“The Triumph of Wit is to make your good Nature subdue your Censure; to be quick in seeing Faults, and slow in exposing them. You are to consider, that the invisible thing called a Good Name, is made up of the Breath of Numbers that speak well of you; so that if by a disobliging Word you silence the meanest, the Gale will be less strong which is to bear up your Esteem.”
The Lady's New Year's Gift: or Advice to a Daughter (1688)
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George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax 65
English politician 1633–1695Related quotes
III, 7
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book III
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, iii. 7
Misattributed
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 128
General Quotes
“Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,
are your own nature reflected in them.”
Rumi Daylight (1990)
Sometimes misattributed to Astaire. In fact, it's just a scripted line (written by Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart) from The Notorious Landlady. Astaire delivers the line to Jack Lemmon.
Misattributed
"The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton" Ch. 4
Scenes of Clerical Life (1858)
Context: Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.