John Andrews,
To The Detracted, lines 1-8, from
The Anatomy of Baseness (1615), as printed in Norman Ault,
Elizabethan Lyrics from the Original Texts (1949; rpt. New York: Capricorn Books, 1960), p. 461:
Though wolves against the silver moon do bark,
They blemish not her brightness; nor the spite
Of bawling curs, which she disdains to mark,
Can any whit eclipse her of her light.
So may'st thou slight the railing of ill tongues
If a clear shining conscience be thy guard,
Which, to defend thee from the worst of wrongs,
Will, as a wall of brass, be found as hard.
Arrian,
Discourses of Epictetus 1.25.29 (tr. W.A. Oldfather):
Why, what is this matter of being reviled? Take your stand by a stone and revile it; and what effect will you produce? If, then, a man listens like a stone, what profit is there to the reviler? But if the reviler has the weakness of the reviled as a point of vantage, then he does accomplish something.
ἐπεὶ τί ἐστιν αὐτὸ τὸ λοιδορεῖσθαι; παραστὰς λίθον λοιδόρει: καὶ τί ποιήσεις; ἂν οὖν τις ὡς λίθος ἀκούῃ, τί ὄφελος τῷ λοιδοροῦντι; ἂν δ᾽ ἔχῃ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τοῦ λοιδορουμένου ὁ λοιδορῶν ἐπιβάθραν, τότε ἀνύει τι.