Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes About Praise
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Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.
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Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit; the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.
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We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us.
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Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.
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We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
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A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
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There are reproaches which praise, and praises which defame.
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We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.
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The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.
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Some reproaches praise; some praises reproach.
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The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.
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We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.
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Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.
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None deserve praise for being good who have not the spirit to be bad: goodness, for the most part, is nothing but indolence or weakness of will.
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Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.
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The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise.
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Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.
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He who refuses praise the first time that it is offered does so because he would hear it a second time.
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To praise great actions is in some sense to share them.
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Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.
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Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.
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Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.
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Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
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We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
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It is oftener by the estimation of our own feelings that we exaggerate the good qualities of others than by their merit, and when we praise them we wish to attract their praise.
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Usually we praise only to be praised.
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When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
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That man, we may be sure, is a person of true worth, whom those who envy him most are yet forced to praise.
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Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous.
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To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld
- Born: September 15, 1613
- Died: March 17, 1680
- Occupation: Author