goal, assassinating Indian prime minister Rajiv Ratna Gandhi. She was ruthless.
Gary J. Byrne (Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate)
Hillary wants the American people to believe she is a champion of women’s rights. “Women’s issues are America’s issues,” she has said over and again, adding that “women’s rights are human rights.” She neglects to mention the plethora of women whose voices she silenced and whose rights she took away. She has not only enabled the behavior of her husband for almost forty years, she has engaged in a war of character assassination and caused both physical and emotional trauma to the women who were victims of her husband’s depraved behavior.
Roger Stone (The Clintons' War on Women)
on Facebook and Internet forums to point out the incorrect use of "their”, "there" and "they're". I get little thanks but what does one expect from the uneducated. Some people just refuse to better themselves. All of that is irritating. I am infuriated when people are mistaken about me. That makes me especially angry. The mistakes always take the form of some ad hominem attack and are based on at best a misconception or at worst a blatant lie. Any assault on my character makes me so angry and I lose my temper very easily when this happens. What do they expect though? That I should sit quietly as they assassinate my character? Not a chance.
H.G. Tudor (Confessions of a Narcissist)
Character assassination is one of the greatest pastimes of the village righteous and,
Robert Crais (Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe)
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-- The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in. The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as "Communists" or "Fascists" by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.
Margaret Chase Smith
The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity. It is ironical that we senators can in debate in the Senate, directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to any American who is not a senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming an American--and without that non-senator American having any legal redress against us--yet if we say the same thing in the Senate about our colleagues we can be stopped on the grounds of being out of order. It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection, and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate floor.
Margaret Chase Smith
blown scheme for assassination, with Len and myself apparently cast for the principal roles.” Beurton was enthusiastic. “What could be easier than to put a time bomb in an attaché case along with our coats and, having had an early lunch, abandon the lot in the hope that the bomb would blow Hitler and his entourage, snugly lunching behind the deal boarding, into eternity?” An alternative method—“assassination in its more traditional character”—would be to shoot Hitler as he passed through the restaurant and hope his inattentive bodyguards were too slow to intervene. The only problem with this second plan was that it was suicidal. Ursula and Beurton shared the conviction that killing Hitler was not only possible, but a moral imperative. “Neither of us believed in the effectiveness of terrorist attacks on individuals,” she wrote. “But there were some people we considered so dangerous and bestial that we were both prepared to break the rules.” Foote was not nearly so keen. He too wanted Hitler dead. He just didn’t want to die himself. Beurton might be a stranger to fear, but Foote was not.
Ben Macintyre (Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy)
The Practice of Ritual Defamation: How Values, Opinions and Beliefs are Controlled in Democratic Societies The elements of a Ritual Defamation are these: 1.In a ritual defamation the victim must have violated a particular taboo in some way, usually by expressing or identifying with a forbidden attitude, opinion or belief. It is not necessary that he "do" anything about it or undertake any particular course of action, only that he engage in some form of communication or expression. 2.The method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool. 3.An important rule in ritual defamation is to avoid engaging in any kind of debate over the truthfulness or reasonableness of what has been expressed, only condemn it. To debate opens the issue up for examination and discussion of its merits, and to consider the evidence that may support it, which is just what the ritual defamer is trying to avoid. The primary goal of a ritual defamation is censorship and repression.
Laird Wilcox
By the early summer of 1968, many of the hippies in the Sierra Madre Canyon were into Scientology. Either that, or they were into hard drugs. It was a fractured, confusing, disheartening time: in April, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, followed two months later by Robert Kennedy. Riots had erupted in Watts, and then at the Chicago Democratic Convention. The anti-war protests, bloody and embattled, now seemed futile. Increasingly, many young searchers who’d drifted to the Canyon, particularly those just back from Vietnam, were using heroin. Shady characters followed them, hanging around on the fringes, dealing drugs. The scene in the Canyon became increasingly tense. After one young man was killed in a gunfight near his house, Jeff Hawkins decided it was time to move on.
Janet Reitman (Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion)
Against those whose opinions and evidence challenge the conclusions of mainstream historians, smear, electronic harassment, loss of employment, denunciations to employers, character assassination and poison pen letters are the usual methods employed by determined groups and individuals seeking to squelch free speech and open debate. In some rare cases, outright violence has been used in an attempt to put “deniers” out of business. For example, on July 4, 1984, arsonists set fire to the warehouse of the Institute for Historical Review, resulting in an estimated $400,000 worth of damage.
John Bellinger
You must believe your life is valuable. You cannot help others if you cannot first help yourself. Never become emotionless, for emotion is what makes you human." --character Master Sye Rainier, Vision of a Torn Land
Lindsey Cowherd (Assassins' Guild of Obseen: Vision of a Torn Land (The Cost of Redemption #0))
Richard Holmes cites an estimate that 20 percent of American officers who died in Vietnam were assassinated by their own men. Richard Gabriel, who served twenty-two years in the U.S. Army, writes: When forced to serve under officers whom they believe to be incompetent and therefore dangerous, soldiers throughout history have resorted to the simple yet effective device of killing them.... At least 1,013 documented killings of superiors or attempted killings ... were reported [for the Vietnam War.]
Jonathan Shay (Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character)
The financial-political parasites, unscrupulous political movers and opportunistic abusive users think they have the numbers and the strength in the social media or the people whom they can influence by uniting people using lies, hate and their continuous assassination of characters to destroy their target victim/s integrity, persona, and credibility, but the genuine unbeatable strength which shall triumph against their lies and those liars are the truth and the honest, factual, lawful and truthful truth-tellers. The most powerful and unbeatable strength is the TRUTH.” ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from my inspirational, political, literary novel, Calunniatopia Book 1 Stronzata Trilogy © Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn
Angelica Hopes
Self-righteous anger also can be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us, for it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority. Gossip barbed with our anger, a polite form of murder by character assassination, has its satisfactions for us, too. Here we are not trying to help those we criticize; we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness.
Alcoholics Anonymous (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions)
character assassination—to deal with scars from past church association.  There
Jon W. Brisby (A Peculiar Treasure: The Enduring Legacy of Herbert & Loma Armstrong)
J.A.’s homework schedule was no joke. Every week there was a new short story due, and for those Penny wrote about squirrel crime mobs, post-apocalyptic plagues that only took out people over nineteen, colleges in the future where the entrance exams were assassinations, and a Buddhist who died and came back as a toy. Building a world where you rappel in, set up some characters, and ejector seat your way out was a breeze.
Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
PCA- (Psychological Character Assassination) Is when someone changes from who they are and start living their lives, according to the standards of social media. Their minds create a new personality based on what they read on social media. They let social media people determine or decide on how they should live their lives.
De philosopher DJ Kyos
While making racism bad seems like a positive change, we have to look at how this functions in practice. Within this paradigm, to suggest that I am racist is to deliver a deep moral blow—a kind of character assassination. Having received this blow, I must defend my character, and that is where all my energy will go—to deflecting the charge, rather than reflecting on my behavior. In this way, the good/bad binary makes it nearly impossible to talk to white people about racism, what it is, how it shapes all of us, and the inevitable ways that we are conditioned to participate
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
While making racism bad seems like a positive change, we have to look at how this functions in practice. Within this paradigm, to suggest that I am racist is to deliver a deep moral blow—a kind of character assassination. Having received this blow, I must defend my character, and that is where all my energy will go—to deflecting the charge, rather than reflecting on my behavior. In this way, the good/bad binary makes it nearly impossible to talk to white people about racism, what it is, how it shapes all of us, and the inevitable ways that we are conditioned to participate in it. If we cannot discuss these dynamics or see ourselves within them, we cannot stop participating in racism. The good/bad binary made it effectively impossible for the average white person to understand—much less interrupt—racism. As African American scholar and filmmaker Omowale Akintunde says: “Racism is a systemic, societal, institutional, omnipresent, and epistemologically embedded phenomenon that pervades every vestige of our reality. For most whites, however, racism is like murder: the concept exists, but someone has to commit it in order for it to happen. This limited view of such a multilayered syndrome cultivates the sinister nature of racism and, in fact, perpetuates racist phenomena rather than eradicates them.”2
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
Now, emphatically, be warned that to lead in this effort you must be tough-minded (thick skinned). If you try to change things constructively in the social sciences or try to reconcile conflicts, rather than take sides, you’ll be attacked through character assassination and every other means of skullduggery not excluding physical assault. It is inevitable and inescapable. It will disgust you to the point of befuddlement and, at times, rage. That beautiful beatitude in the Bible should be changed to read: Blessed are the peacemakers in heaven; because on Earth, they shall catch hell. Nonetheless, I’ll stress that the time is finally right, on our planet, for the expansive light of true civilization. Well-informed voices both prophesying and forcing that maturation, suddenly, are being heard everywhere.
Robert Humphrey (Values For A New Millennium: Activating the Natural Law to: Reduce Violence, Revitalize Our Schools, and Promote Cross-Cultural Harmony)
GLAAD's original mission was certainly admirable. Gays and lesbians, who had long endured the cold shoulder of a disapproving society, finally had an organization that would speak out on their behalf and fight injustice. But, like so many well-meaning organizations, GLAAD fell victim to the process described by Lord Acton. Seemingly overnight, it went from character building to character assassination. Fattened up with newfound power, it chose not to debate those with differing opinions but to try to destroy them. For political scientists, this is not a revelation. But for those of us who have emotional capital invested in the ideal of progressive thought and action, the attack on Dr. Laura Schlessinger should be a serious wake-up call.
Tammy Bruce (The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds)
Delta Airlines, you might have noticed, does not run negative TV ads about USAir. It does not show pictures of the crash of USAir Flight 427, with a voice-over saying: “USAir, airline of death. Going to Pittsburgh? Fly Delta instead.” And McDonald’s, you might also have noticed, does not run ads reminding viewers that Jack in the Box hamburgers once killed two customers. Why? Because Delta and McDonald’s know that if the airline and fast-food industries put on that kind of advertising, America would soon be riding trains and eating box-lunch tuna sandwiches. Yet every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country—and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.
Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics)
I am a debater; I always have been. But in the current climate, debate is becoming a lost art—partly because of a general decline in the study of logic and rhetoric, but mostly because of the general feminization of culture and its consequent disdain for open verbal combat. Gone are the days of Luther and Erasmus slugging it out over the question of original sin. Today both men would be accused of being petty (for daring to split hairs over such theological minutia), mean-spirited (for daring to speak so forcefully in favor of their own position and against the other’s), and downright un-Christlike (for throwing around the word “heresy”). I have often said, “The Eleventh Commandment is, ‘Thou shalt be nice”… and we don’t believe the other ten.” One of the negative results of this is no longer being able to deal with ideas without attacking the people who hold them. Disagreements quickly deteriorate into arguments and worse. Consequently, taking a position on an issue carries the automatic assumption that one is utterly opposed not only to the opposing view, but to all who hold it. Therefore, we don’t debate ideas at all, but go straight for personal attacks and character assassination. And this debate is no different. To the anti–Critical Social Justice camp, those on the side of CSJ are all Cultural Marxists. Conversely, to the social justice camp, those who oppose their cause are all racists (even fellow black people like me who, according to their definition of racism, can’t be racists… but I digress). The result is a standstill—a demilitarized zone that exists, not because hostilities have ceased, but because we all tacitly believe there is no solution. Meanwhile, well-meaning Christian laypeople find themselves at a loss. Which side do they choose? There are “big names” on both sides, so who’s right?
Voddie T. Baucham Jr. (Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe)
The rich enemies of Jehovah and the Bible already knew who my favorite authors were. That's why I am sure that all of my favorite authors must make sure they stop trusting emailed final draft submissions to their publishers. You must vet properly and do as much hand delivery as possible. The spirit(s) claimed that Bill Gates Jr of Microsoft and his Fortune 500 co-horts as well as at least one king of the earth (political ruler) wasted at least $20 billion US dollars on this type of counterfeiting and character assassination and whatever. Please correct me right away if you happen to know I am wrong at all. I appreciate www dot worldcat dot org - and the Freedom of Information Act and the real wikileaks and the real PETA (I just disagree with their violent philosophy and it is impossible for me to be a lifelong vegan).
Joomi Lee, and so forth
the only thing I had so far learned with any certainty about the film world was that back-biting, hypocrisy, double-dealing, innuendo and character assassination formed so integral a part of its conversational fabric that it was quite impossible to know where the truth ended and falsehood began. The only safe guide, I’d discovered, was to assume that the truth ended almost immediately.
Alistair MacLean (Bear Island)
Wikipedia: Character Assasination The effect of a character assassination driven by an individual is not equal to that of a state-driven campaign. The state-sponsored destruction of reputations, fostered by political propaganda and cultural mechanisms, can have more far-reaching consequences. One of the earliest signs of a society's compliance to loosening the reins on the perpetration of crimes (and even massacres) with total impunity is when a government favors or directly encourages a campaign aimed at destroying the dignity and reputation of its adversaries, and the public accepts its allegations without question. The mobilization toward ruining the reputation of adversaries is the prelude to the mobilization of violence in order to annihilate them. Generally, official dehumanization has preceded the physical assault of the victims. Specific examples include Zersetzung, by the Stasi secret service agency of East Germany, and kompromat in Russia.
Wikipedia Contributors
GOOD BEINGS DON'T LOSE THEIR CHARACTER, IT CAN ONLY BE ASSASSINATED FOR THE TIME BEING
P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar