“We work for praise, and dawdle once we have it.”

"Atheism Tapes, part 6", BBC TV documentation of Jonathan Miller, produced by Richard Denton, recorded 2003, broadcast 2004

Naked Songs, p. 18
Poetry, From Kashmiri Poetry

Book I, Chapter VIII, 14
Compare: "To maken vertue of necessite", Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Knightes Tale", line 3044
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

Voltaire, Foreign Review, (1829); compare: "How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule?", Shaftesbury, Characteristics. A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, sect. 2.; "Truth, 't is supposed, may bear all lights; and one of those principal lights or natural mediums by which things are to be viewed in order to a thorough recognition is ridicule itself", Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, sect. 1.; "'T was the saying of an ancient sage [Gorgias Leontinus, apud Aristotle's "Rhetoric," lib. iii. c. 18], that humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit", ibid. sect. 5.
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)
Context: We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it. Now if you don't believe that, you just go on living life, and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don't deserve it and even if they don't believe it. The only unhappy people about praise is when that praise is going too much toward somebody else. But everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major instinct.

https://www.kff.com/king-faisal-bin-abdulaziz/

As quoted in The Banner, Dec. 4, 1970, p. 2.

2016, Statement on the Shootings in Baton Rouge (July 2016)
Context: Someone once wrote, “A bullet need happen only once, but for peace to work we need to be reminded of its existence again and again and again.” My fellow Americans, only we can prove, through words and through deeds, that we will not be divided. And we’re going to have to keep on doing it “again and again and again.” That’s how this country gets united. That’s how we bring people of good will together. Only we can prove that we have the grace and the character and the common humanity to end this kind of senseless violence, to reduce fear and mistrust within the American family, to set an example for our children. That’s who we are, and that’s who we always have the capacity to be. And that’s the best way for us to honor the sacrifice of the brave police officers who were taken from us this morning.

Excerpts from 2021 keynote speech on formation of 'Armenia' alliance