PRAISE QUOTES II
quotations about praise
Desire of praise is a fruitful tree.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
To be very greedy of praise proves that we are poor in merit.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
LEO TOLSTOY
War and Peace
Sweet words are like honey, a little may refresh, but too much gluts the stomach.
ANNE BRADSTREET
"Meditations Divine and Moral", The Works of Anne Bradstreet
Most of us forget to take time for wonder, praise and gratitude until it is almost too late.
FAITH BALDWIN
Many Windows, Seasons of the Heart
Some praises come of good wishes and respects, which is a form due, in civility, to kings and great persons, laudando praecipere, when by telling men what they are, they represent to them, what they should be.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Praise", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart:
The proud to gain it toils on toils endure,
The modest shun it but to make it sure.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame
Praising is a great privilege of friendship, and equally a duty. A privilege, because friends stand on that equal ground which makes praising the greatest pleasure, and the praise a great boon. And duty, because the helpfulness of praise is so great that to be unpraiseful when our friend has deserved well is as if we should refuse him our hand in his efforts; for to praise him lovingly for what he has done is to give him a strong hand in what he shall try to do. Sidney Lanier wrote a letter to a friend--"I thank you heartily for your encouraging commendations of my little poem. Much reflection convinces me that praise is no ignoble stimulus, and that the artist should not despise it." What can be colder, more unlovelike, more disappointing and uncherishing than to walk beside your comrade, many years perhaps, unmindful to cheer his successes or his noble efforts with your warm praise for the moment and with yet warmer help growing therefrom for the future? A friend should so regard his friend in his heart that, as Brutus says of Caesar, "His glories are not extenuated wherein he was worthy, nor his offenses enforced," but kindly turned into correction. It is one of the joys of love that the vocabulary of praise is increased by it; for large measures of it may go in a look, a touch, and that, too, with the greatest privacy in large companies.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
"Of Praising", Essays
Desire of praise disposeth to laudable actions.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Praise adds nothing to beauty--makes it neither better nor worse.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
To what base ends, and by what abject ways,
Are mortals urg'd through sacred lust of praise!
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
He that searches for praise will often find contempt.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
The praise of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth
Faint praise is akin to abuse.
DANISH PROVERB
I know no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.
RICHARD STEELE
The Tatler, November 10, 1709
My soul,
Like yours, is open to the charms of praise:
There is no joy beyond it, when the mind
Of him who hears it can with honest pride
Confess it just, and listen to its music.
WILLIAM WHITEHEAD
The Roman Father
To praise a man's self, cannot be decent, except it be in rare cases; but to praise a man's office or profession, he may do it with good grace, and with a kind of magnanimity.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Praise", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
Praise is a rebuke to the man whose conscience alloweth it not.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.
E. M. FORSTER
Abinger Harvest