p. 68 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=72 <br class="br">Determinism or Free-will? (1912)
“To govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong.”
Han Fei (-279–-232 BC) Chinese philosopher
from "Having Regulations—A Memorandum" in The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu, Volume I, Arthur Probsthain, London, 1939. Translated by W.K. Liao.
“…in this world, often, there is nothing to praise but no one to blame…”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist
“On Preparing to Read Kipling”, p. 135
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)
“It is vain to apportion praise and blame.”
Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex
The Second Sex (1949)
Context: It is vain to apportion praise and blame. The truth is that if the vicious circle is so hard to break, it is because the two sexes are each the victim at once of the other and of itself. Between two adversaries confronting each other in their pure liberty, an agreement could be easily reached: the more so as the war profits neither. But the complexity of the whole affair derives from the fact that each camp is giving aid and comfort to the enemy; woman is pursuing a dream of submission, man a dream of identification. Want of authenticity does not pay: each blames the other for the unhappiness he or she has incurred in yielding to the temptations of the easy way; what man and woman loathe in each other is the shattering frustration of each one's own bad faith and baseness.
“Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.”
Virginia Woolf book Jacob's Room
Source: Jacob's Room
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist
1770s, Common Sense (1776)
Context: Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.
“Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
"From a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Newton", line 21. (1782).
“I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly.”
Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia
As quoted in The Historians' History of the World (1904) by Henry Smith Williams, p. 423
As quoted in The Affairs of Women: A Modern Miscellany (2006) by Colin Bingham, p. 367
Variant: I praise loudly. I blame softly.
Pol Pot (1925–1998) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea
As reported by David Ashley (1995) and quoted in Brother Number One (1999) by David P. Chandler
Attributed
Richard Nixon: A Fantasy by David Frye (1973)
