Daily Inspiration Quote by George Bancroft

Slander, Bancroft suggests, is less a moral failing than a coping mechanism: the wounded ego looking for a weapon it can still wield. “Nine times out of ten” gives the line its historian’s swagger - an almost statistical authority that feels empirical without bothering with proof. He’s not offering a sermon; he’s offering a diagnosis. The slanderer isn’t powerful, just reactive. Disappointment - with status, recognition, love, money, influence - becomes the hidden engine, and the tongue becomes a crude lever for restoring a sense of control.

The subtext is classically 19th-century: reputation is capital, and speech is one of the few tools available to those who feel denied their due. If you can’t win the contest, you can poison the winner. Slander is then a form of social equalization, an attempt to drag someone’s standing down to the level where the disappointed person no longer has to confront their own failure. Bancroft’s framing also quietly flatters the target of slander: if you’re being talked about, you might be doing something that makes others feel left behind.

Context matters. Bancroft wrote in an America obsessed with character, public virtue, and civic legitimacy - a young democracy where authority depended heavily on perception. A historian of nation-building, he knew how reputations rise and fall not just by deeds, but by narratives. His line doesn’t excuse malice, but it demystifies it: listen for the bruise underneath the insult.