“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

— W.B. Yeats

To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1724/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another's said or sung, 'Twere politic to do the like by thes…" by W.B. Yeats?

W.B. Yeats255

Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939

Related quotes

“Therefore to this dog will I,
Tenderly not scornfully,
Render praise and favor:
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said
Therefore and for ever.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

To Flush, My Dog http://www.webterrace.com/browning/To%20Flush%20My%20Dog.htm, st. 14 (1844).

“What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed.”

Heloise (1101–1164) French nun, writer, scholar, and abbess

Letter IV : Heloise to Abelard
Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Context: What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed. A secret vanity springs up in the heart, blinds us, and conceals from us wounds that are ill cured. A seducer flatters us, and at the same time, aims at our destruction. A sincere friend disguises nothing from us, and from passing a light hand over the wound, makes us feel it the more intensely, by applying remedies. Why do you not deal after this manner with me? Will you be esteemed a base dangerous flatterer; or, if you chance to see any thing commendable in me, have you no fear that vanity, which is so natural to all women, should quite efface it? but let us not judge of virtue by outward appearances, for then the reprobates as well as the elect may lay claim to it. An artful impostor may, by his address gain more admiration than the true zeal of a saint.

“From all who dwell below the skies
Let the Creator's praise arise;
Let the Redeemer's name be sung
Through every land, by every tongue.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Psalm 117.
1710s, "Our God, our help in ages past" (1719)

“To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labor, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

Propositions, 2
1870 - 1903, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' (1890)

“I should have given more praise.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

As quoted in A History of Warfare (1968) by Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: "Sir Winston Churchill once told me of a reply made by the Duke of Wellington, in his last years, when a friend asked him: "If you had your life over again, is there any way in which you could have done better?" The old Duke replied: "Yes, I should have given more praise."

“How many, once lauded in song, are given over to the forgotten; and how many who sung their praises are clean gone long ago!”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 6
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

“Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; DLXXV
Lacon (1820)

“What can I say about life? Do I praise it for letting you live, or damn it for allowing the rest?”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 235.

“Who will speak like that? In our generation there have not been friends like Rajini and I are. He could have just said a few words of praise and gone away – and then there was no need to say.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

In reply to the wholesome praise that Rajnikanth showered on Kamal Haasan, in Rajinikanth: The Definitive Biography (15 January 2014) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=3mzyPGSfwKMC&pg=PT120, p. 120

“You say, as I have often given tongueIn praise of what another's said or sung,'Twere politic to do the like by these;But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

W.B. Yeats255

Related quotes

Related topics

“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”