“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.”

— Joseph Addison

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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Joseph Addison 226

politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“Shy and proud men … are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.”

Henry Taylor (1800–1886) English playwright and poet

Source: The Statesman (1836), Ch. 4. p. 27

“The mechanism by which the interaction of democratic decisions and their implementation by the experts often produces results which nobody has desired is a subject which would deserve much more careful attention than it usually receives.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Lecture I. Freedom and the Rule of Law: A Historical Survey - 1. Principles and Drift in Democratic Process
1940s–1950s, The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)

“Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise. They are hurt less by undeserved censure than by undeserved commendation. Abuse helps; often praise hurts.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Diary (14 July 1889)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

“All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.11

“There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.”

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

No. 512 (17 October 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“Each man's place in the social scheme of his village is know; the contribution which he must make to the work and ceremonial of the village and the share of the whole which he will receive back again are likewise defined. For failure to receive what is due to him, he is fined even more heavily than for failure to give that which is due from him. Just as a man must accept his privileges as well as discharge his duties, so is he also the guardian of his own status and if, as may happen to a high caste, that status is affronted, he himself must perform a ceremony to restore it.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Balinese Character (1942), p. 7

“One of the things that amazed the earliest explorers, almost without exception, was the hospitality with which Indians received them.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: One of the things that amazed the earliest explorers, almost without exception, was the hospitality with which Indians received them. When the Indians later learned that the Whites posed a threat, their attitude changed, but the initial contacts were idyllic.... Hospitality and sharing were characteristic of all Indian societies.

“Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war—for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Quoted in The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics http://books.google.com/books?id=DKG-FXj_HNYC&q=%22lots+of+people+who+complained+about+us+receiving+the+MBE+received+theirs+for+heroism+in+the+war+for+killing+people+we+received+ours+for+entertaining+other+people+I%27d+say+we+deserve+ours+more%22&pg=PA33#v=onepage (1969)

“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.”

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