
“Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.”
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230)
Diary (14 July 1889)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
“Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.”
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230)
“It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise…”
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 223
“What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed.”
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.
No. 19
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
Source: It Came from Within!: The Shocking Truth of What Lurks in the Heart
“…one enemy can do more hurt, than ten friends can do good.”
Journal to Stella (30 June, 1711)
No. 101 (26 June 1711), this has sometimes been quoted as "It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age".
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Context: If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.
It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions.