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Marcus Tullius Cicero 180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BCRelated quotes
The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, October 1998 (rebroadcast on BBC 7, 6 June 2006)
“The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.”
As quoted in Rumi Wisdom: Daily Teachings from the Great Sufi Master (2000) by Timothy Freke
Variant: The fault is in the blamer — Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
“I hung my verse in the wind
Time and tide their faults will find.”
"The Test", as quoted in Emerson As A Poet (1883) by Joel Benton, p. 40
“Never find fault with the absent.”
Absenti nemo non nocuisse velit.
Sextus Propertius, Elegies, II, xix, 32, also translated: "Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent".
Misattributed
“Art cannot be criticized because every mistake is a new creation. ”
The Owl-Critic, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Don't find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain”
Letter to Rev. C. B. Tayler ( 8 July 1853) in Ch. 6 : Undergraduate Life At Cambridge October 1850 to January 1854 — ÆT. 19-22, p. 189
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)
Context: I maintain that all the evil influences that I can trace have been internal and not external, you know what I mean—that I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me, and that if I escape, it is only by God's grace helping me to get rid of myself, partially in science, more completely in society, — but not perfectly except by committing myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time. Nevertheless, you see things from the outside directly, and I only by reflexion, so I hope that you will not tell me you have little fault to find with me, without finding that little and communicating it.