Quotes about praise
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“We are always anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

upon being told he had a good head for business, p. 378
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010)

“This much will I say for myself — and on this point I do not blush for praising myself — that I have never philosophized save for the sake of philosophy, nor have I ever desired or hoped to secure from my studies and my laborious researches any profit or fruit save cultivation of mind and knowledge of the truth — things I esteem more and more with the passage of time. I have also been so avid for this knowledge and so enamored of it that I have set aside all private and public concerns to devote myself completely to contemplation; and from it no calumny of jealous persons, nor any invective from enemies of wisdom has ever been able to detach me.”
Dabo hoc mihi, et me ipsum hac ex parte laudare nihil erubescam, me numquam alia de causa philosophatum nisi ut philosopharer, nec ex studiis meis, ex meis lucubrationibus, mercedem ullam aut fructum vel sperasse alium vel quesiisse, quam animi cultum et a me semper plurimum desideratae veritatis cognitionem. Cuius ita cupidus semper et amantissimus fui ut, relicta omni privatarum et publicarum rerum cura, contemplandi ocio totum me tradiderim; a quo nullae invidorum obtrectationes, nulla hostium sapientiae maledicta, vel potuerunt ante hac, vel in posterum me deterrere poterunt.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola book Oration on the Dignity of Man

25. 158-159; translation by A. Robert Caponigri
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1496)

Wisdom, Truth, Hope, Knowledge

“Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.”

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

No. 453 (9 August 1712).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Context: When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.

Love

“They sang the praises of nature, of the sea, of the woods.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), IV
Context: They sang the praises of nature, of the sea, of the woods. They liked making songs about one another, and praised each other like children; they were the simplest songs, but they sprang from their hearts and went to one's heart. And not only in their songs but in all their lives they seemed to do nothing but admire one another. It was like being in love with each other, but an all-embracing, universal feeling.

Nature, Sea

“Geometrical Speculations have just as much Elegancy as Simplicity, and deserve just so much praise as they can promise Use.”

Isaac Newton book Arithmetica Universalis

Arithmetica Universalis (1707), p.232

“Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 21
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII
Context: Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.

“When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man.

Truth, Way, Light

“They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers — not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”

Pericles (-494–-429 BC) Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens

Book 2, chapter 44: Funeral oration, as translated at "In Defense of Democracy" http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/pericles_in-defense-of-democracy.html Verse 4 is sometimes freely translated as The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage. History of the Peloponnesian War Context: I could tell you a long story (and you know it as well as I do) about what is to be gained by beating the enemy back. What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers — not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

Men, Happiness, People, Courage

“Venerate the martyrs, praise, love, proclaim, honor them. But worship the God of the martyrs.”
Ideo, carissimi, veneramini martyres, laudate, amate, praedicate, honorate: Deum martyrum colite.

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

273:9; translation from: The works of Saint Augustine, John E. Rotelle, New City Press, ISBN 1565480600 ISBN 9781565480605p. 21. http://books.google.com/books?id=13HYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22venerate+the+martyrs,+praise,+love,+proclaim,+honor+them%22&dq=%22venerate+the+martyrs,+praise,+love,+proclaim,+honor+them%22&hl=en&ei=8MJkTejQMISdlgeq0aGrBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ Sermons

Love, God

“Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love — a simple duty.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

" To Frances S. Osgood http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/595/" (1845). Context: Thou wouldst be loved? — then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love — a simple duty.

Love, Beauty

“There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Kessinger Publishing (2005).
Misattributed

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: 1860s, Thanksgiving Proclamation (1863)
Context: I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

Parting, Sea

“Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 110

Men, Stupidity, Education, Religion

“Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.”

Francis of Assisi Canticle of the Sun

Canticle of the Sun

Death, Happiness, Sister, Personality

“Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.”

Francis of Assisi Canticle of the Sun

Canticle of the Sun

Love, Happiness, Making love, Peace

“Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.”

Francis of Assisi Canticle of the Sun

Canticle of the Sun

Sister, Water

“Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name. Praise be to God.”

Francis of Assisi Canticle of the Sun

Canticle of the Sun

God

“From praise comes joy, from joy – strength, from strength – virtue, from virtue – purity and from purity comes realization of one’s full potential.”

Leon MacLaren (1910–1994) British philosopher

Leon MacLaren, The Machinery of Government, 1998

Joy

“It is not praised if you are the only one to understand what you speak
interesting is the situation when you speak and the others understand.”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

Poetry, Couplets

Understanding

“Let us praise heaven and have faith in the future: We shall see that not even the power of our enemies will weaken our determination to promote the ideals we are fighting for.”

Marcelo H. del Pilar (1850–1896) Filipino writer, lawyer, and journalist (1850-1896)

Source: Marcelo H. del Pilar to Pedro Icasiano [Pedro Serrano Laktaw] (7 March 1889), in Epistolario de Marcelo H. del Pilar, vol. I, p.43

Faith, Future, Fight

“Criticize by category — praise by name.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

[CNCB's Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett (2/25/19), February 25, 2019, CNBC Television, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqc56crs56s] (quote at 48:00 of 2:00:00)

“The deepest level of worship is praising God inspite of pain, trusting Him during a trial, surrendering
while suffering, and loving Him when He seems distant.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Love, God, Pain, Suffering

“Many of the bravest never are known, and get no praise. [But]that does not lessen their beauty…”

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist

Beauty

“Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.”

Po Bronson (1964) American writer

Money, Failure, Success

“Jo's eyes sparkled, for it's always pleasant to be believed in; and a friend's praise is always sweeter than a dozen newspaper puffs.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Commentary on the Psalms http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/PsalmsAquinas/ThoPs0.htm , Introduction

God

“You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

“But they're already singing our praises!"
"They are Americans. They toot their horns for anything.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

Singing

“If you're a nobody, if your work has no impact, then it deserves to be praised. If, however, you climb out of that state of mediocrity and are a success, then your defying 'the law' and deserve to be punished.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Law, Success

“Yes, Eleanor loathed herself and yet required praise, which she then never believed.”

Hanif Kureishi book The Buddha of Suburbia

Source: The Buddha of Suburbia

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Life, Motivational, Deep, Happy

“Find the Good and Praise it" by Alex Haley”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

“What can I say about life? Do I praise it for letting you live, or damn it for allowing the rest?”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Life

“You are so easily flattered, brother.'

'Because I have so many qualities to praise!”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.”

Carol Ryrie Brink book Magical Melons

Source: Caddie Woodlawn's Family

Hope, Personality

“And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Men, Error, Nature

“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Durant, Will. Commencement Speech. We Have a Right To Be Happy Today https://web.archive.org/web/20130106111821/http://www.willdurant.com/youth.htm. Webb School of Claremont, CA. 7 Jun 1958. Context: To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.

Way

“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

“Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams,
Lover of loneliness, and wandering,
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering!
Thee must I praise above all other glories
That smile us on to tell delightful stories.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Love, Smile, Dreams, Lovers

“I can't praise a young lady who is alive only when people are admiring her, but as soon as she is left alone, collapses and finds nothing to her taste--one who is all for show and has no resources in herself”

Leo Tolstoy book Family Happiness

Source: Family Happiness

People

“Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'
Jem: 'Yang guizi… foreign devils.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Singing

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more…”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Love, Life, People, Cry

“I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Source: Quote in Margaret McManus, "Noël Coward a 'Blithe Spirit' — in Sunny Jamaica", The Des Moines Register (January 8, 1956), Section: Iowa TV Magazine, p. 5

Love

“Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Justice

“Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Love

“Happy moments, PRAISE GOD
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD
Painful moments, TRUST GOD
Every moment, THANK GOD”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

God, Pain, Happiness

“Neither blame or praise yourself.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

Norman Vincent Peale book The Power of Positive Thinking

Variant: The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism
Source: The Power of Positive Thinking

“My Sin City heroes are knights in dirty, blood-caked armor. They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward.”

Frank Miller (1957) American writer, artist, film director

"Frank Miller: I Stole From The Best!" COMICDOM interview (22 January 2006), edited by Dimitris Sakaridis http://www.comicdom.gr/interviews.php?id=17&lang=en Context: My Sin City heroes are knights in dirty, blood-caked armor. They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward. That world, that city, often kills them for their brave service.

World, Justice

“The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Winter King

Source: The Winter King

Love, Friendship, Singing

“Education… is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,… by praise, but above all -- by example.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Pain, Education

“Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 20
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Love, Truth, Law, Beauty

“Sometimes we get caught up in trying to glorify God by praising what He can do and we lose sight of the practical point of what He actually does do.”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

God

“Some praise the Lord for Light,
The living spark;
I thank God for the Night
The healing dark.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

God, Light, Night

“Nobody gets praised for the right reasons.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“Praise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it has been drunk.”

Michael Crichton book Eaters of the Dead

Source: Eaters of the Dead

Beer

“Neither worse then or better is a thing made by being praised.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“Once you best a man, never gloat. Be generous and find something in his actions to praise. He won't enjoy being bested but he'll make a good face about it. Show him you appreciate it. Praise can win you a friend. Gloating will only ever make enemies.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Ruins of Gorlan

“Be warned - Hammond does tend to be a bit optimistic about these kind of things. If the army were made up of one-legged mutes, he would praise their balance and their listening skills.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

“Complain and remain. Praise and be raised.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

“The Local Paper here asked that me books be banned…….. THE HIGHEST PRAISE for an Irish writer.”

Ken Bruen (1951) Irish writer

Books

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”

John Milton book Areopagitica

Source: Areopagitica

“Darab Khan who had been sent with a strong force to punish the Rajputs of Khandela and to demolish the great temple of the place, attacked the place on the 8th March/5th Safar, and slew the three hundred and odd men who made a bold defence, not one of them escaping alive. [16 October 1678] The temples of Khandela and Sanula and all other temples in the neighbourhood were demolished…'On Sunday, the 25th May/24th Rabi. S., Khan Jahan Bahadur came from Jodhpur, after demolishing the temples and bringing with himself some cart-loads of idols, and had audience of the Emperor, who highly praised him and ordered that the idols, which were mostly jewelled, gold en, silver y, bronze, copper or stone, should be cast in the yard (jilaukhanah) of the Court and under the steps of the Jam'a mosque, to be trodden on. They remained so for some time and at last their very names were lost' [25 May 1679]…Ruhullah Khan and Ekkataz Khan went to demolish the great temple in front of the Rana's palace, which was one of the rarest buildings of the age and the chief cause of the destruction of life and property of the despised worshippers Twenty machator Rajputs who were sitting in the temple vowed to give up their lives; first one of them came out to fight, killed some and was then himself slain, then came out another and so on, until every one of the twenty perished, after killing a large number of the imperialists including the trusted slave, Ikhlas. The temple was found empty. The hewers broke the images…..”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Maasir-i-alamgiri, translated into English by Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, Calcutta, 1947, pp. 107-120, also quoted in part in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers. Different translation: “Darab Khan was sent with a strong force to punish the Rajputs of Khandela and demolish the great temple of that place.” (M.A. 171.) “He attacked the place on 8th March 1679, and pulled down the temples of Khandela and Sanula and all other temples in the neighbourhood.”(M.A. 173.) Sarkar, Jadunath (1972). History of Aurangzib: Volume III. App. V.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Life, Men, Age, Strong

“Your great demonstration which marks this day in the City of Washington is only representative of many like observances extending over our own country and into other lands, so that it makes a truly world-wide appeal. It is a manifestation of the good in human nature which is of tremendous significance. More than six centuries ago, when in spite of much learning and much piety there was much ignorance, much wickedness and much warfare, when there seemed to be too little light in the world, when the condition of the common people appeared to be sunk in hopelessness, when most of life was rude, harsh and cruel, when the speech of men was too often profane and vulgar, until the earth rang with the tumult of those who took the name of the Lord in vain, the foundation of this day was laid in the formation of the Holy Name Society. It had an inspired purpose. It sought to rededicate the minds of the people to a true conception of the sacredness of the name of the Supreme Being. It was an effort to save all reference to the Deity from curses and blasphemy, and restore the lips of men to reverence and praise. Out of weakness there began to be strength; out of frenzy there began to be self-control; out of confusion there began to be order. This demonstration is a manifestation of the wide extent to which an effort to do the right thing will reach when it is once begun. It is a purpose which makes a universal appeal, an effort in which all may unite.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

Life, Men, People, World

“The Hindus and idol-worshippers had agreed to pay the money for toleration (zar-i zimmiya) and had consented to the poll-tax (jizya) in return for which they and their families enjoyed security. These people now erected new idol-temples in the city and the environs in opposition to the Law of the Prophet which declares that such temples are not to be tolerated. Under divine guidance I destroyed these edifices and I killed those leaders of infidelity who seduced others into error, and the lower orders I subjected to stripes and chastisement, until this abuse was entirely abolished. The following is an instance:- In the village of Maluh there is a tank which they call kund (tank). Here they had built idol-temples and on certain days the Hindus were accustomed to proceed thither on horseback, and wearing arms. Their women and children also went out in palankins and carts. There they assembled in thousands and performed idol-worship' When intelligence of this came to my ears my religious feelings prompted me at once to put a stop to this scandal and offence to the religion of Islam. On the day of the assembly I went there in person and I ordered that the leaders of these people and the promoters of this abomination should be put to death. I forbade the infliction of any severe punishments on Hindus in general, but I destroyed their idol-temples, and instead thereof raised mosques. I founded two flourishing towns (kasba), one called Tughlikpur, the other Salarpur. Where infidels and idolaters worshipped idols, Musulmans now, by God's mercy, perform their devotions to the true God. Praises of God and the summons to prayer are now heard there, and that place which was formerly the home of infidels has become the habitation of the faithful, who there repeat their creed and offer up their praises to God…..'Information was brought to me that some Hindus had erected a new idol temple in the village of Salihpur, and were performing worship to their idols. I sent some persons there to destroy the idol temple, and put a stop to their pernicious incitements to error.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Delhi and Environs , Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. Elliot and Dowson. Vol. III, p. 380-81
Quotes from the Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi

Death, Women, Money, God

“Great praise must also be given to the Society of Arts for beginning the movement and carrying it on to the present time; and although the sphere of its action must necessarily be infinitely smaller than that of the Government Schools, yet we should always remember that the initiative of our great English exhibitions of industry came from the Society, and that it is to those exhibitions that we owe the stirring among the dry bones of industrial art which is now taking place.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

Source: Art applied to industry: a series of lectures, 1865, p. 1 : Preface

School, Art, Time

“The greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or praise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours a day. It is this which puzzles the longshoreman about the clerk, the Londoner about the bushman.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

Sex

“A very bold political measure of Lycurgus is his redistribution of the land. For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Lycurgus, sec. 8. The bolded phrase is often quoted in a paraphrase by Ugo Foscolo: "Wealth and poverty are the oldest and most deadly ailments of all republics" (Le ricchezze e la povertà sono le più antiche e mortali infermità delle repubbliche), Monitore Italiano, 5 February 1798.
Parallel Lives

People, Disease, Affliction, Envy

“Why – even supposing I had the skill – do you bid me compose a song dedicated to Venus the lover of Fescennine mirth, placed as I am among long-haired hordes, having to endure German speech, praising oft with wry face the song of the gluttonous Burgundian who spreads rancid butter on his hair?”
Quid me, etsi valeam, parare carmen Fescenninicolae iubes Diones inter crinigeras situm catervas et Germanica verba sustinentem, laudantem tetrico subinde vultu quod Burgundio cantat esculentus infundens acido comam butyro?

Sidonius Apollinaris book Carmina

Quid me, etsi valeam, parare carmen
Fescenninicolae iubes Diones
inter crinigeras situm catervas
et Germanica verba sustinentem,
laudantem tetrico subinde vultu
quod Burgundio cantat esculentus
infundens acido comam butyro?
Carmen 12, line 1; vol. 1, p. 213.
Carmina

Lovers

“The experiences of the war changed both Baruch’s and Wilson’s attitude toward the large firm. Following the war their anti-firm rhetoric was replaced with praise for the large firm’s patriotism and contribution to progress.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 112

War, Change

“The first to be summoned to Paradise on the Day of Resurrection will be those who praise God in prosperity and adversity.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 730
Sunni Hadith

God

“Fame is but a beautiful classic delusion. The inspiration of the poet is like the inspiration of the Delphic oracles: what was once held divine is now confessed the promptings of an evil spirit mocking the votaries of whom it made victims. We firmly believe that the time is fast approaching when no more books will be written. The once writers: will say—“Why should we sacrifice our whole existence to obtain a vain praise, which, after all, never comes sufficiently home to us to be enjoyed? Why should we devote, to this most barren pursuit, industry and talent, which, in any other line, would be certain of that worldly success, which, as we live in the world, is the only success to be de sired?” Even poets must at last learn wisdom. The bitterness and the hollowness of praise will be perceived; and then who will be at the trouble of writing a book? Again we repeat, the time is fast approaching when no more books will be written.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Wisdom, Books, World, Beauty

“This victory took place in the year 878, eight hundred and seventy-eight; the island of Sankhodar was never conquered in any age by any king of the past. It is related that the Sultan performed two genuflexions of namaz out of thanksgiving at the time of demolishing the temple and breaking the idols of Jagat. He grew eloquent in recitation of praise out of gratitude to God. The Muslims raised calls to namaz (azan) by loud voice from top of temples… He built a masjid there.”

Mahmud Begada (1458–1511) Sultan of Gujarat

Sankhodhar (Gujarat) Mirat-i-Ahmdi, translated into English by M.F. Lokhandwala, Baroda, 1965,pp 47-52

God, Age, Time, Past

“I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 1, "The Overworld"

“The general nature of the speech act fallacy can be stated as follows, using “good” as our example. Calling something good is characteristically praising or commending or recommending it, etc. But it is a fallacy to infer from this that the meaning of “good” is explained by saying it is used to perform the act of commendation.”

John Rogers Searle Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language

Source: Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969), P. 139.

Nature

“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

L 16
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

God, People

“My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to his cousin, M.M. Chekhov (July 29, 1877)
Letters

Love, Life, Children, People

“It is better that there should be a republic, and the elected leader should at least be a person of perfection, devoted to his religion and his nation, as was the case among you with Gambetta, the president of the republic. Everyone spoke in praise of him. Whenever such a universally popular person is in power, naturally the people and the state will be as one essence. Or, if he should have ministers around him, naturally he will be better than others. When such a person is selected by God, he is, of course, the temporal [pishva] leader and spiritual guide [Imam] of the people. If he derives his power from the people alone, then he is their chief, but he is not in truth a spiritual leader [Imam] of any people over which he rules.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Treatise on Kingship

God, People, Truth, Religion

“A reading test measures one's ability to read reading tests, and reading tests are in themselves… somewhat akin to the world of crossword puzzles or Scrabble or the game of twenty questions. Some people play these games well, and all praise is due them for their skill. But if we ask, What aspect of the world do they comprehend in doing these games well? the answer is, Only the world within the games themselves.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)

People, World, Game, Question

“Madam, methinks I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

To the Lady Margaret Ley http://www.bartleby.com/106/85.html

“One must build to the praise of a Being above, to build the noblest memorial of himself. Then, Angelo may verily " hang the Pantheon in the air." Then the unknown builder, whose personality disappears in his work, may stand an almost inspired mediator between the upward-looking thought and the spheres overhead. Each line then leaps with a swift aspiration, as the vast structure rises, in nave and transept into pointed arch and vanishing spire. The groined roof grows dusky with majestic glooms; while, beneath, the windows flame, as with apocalyptic light of jewels. Angelic presences, sculptured upon the portal, invite the wayfarer, and wave before him their wings of promise. Within is a worship which incense only clouds, which spoken sermons only mar. The building itself becomes a worship, a Gloria in Excelsis, articulate in stone; the noblest tribute offered on earth, by any art, to Him from whom its impulse came, and with the ineffable majesty of whose spirit all skies are filled.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 499.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Art, Angels, Light, Memory

“As satirists have pointed out for millennia, civilized behavior is artificial and ridiculous: it means pretending to be glad to see people you aren’t glad to see, praising parties you wished you hadn’t gone to, thanking friends for presents you wish you hadn’t received. Training kids to feign a passion is the art of parenting. The passions they really have belong only to them.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

People, Art, Behavior, Parent

“When we ceaselessly recall how our motherly Father has been mindful of us in all the vicissitudes of our life, fighting our battles with us, suffering our humiliations and overcoming them within us and through us, filling us with consolation, we cannot but fall down on our knees and burst into psalms of praise and thanksgiving; and at the same time, on the basis of that past experience, we become profoundly convinced that God is so reliable (' emet) that we can unreservedly rely on Her in the future too. ' Emuna, the biblical word for “faith” literally means “total reliance” on the one and only Person who is “totally reliable” (' emet). Faith, which is reliance on God (and on no other god of our making) can be experienced only in the process of incessantly recalling how She has demonstrated Her reliability in the past.”

Aloysius Pieris (1934) Sri Lankan Jesuit priest

Source: "Spirituality as Mindfulness: Biblical and Buddhist Approaches", p. 43

Life, God, Faith, Suffering

“You rebel against the tribal and look for the individual, for your own voice as against the stereotypical voice of the tribe or the tribe's stereotype of itself. You have to establish yourself against your predecessor, and doing so can well involve what they like to call self-hatred. I happen to think that—all those protestations notwithstanding—your self hatred was real and a positive force in its very destructiveness. Since to build something new often requires that something else be destroyed, self-hatred is valuable for a young person. What should he or she have instead—self-approval, self-satisfaction, self-praise? It's not so bad to hate the norms that keep a society from moving on, especially when the norms are dictated by fear as much as by anything else and especially when that fear is of the enemy forces of the overwhelming majority. But you seem now to be so strongly motivated by a need for reconciliation with the tribe that you aren't even willing to acknowledge how disapproving of its platitudinous demands you were back then, however ineluctably Jewish you may also have felt. The prodigal son who once upset the tribal balance—and perhaps even invigorated the tribe's health—may well, in his old age, have a sentimental urge to go back home, but isn't this a bit premature in you, aren't you really too young to have it so fully developed?”

Philip Roth book The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography

Nathan Zuckerman to Philip Roth
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography (1988)

Hate, Health, Age, Fear

“I don’t need to praise anything so justly famous as Frost’s observation of and empathy with everything in Nature from a hornet to a hillside; and he has observed his own nature, one person’s random or consequential chains of thoughts and feelings and perceptions, quite as well. (And this person, in the poems, is not the “alienated artist” cut off from everybody who isn’t, yum-yum, another alienated artist; he is someone like normal people only more so — a normal person in the less common and more important sense of normal.)”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Other Frost”, p. 29
Poetry and the Age (1953)

People, Feeling, Nature, Sense

“It was he who first taught the people the then strange truth that Causation was the law of nature and of mind, and unless we looked for the cause of an evil, we might never know the remedy. Every man of sense in Church and State acts on this truth now, but so few knew it in Owen's day that he was accused of unsettling the morality of the world. It was the fertility and newness of his suggestions, as a man of affairs, that gave him renown, and his influence extends to us. This memorial before us would itself grow old, were we to stay to describe all the ideas the world has accepted from Owen. I will name but one more, and that the greatest.
He saw, as no man before him did, that environment is the maker of men. Aristotle, whose praise is in all our Universities, said "Character is Destiny." But how can character be made? The only national way known in Owen's day was by prayer and precept. Owen said there were material means, largely unused, conducive to human improvement. Browning's prayer was — "Make no more giants, God; but elevate the race at once."”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

This was Owen's aim, as far as human means might do it.
Memorial dedication (1902)

Men, God, People, Truth

“Hamiduddin Khan Bahadur who had gone to demolish a temple and build a mosque (in its place) in Bijapur, having excellently carried out his orders, came to Court and gained praise and the post of darogha of gusalkhanah, which brought him near the Emperor's person.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

1698. Maasir-i-alamgiri, translated into English by Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, Calcutta, 1947, pp. 241
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1690s

Personality

“Grace and peace from God to you, respected, honoured, wise clement, gracious and beloved Masters: An exceedingly unfortunate affair has happened to me, in that I have been publicly accused before your worships of having reviled you in unseemly words and, be it said with all respect, of having called you heretics, my gracious rulers of the State. I am so far from applying this name to you, that I should as soon think of calling heaven hell. For all my life I have thought and spoken of you in terms of praise and honour, gentlemen of Abtzell, as I do to-day, and, as God favours me, shall do to the end of my days. But it happened not long ago when I was preaching against the Catabaptists that I used these words: 'The Catabaptists are now doing so much mischief to the upright citizens of Abtzell and are showing so great insolence, that nothing could be more infamous. You see, gentle sirs, with what modesty I grieved on your account, because the turbulent Catabaptists caused you so much trouble. Indeed I suspect that the Catabaptists are the very people who have set this sermon against me in circulation among you, for they do many of those things which do not become true Christians. Therefore, gentle and wise sirs, I beg most earnestly that you will have me exculpated before the whole community, and, if occasion arise, that you will have this letter read in public assembly. Sirs, I assure you in the name of God our Saviour, in these perilous times you have never been our of my thoughts and my solicitious anxiety; and if in any way I shall be able to serve you I will spare no pains to do so. In addition to the fact that I never use such terms even against my enemies, let me say that it never entered my mind to apply such insulting epithets to you, pious and wise sirs. Sufficient of this. May God preserve you in safety, and may He put a curb on these unbridled falsehoods which are being scattered everywhere, which is an evidence of some great peril - and may He hold your worships and the whole state in the true faith of Christ@ Take this letter of mine in good part, for I could not suffer that so base a falsehood against me should lie uncontradicted.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Abtzell February 12, 1526 (vi., 473), ibid, p.250-251

Life, God, Pain, People

“Turner will be placed in that class whose genious is such that we can never praise him too much or blame him too much.”

Charles Robert Leslie (1794–1859) British painter (1794-1859)

Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie with Selections from his correspondence

“It is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court's claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 192 L. Ed. 2d 609 (2015) ; decided June 26, 2015.
2010s

Marriage, People, Law, Imagination

“No one who ever wants praise will be satisfied with praise, the person who wants love cannot be satisfied with love. No want is ever fulfilled. And therefore I still don't know whether it is better to fear God and keep His commandments or to curse God and die.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

Love, God, Fear, Personality

“Alas! for him whose youthful fire
Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,—
Alas! for him who shall essay,
The laurel's long and dreary way!
Mocking will greet, neglect will chill
His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill;
And, worst of all, that heartless praise
Echoed from what another says.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Canto I
The Troubadour (1825)

Youth, Way

“Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

…sogar daß ihm auch wohl Philosophen, als einer gewissen Veredelung der Menschheit, eine Lobrede halten, uneingedenk des Ausspruchs jenes Griechen: »Der Krieg ist darin schlimm, daß er mehr böse Leute macht, als er deren wegnimmt«.
As quoted in Philosophical Perspectives on Peace: An Anthology of Classical and Modern Sources (1987) by Howard P. Kainz, p. 81
Eternal Peace (1795)

War, Evil, Forgetting

“Ressentiment is always to some degree a determinant of the romantic type of mind. At least this is so when the romantic nostalgia for some past era (Hellas, the Middle Ages, etc.) is not primarily based on the values of that period, but on the wish to escape from the present. Then all praise of the “past” has the implied purpose of downgrading present-day reality.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 68

Age, Reality, Nostalgia, Past

“The purpose of Plato, or of Aristotle, as Fārābī conceived of it, is sufficiently revealed in this seemingly conventional praise of philosophy.”

Leo Strauss book Persecution and the Art of Writing

Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), Introduction

“He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Magnam habet cordis tranquillitatem, qui nec laudes curat, nec vituperia. — Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ (ca. 1418), book II, ch. VI, paragraph 2.
Misattributed

Men, Heart