“Find the Good and Praise it" by Alex Haley”

— Alex Haley

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Alex Haley 22

African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist 1921–1992

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“In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

As quoted in A Kwanzaa Celebration (1995) by Angela Shelf Medearis, p. 154.
This motto appears on the emblem of the Medium Endurance Cutter USCGC Alex Haley, named after the writer, as "FIND THE GOOD AND PRAISE IT". It is declared to have been his personal motto.
Variant: Find the good — and praise it.

“I am not a bad person. I am a good person who has lived in a bad time."
Alex's grandfather.. Everything is Illuminated”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

“He walked out of the office to find Kevin Daley standing there. 'I like your style,' Kevin said.
Thank you,' Alex said. 'I like it, too.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer The Dead and the Gone

Source: The Dead and the Gone

“Once you best a man, never gloat. Be generous and find something in his actions to praise. He won't enjoy being bested but he'll make a good face about it. Show him you appreciate it. Praise can win you a friend. Gloating will only ever make enemies.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Ruins of Gorlan

“To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

This has been widely attributed to Franklin since the 1940s, but is not found in any of his works. The language is not Franklin's, nor that of his time. It does paraphrase a portion of something he wrote in 1732 under the name Alice Addertongue:
If I have never heard Ill of some Person, I always impute it to defective Intelligence; for there are none without their Faults, no, not one. If she be a Woman, I take the first Opportunity to let all her Acquaintance know I have heard that one of the handsomest or best Men in Town has said something in Praise either of her Beauty, her Wit, her Virtue, or her good Management. If you know any thing of Humane Nature, you perceive that this naturally introduces a Conversation turning upon all her Failings, past, present, and to come.
Misattributed

“There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.”

Roger Ascham (1515–1568) English scholar and didactic writer

The Schoolmaster (1570), p. 1

“The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

William Temple, in "Heads Designed for an Essay on Conversation" in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart. in Four Volumes (1757), Vol. III, p. 547.
Misattributed