Quotes about praise
page 6

“Today’s HUD head Henry Cisneros, whom Kemp praised and endorsed in Senate confirmation hearings in 1993, has used this program to great effect in Baltimore and Dallas, threatening to wreck whole suburbs with an immigration of crime and poverty.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,

“Patience, a praise; forbearance is a treasure;
Sufferance, an angel is; a monster, rage.”

Edward Fairfax (1580–1635) English translator

Book V, stanza 47
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1600)

Angels, Suffering, Rage, Patience

“Praise be to the Lord, my rock, who trains my fingers for battle and my hands for war.”

Ricardo Sanchez (1953) United States Army Lieutenant General

Reporters and editors luncheon address (2007)

War, Training

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

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

“After a considerable walk through the forest, where I became acquainted with several of the little lakes I am so fond of, I came to Hestehaven and Lake Carl. Here is one of the most beautiful regions I have ever seen. The countryside is somewhat isolated and slopes steeply down to the lake, but with the beech forests growing on either side, it is not barren. A growth of rushes forms the background and the lake itself the foreground; a fairly large part of the lake is clear, but a still larger part is overgrown with the large green leaves of the waterlily, under which the fish seemingly try to hide but now and then peek out and flounder about on the surface in order to bathe in sunshine. The land rises on the opposite side, a great beech forest, and in the morning light the lighted areas make a marvelous contrast to the shadowed areas. The church bells call to prayer, but not in a temple made by human hands. If the birds do not need to be reminded to praise God, then ought men not be moved to prayer outside of the church, in the true house of God, where heaven's arch forms the ceiling of the church, where the roar of the storm and the light breezes take the place of the organ's bass and treble, where the singing of the birds make up the congregational hymns of praise, where echo does not repeat the pastor's voice as in the arch of the stone church, but where everything resolves itself in an endless antiphony — Hillerød, July 25, 1835”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Men, God, Beauty, Bird

“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)

Men, Help, Hurt

“The world needs new moral impulses which, I'm afraid, won't come from the churches, heavily compromised as they have been throughout the centuries. Perhaps those impulses must come from scientists in the tradition of Galileo, Kepler and Newton. In spite of failures and persecutions, these men devoted their lives to proving that the universe is a single entity, in which, I believe, a humanized God has no place. The genuine scientist is not moved by praise or blame, nor does he preach. He unveils the universe and people come eagerly, without being pushed, to behold a new revelation: the order, the harmony, the magnificence of creation! And as man becomes conscious of the stupendous laws that govern the universe in perfect harmony, he begins to realize how small he is. He sees the pettiness of human existence, with its ambitions and intrigues, its "I am better than thou" creed. This is the beginning of cosmic religion within him; fellowship and human service become his moral code. And without such moral foundations, we are hopelessly doomed.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 66

Men, God, People, World

“And so I say to you today, my friends, that you may be able to speak with the tongues of men and angels; you may have the eloquence of articulate speech; but if you have not love, it means nothing. Yes, you may have the gift of prophecy; you may have the gift of scientific prediction and understand the behavior of molecules; you may break into the storehouse of nature and bring forth many new insights; yes, you may ascend to the heights of academic achievement so that you have all knowledge; and you may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees; but if you have not love, all of these mean absolutely nothing. You may even give your goods to feed the poor; you may bestow great gifts to charity; and you may tower high in philanthropy; but if you have not love, your charity means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned and die the death of a martyr, and your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as one of history's greatest heroes; but if you have not love, your blood was spilt in vain. What I'm trying to get you to see this morning is that a man may be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. His generosity may feed his ego, and his piety may feed his pride. So without love, benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

Love, Death, Men, Angels

“My father was a cool-tempered and unaffected man. Everyone who came in contact with him knew his straightforward way of acting, his scrupulous honesty; but few, very few, of his friends knew his noble and manly heart. Indifferent to praise and fame, as well as calumny, he was ever anxious to do good in silence; and it can be said of him, without fear of contradiction, that during his whole life he could never reproach himself with having been guilty of a bad or mean action.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Life, Fear, Way, Silence

“The number of saints in scores,
Valiant men, golden their party.
Before kings a career of praise,
Warriors, no one was before them in demanding.
In straits, in expanse, in every need,
May they be a city to our body and our soul!”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Elegy of the Thousand Sons

Men, Soul

“[…] we very much praise this art [riding] because a healthy man, with strong will, if he does nor get fat, is able to keep his skill as he ages, which does not happen with most arts.”

Bem Cavalgar (1391–1438) King of Portugal

Part I

Age, Art, Strong

“It is an inwariable rule with the dealers to praise the bad points and let the good 'uns speak for themselves.”

Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) English writer

Source: Handley Cross (1843), Ch. 18

“While we call role models 'leaders', most 'leaders' are really followers. Most 'leaders' follow their bribes. And we are the people who offer the bribes. We in essence give men two bribes to risk their lives: pay and praise… A man who self-selects for a death profession expects his body to be used in exchange for pay. The unspoken motto of the death professions is 'My body, not my choice.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 40.

Death, Men, People

“You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask your opinion really want your praise, and will be contented with nothing less.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Truth

“The heroic virtues of some great men have been the cause of the corruption of eloquence, or have, at least, enervated the style of most preachers. Instead of joining with the people in rendering thanks to Heaven for the extraordinary gifts it has bestowed on those great men, these very preachers have enrolled themselves among authors and poets, and become panegyrists; they have even uttered more extravagant praises than are found in dedications, verses, or prologues; they have turned the Word of God into a whole warp of praises, which, though well deserved, are out of place, bestowed from selfish motives, not required, and ill-suited to their calling. It is fortunate indeed, if, while they are celebrating their heroes in the sanctuary, they even mention the name of that God or of that religion they ought to preach. Some have wished to preach the Gospel, which is for all men, only to one person, and have been so disconcerted when by accident that person was kept away, that they were unable to pronounce a Christian discourse before an assembly of Christian men, because it was not prepared for them, so that other orators have been obliged to take their places, who had only sufficient leisure to praise God in an extemporary exhortation.!”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of the Pulpit (13)
Les Caractères (1688)

Men, God, People, Religion

“How sweet is praise, and justly purchased glory,
By one's own actions, when to Heaven they soar!
Each nobler soul will strain, to have his story,
Match, if not darken, all that went before.
Envy of other's fame, not transitory,
Screws up illustrious actions more, and more.
Such, as contend in honorable deeds,
The spur of high applause incites their speeds.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Quão doce é o louvor e a justa glória
Dos próprios feitos, quando são soados!
Qualquer nobre trabalha que em memória
Vença ou iguale os grandes já passados.
As invejas da ilustre e alheia história
Fazem mil vezes feitos sublimados.
Quem valerosas obras exercita,
Louvor alheio muito o esperta e incita.
Stanza 92 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto V

Soul, Envy, Speed

“If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 164

Art, Thinking

“The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Le refus des louanges est un désir d'être loué deux fois.
Maxim 149.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“The creator, if he should love his creature, would be loving only a part of himself; but the creature, praising the creator, praises an infinity beyond himself.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter XIII: The Beginning and the End; 3. The Supreme Moment and After (p. 164)

Love, Parting

“And a writer observed, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity," and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Quoting Westbrook Pegler
2008, 2008 Republican National Convention

People, Sincerity

“Ah woe is me, through all my days
Wisdom and wealth I both have got,
And fame and name and great men’s praise;
But Love, ah! Love I have it not.”

Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896) American writer

The Way to Arcady (1892).

Love, Wisdom, Men, Wealth

“During the attack, the catapults were busily plied on both sides… ‘Praise be to God for his exaltation of the religion of Muhammad. It is not to be doubted that stones are worshipped by Gabrs,74 but as the stones did no service to them, they only bore to heaven the futility of that worship, and at the same time prostrated their devotees upon earth’…”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) and his generals conquests in Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians,Vol. III, p. 81-85
Khazainu’l-Futuh

God, Religion, Time

“When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

These lines were not written by Newton. They have often been accreted to various hymns, including "Amazing Grace", since the mid-nineteenth century.
Misattributed

God, Singing, Sun

“Church bells and now I'm awakeAnd I guess it must be some kind of holidayI can't seem to join in the celebrationBut I'll go to the serviceAnd I'll go to prayAnd I'll sing the praises of my maker's nameLike I was as good as she made me…”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

Last Call.
Lyrics, Last Call (1994)

Singing

“Praising companies for providing APIs to get your own data out is like praising auto companies for not filling your airbags with gravel.”

Mark Pilgrim (1972) American computer programmer

Dive Into Mark http://web.archive.org/web/20110608004332/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/08/01/lolwreck, Wednesday, August 1, 2007

“Hayek expressed the greatest praise for Popper. Whether this was Hayek’s ultimate view or a reflection of a deep, though subordinate, strain of personal modesty and humility that ran through him is an open question. Hayek’s support was vital in Popper’s career. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hayek was involved with an unsuccessful effort to obtain the Nobel Prize in Literature for Popper.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Literature, Question, Support, Effort

“It's true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
and so you may think that I am only joking
or that I've devised just one more means
of praising Art with the help of irony.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Ars Poetica?"

Art, Thinking, Help

“To experience and live out a harmony with the world, in a manner quite different from that of everyday life — this, we have said, is the meaning of "festival." But no more intense harmony with the world can be thought of than that of "Praise of God," the worship of the Creator of this world. Now, as I have often experienced, this statement is often received with a mixture of discomfort and various other feelings, but its truth cannot be denied. The most festive festival that can be celebrated is religious worship or "cult," and there is no festival that does not get its life from such worship or does not actually derive its origin from this. There is no worship "without the gods," whether it be mardi gras or a wedding.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, pp. 50–51

Life, God, Truth, World

“Today the Republican Party attracts neither the farmer nor the industrial worker. Why not? To represent the people one must know them. Lincoln did. The Republican Party leadership does not. The greatest praise I can give Lincoln on this his anniversary is to say he would be ashamed of his party's leadership today.”

George Aiken (1892–1984) American politician

1938 radio broadcast from New York City marking Abraham Lincoln's birthday, quoted in Vermont Today, Vermont's Great Moments of the 20th Century http://www.vermonttoday.com/century/topstories/gaiken.htm

People

“He does not deserve your praise, but he deserves to be treated as if someday he might.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#293
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

““Scholars of Paderevski Foundation who were fortunate enough to have witnessed the fragments of Swapnavāsavadattam as performed by your splendid actors, were unanimous in their praise of the high cultural and aesthetic level of the Koodiyattam. It was a most enjoyable experience and the Paderevski Founadtion is proud to have co-sponsored the appearances of the Theatre in Northern India”
- Paderewski Foundation (New York) Certificate (New Delhi, 1964) - First International recognition for Kutiyattam and the maestro.”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Awards

Appearance

“Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame. He was very kind to me, but was a man very difficult to live with on the intimate terms which necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves in the same cabin. We had several quarrels; for instance, early in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything? This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his word we could not live any longer together. I thought that I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with him.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter II: "Autobiography", pages 60-61 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=78&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

Happiness, Anger

“The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise for the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

Love, World, Light, Selfishness

“The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured- especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), p. 245.

Life, People, World, Faith

“A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 2. She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)

Love, Food, Smile, Kiss

“The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than actual brilliancy.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Maxim 162.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Art

“They boosted themselves with such nauseating self-praise as to make the stones jump out of the walls and flee.”

Giovanni Boccaccio book Corbaccio

Se medesimi esaltando con parole da fare per istomacaggine le pietre saltar del muro e fuggirsi.
Il Corbaccio (c. 1355), "The Labyrinth of Love" (tr. Normand Cartier)

“When the mind was disgusted with the ways of the world, when obstructions were feared in the path of duty, when people became excited and lost their reason, when friends lost their spirit and suffered inner disquiet on any account, [Sastry used to recollect these Slokas. Tulya nindastuti] – equal and unmoved by praise or insult - is an injunction which ought to guide our public men…”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

The Gita for Every Man

Men, People, World, Fear

“O heavenly Muse, that not with fading bays
Deckest thy brow by the Heliconian spring,
But sittest crowned with stars' immortal rays
In Heaven, where legions of bright angels sing;
Inspire life in my wit, my thoughts upraise,
My verse ennoble, and forgive the thing,
If fictions light I mix with truth divine,
And fill these lines with other praise than thine.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

O Musa, tu, che di caduchi allori
Non circondi la fronte in Elicona,
Ma su nel Cielo infra i beati cori
Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona;
Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,
Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona
S'intesso fregj al ver, s'adorno in parte
D'altri diletti, che de' tuoi le carte.
Canto I, stanza 2 (tr. Edward Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Life, Truth, Angels, Star

“In the 14th Century an anonymous English mystic wrote a book called The Cloud of Unknowing, the main theme of which is that God cannot be apprehended by man's intellect and that only love can pierce the "cloud of unknowing" which lies between Him and us. I feel that in my own life anything I have done of possible worth has happened in spite of my gross, worldly self. I have been no more than the vessel used to convey ideas above my intellectual capacities. When people praise passages I have written, more often than not I can genuinely say, 'Did I write that?' I don't think this is due to my having a bad memory, because I have almost total recall of trivialities. I see it as evidence of the part the supernatural plays in lives which would otherwise remain earthbound.”

Patrick White (1912–1990) English-born Australian writer

Australians in a Nuclear War (1983)

Love, Life, God, People

“Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.”

Bias of Priene (-600–-530 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the Seven Sages

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230)

“I… praise the newly opened halls of fossil mammals at the American Museum of Natural History. …teaching us about evolutionary trees by organizing the entire hall as a central trunk and set of branches… placing our brains in our feet and letting us learn by walking. …the chosen geometry of evolutionary organization… violates the traditional picture of life's history, thus illustrating… an important principle in the history of science: the central role of pictures, graphs, and other forms of visual representation in channeling and constraining our thought. …Words are an evolutionary afterthought. …My colleagues have actually done it. …They have ordered all the fossils into an unconventional iconographic tree that fractures the bias of progress. …so that we can preambulate along the tree of life and absorb the new scheme viscerally by walking… They have taken Colbert's radical idea and arranged all the fossils by their branching order, not their later "success" or "advancement."”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

Groups that branch early appear early in the hall... Sea cows and elephants are at the end of the hall, horses in the middle, and primates near the beginning.
"Evolution by Walking", pp. 249-254.
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

Life, History, Idea, Tree

“The disposition to consider intelligence a peril is an old Anglo-Saxon inheritance. Our ancestors have celebrated this disposition in verse and prose. Splendid as our literature is, it has not voiced all the aspirations of humanity, nor could it be expected to voice an aspiration that has not characteristically belonged to the English race; the praise of intelligence is not one of its characteristic glories. “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will he clever.” [Charles Kingsley, “A Farewell”] Here is the startling alternative which to the English, alone among great nations, has been not startling but a matter of course. Here is the casual assumption that a choice must be made between goodness and intelligence; that stupidity is first cousin to moral conduct, and cleverness the first step into mischief; that reason and God are not on good terms with each other; that the mind and the heart are rival buckets in the well of truth, inexorably balanced—full mind, starved heart—stout heart, weak head.”

John Erskine (1879–1951) American educator

Source: The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent (1915), p. 5

God, Truth, Stupidity, Intelligence

“All kinds of music are not suited to praise God and to be heard in the sanctuary; all methods of philosophy are not fit for discoursing worthily of God, His power, the principles of His operations, and His mysteries.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (23)
Les Caractères (1688)

God, Music

“Bramah's books fall into two very unequal categories. Some, fortunately the smaller part, record the adventures of the blind detective, Max Carrados. These are competent, mediocre books. The rest are parodic in nature: they pass themselves off as translations from the Chinese, and their boundless perfection achieved the unconditional praise of Hilaire Belloc in 1922. Their names: The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900), Kai Lung's Golden Hours (1922), Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928), The Mirror of Kong Ho (1931), The Moon of Much Gladness”

Ernest Bramah (1868–1942) English author

1936
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Total Library"
Criticism

Books, Nature, Parting, Perfection

“I saw that God rejoiceth that He is our Father, and God rejoiceth that He is our Mother, and God rejoiceth that He is our Very Spouse and our soul is His loved Wife. And Christ rejoiceth that He is our Brother, and Jesus rejoiceth that He is our Saviour. These are five high joys, as I understand, in which He willeth that we enjoy; Him praising, Him thanking, Him loving, Him endlessly blessing.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 52

Love, God, Soul, Understanding

“The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.”

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

Sesame and Lilies, lecture I: Sesame. Of King's Treasuries, section 3 (1864-1865)

Love, Pleasure, Effort

“Anas reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Allah is pleased with His slave who eats a morsel and praises Allah for it or takes a drink and praises Allah for it."”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 1, hadith number 140
Sunni Hadith

Peace, Drink

“By the waters of Life we sat together,
Hand in hand, in the golden days
Of the beautiful early summer weather,
When skies were purple and breath was praise.”

Thomas Noel (poet) (1799–1861) English poet

An old Man’s Idyll, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Life, Beauty, Water, Summer

“…So I wasn't death to this guy, I was just a one-way ticket home. Now I don't know if you've ever stuck a.38 in somebody's navel, but if they look at you and say "Praise the Lord," I guarantee you one thing, it'll separate your head from your shoulders!”

Mike Warnke (1946) Evangelical Christian minister

Alive (album) (1975)

Death, Way, Guy, Home

“First of all, no one can accuse me, Ayad Jamal Aldin, of secatarianism, because I support a secular regime that fully separates religion and the state. […] I believe that my freedom as a Shia and as a religious person will never be complete unless I preserve the freedom of the Sunni, the Christian, the Jew, the Sabai and the Yazidi. We will not be able to preserve the freedom of the mosque unless we preserve the freedom of entertainment clubs. […] The curricula - both the modern ones, in some Arab and Islamic countries, and the books of jurisprudence and heritage - have many flaws that must be fixed once and for all. There are rulings about Ahl al-Dhimma - even if, Allah be praised, no current regime can enforce these rulings. However, just for the sake of amusement and diversion, I recommend that the viewers read the books of jurisprudence, and see how Ahl al-Dhimma are treated. I especially recommend this to people with a lust for Arab and Islamic history, who claim that our history is a source of pride, and that others were treated with kindness and love - especially Christians and Jews. Among these rulings, a Dhimmi must wear a belt, so he would be identifiable. Moreover, it is recommended that he be forced to the narrowest paths, and there are even jurisprudents who say that it is recommended to slap a Christian on the back of his neck so he would feel humiliated and degraded. This is how we harass him and then invite him to join Islam. I can swear that the Prophet Muhammad is innocent of such inhuman jurisprudence. I challenge anyone among the people with a lust for history to talk candidly to the West, to the advocates of human rights, and tell them that our heritage has such evils and flaws. We are a nation of blackout and darkness. We cannot live in the light of day. […] We do not hold ourselves accountable. This is why America came to demand that the Arabs be accountable. We must have more self-confidence and be accountable before others hold us accountable. We must discipline ourselves before the Americans and English discipline us. We must maintain human rights, which we have neglected for 1,300 or 1,400 years, to this day - until the arrival of the Americans, the Christians, the English, the Zionists, the Crusaders - call them what you will. They came to teach you, the followers of Muhammad, how to respect human rights.”

Iyad Jamal Al-Din (1961) Iraqi politician

Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: The Arabs Want Tyrannical Regimes, in Line with Their Backward Culture, LBC TV, July 31, 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ZKffu6Wsg,

Love, People, Books, Religion

“Those who are actuated by the desire of fame and glory are amazingly gratified by approbation and praise, even though it comes from their inferiors.”
Omnes enim, qui gloria famaque ducuntur, mirum in modum assensio et laus a minoribus etiam profecta delectat.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 12, 6.
Letters, Book IV

“Happy will be the men who, having the power and the love and the benevolent forecast to [create a park], will do it. They will not be forgotten. The trees and their lovers will sing their praises, and generations yet unborn will rise up and call them blessed.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

"The Basin of the Columbia River" in Picturesque California (1888-1890); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 22
1880s

Love, Men, Happiness, Lovers

“That sad and joyful dawn,
light full of pity and grief,
while the world wakes in loneliness
I'll praise it and remember it.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Aquela triste e leda madrugada,
Cheia toda de mágoa e de piedade,
Enquanto houver no mundo saudade,
Quero que seja sempre celebrada.
tr. David Wevill
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Aquela triste e leda madrugada

World, Sadness, Light, Loneliness

“In the name of Allah the all-powerful, all-merciful, all-knowing, know that it is by his holy will that we come to free the peoples of the Nile from their immemorial and most cruel bondage to the Turks and the Mamelukes, free men of Frankistan bringing freedom, respecting Islam and the tenets of the holy prophet, may his name be praised and the holy name of Allah most high exalted for ever more.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Napoleon Symphony (1974)

Men, People, Freedom

“Early rising, honesty, and work. There is a great difference in merit between being awakened and waking up someone else. Working in the shadows and praising others is honesty. If you do not put into practice what you hear, you will become a lie. Work on top of work, saying to yourself, ‘Just a little more, just a little bit more’; this is not greed, it is work that comes from true sincerity.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

Anecdotes of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, from Anecdote 111, "Being Awakened in the Morning," p. 94.
Anecdotes of Oyasama

Lie, Sincerity

“Can there ever be enough of kindness, generosity and praise?”

S. S. Rajamouli (1973) Indian film director

Exclusive: 'I don’t think my lifestyle will change,' Rajamouli on life post Baahubali

“I will have achieved my aim if, by the end of this book, you demand that people produce good reasons for what they believe—not only in religion, but in any area in which evidence can be brought to bear. I’ll have achieved my aim when people devote as much effort to choosing a system of belief as they do to choosing their doctor. I’ll have achieved my aim If the public stops awarding special authority about the universe and the human condition to preachers, imams, and clerics simply because they are religious figures. And above all, I’ll have achieved my aim if, when you hear someone described as a “person of faith,” you see it as criticism rather than praise.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. xxii

People, Books, Faith, Religion

“The violent extermination of Buddhism in India is legendary. Buddhism grew weaker as it spread wider. The spirit of compromise which breathed in the Xllth Edict of Ashoka that there should be no praising of one's sect and decrying of other sects but on the contrary a rendering of honour to other sects for whatever cause honour may be due to them was its strength and weakness. It accommodated too much. Divinities and heavens slipped into Buddhism from other creeds with the spread of the religion.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

His views on why the role of Buddhism diminished in India
Eminent Indians (1947)

Religion

“Ah, Chloris! could I now but sit
As unconcern'd as when
Your infant beauty could beget
No happiness or pain!
When I the dawn used to admire,
And praised the coming day,
I little thought the rising fire
Would take my rest away.”

Charles Sedley (1639–1701) English politician

Poem: Child and Maiden http://www.bartleby.com/106/81.html

Pain, Happiness, Beauty

“Dayton shook the leadership elite of post-Cold War Europe. The Europeans were grateful to the United States for the leading the effort that finally ended the war in Bosnia, but some European officials were embarassed that American involvement had been necessary. Jacque Poos's 1991 assertion that Europe's "hour had dawned" lay in history's dustbin, alongside James Baker's view that we had no dog in that fight. "One cannot call it an American peace", French Foreign Minister de Charette told the press, "even if President Clinton and the Americans have tried to pull the blanket over to their side. The fact is that the Americans looked at this affair in ex-Yugoslavia from a great distance for nearly four years and basically blocked the progression of things." But de Charette also acknowledged that "Europe as such was not present, and this, it is true, was a failure of the European Union." Prime Minister Alain Juppé, after praising the Dayton agreement, could not resist adding, "Of course, it resembles like a twin the European plan we presented eighteen months ago" - when he was Foreign Minister. Agence France-Presse reported that many European diplomats were "left smarting" at Dayton. In an article clearly inspired by someone at the French Foreign Ministry, Le Figaro said that "Richard Holbrooke, the American mediator, did not leave his European collegues with good memories from the air base at Dayton." They quoted an unnamed Franch diplomat as saying, "He flatters, he lies, he humiliates: he is a sort of brutal and schizophrenic Mazarin." President Chirac's national security assistant, Jean-David Levitte, called to apologize for this comment, saying it did not represent the views of his boss. I replied that such minidramas were inevitable given the pressures and frustrations we faced at Dayton and were inconsequential considering that the war was over.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 318

War, Peace, Dogs, Quotes

“Mr. Burke talked in very high terms of Dr. Adam Smith; praised the clearness and depth of his understanding, his profound and extensive learning, and the vast accession that had accrued to British literature and philosophy from these exertions, and described his heart as being equally good with his head and his manners as peculiarly pleasing. Mr. Smith, he said, told him, after they had conversed on subjects of political economy, that he was the only man, who, without communication, thought on these topics exactly as he did.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Robert Bisset, The Life of Edmund Burke. Volume II (London: G. Cawthorn, 1800), pp. 428-9
Undated

Communication, Literature, Understanding, Learning

“For the man who considers himself the best critic generally studies sound and unsound composition with equal interest, being no more greedy for lofty utterances to praise than for contemptible ones to ridicule. In this way technique, grandeur, and propriety in the use of the Latin language are particularly underrated by the armchair critics, who, with an insensibility which goes hand in hand with scurrility, and wishing to read only what they may criticize, cannot, by their very abuse of literature, be making a proper use of it.”
Nam qui maxume doctus sibi videtur, dictionem sanam et insanam ferme appetitu pari revolvit, non amplius concupiscens erecta quae laudet quam despecta quae rideat. atque in hunc modum scientia pompa proprietas linguae Latinae iudiciis otiosorum maximo spretui est, quorum scurrilitati neglegentia comes hoc volens tantum legere, quod carpat, sic non utitur litteris, quod abutitur.

Sidonius Apollinaris (430–489) Gaulish poet, aristocrat and bishop

Lib. 3, Ep. 14, sect. 2; vol. 2, p. 59.
Epistularum

Way, Literature, Study, Reading

“Cold approbation gave the ling'ring bays,
For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Prologue at the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre (1747)

“It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries

Nature, Personality

“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 do not mind if my cottage is rather small
So long as there's room enough for bed and mat.
Often and often the neighbours come to see me
And with brave words discuss the things of old.
Rare writings we read together and praise:
Doubtful meanings we examine together and settle.”

Tao Yuanming (365–427) Chinese poet

"Moving house" (translation by A. Waley)

Reading

“The Senate of the United States has been both extravagantly praised and unreasonably disparaged, according to the predisposition and temper of its various critics… The truth is, in this case as in so many others, something quite commonplace and practical. The Senate is just what the mode of its election and the conditions of public life in this country make it.”

Woodrow Wilson Congressional Government

Congressional Government, A Study in American Politics (1885; republished 1981), chapter 4, p. 135 (1981)
1880s

Life, Truth, Country

“I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Art of War

Book 1
The Art of War (1520)

Dead

“Truth is Thy primal word; at thy behest
The generations pass - O aid our quest
For Thee, and set my host of songs on high,
And let my psalmody come very nigh.
My praises as a coronal account,
And let my prayers as Thine incense mount.
Deem precious unto Thee the poor man's song,
As those that to thine altar did belong.
Rise, O my blessing, to the lord of birth,
The breeding, quickening, righteous force of earth.
Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod,
My choicest incense offered to my God.
And let my meditation grateful be,
For all my being is athirst for Thee.

from Millgram, A. E., Anthology of Medieval Hebrew Literature, Abelard, 1961.”

Yehuda he-Hasid (1140–1217) German philosopher

Shir Hakovod, trans. from the Hebrew by Israel Zangwill

God, Truth, Literature, Birth

“Everything in this world changes; only God remains the same forever. If mankind will realize this truth, then we can avert disaster by coming together with faith in God and living in unity and compassion. Do not live divided. With compassion for each other, live in unity and truth, in the presence of God. Live according to justice and conscience, respecting the lives and bodies of all others as your own, and knowing the hunger and the suffering of others as your own. Have patience, contentment, trust in God, and live praising God at all times, and peace will be easy.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Hunger, God, Truth, World

“To my deprivation, to my sorrow, sinew was brave.
The world would not be if not for my offspring.
I am a bard to be praised. The unskilful
May he be possessed by the ravens and eagle and bird of wrath.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Death-song of Uther Pendragon

World, Bird

“A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest, as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

"Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History," No. 4 Gazette of the United States (1790–1791)
1790s, Discourses on Davila (1790)

Heart

“The spotless maid is like the blooming rose
Which on its native stem unsullied grows;
Where fencing walls the garden-space surround,
Nor swains, nor browsing cattle tread the ground.
But if some hand the tender stalk invades,
Lost is its beauty, and its colour fades:
No more the care of heaven, or garden's boast,
And all its praise with youths and maidens lost.”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Book I, line 300
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)

Youth, Beauty

“If you read some of the Parisian newspapers, among others the 'Figaro', so beloved of the right-thinking public, you must have learned that I am part of a group of artists who opened a private exhibition [in the art-gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris, April 1876]. You must also have seen what favour this exhibition enjoys in the eyes of these gentlemen [Berthe refers to the critical articles in Paris with all their mockery about her works]. On the other hand, we have been praised in the radical newspaper, but you don't read those [her aunts]! Well, at least we are getting attention, and we have enough self-esteem not to care. My brother-in-law Edouard Manet is not with us [Manet didn't participate in this first Impressionist show, initiated by Degas ]. Speaking of success, he [Manet] has just been rejected by the Salon; he, too, is perfectly good-humored about his failure.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

In a letter to her aunts, 1876; as quoted in The Private Lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 155
Berthe wrote this letter after the second Impressionist exhibition of April 1876 where she was participating with 19 pictures (Monet with 18!)
1871 - 1880

Law, Art, Failure, Thinking

“Only a humorless tyrant could want a perpetual chanting of praises that, one has no choice but to assume, would be the innate virtues and splendors furnished him by his creator, infinite regression, drowned in praise!”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2001, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

“I render thanks and yield praise unto God for having been chosen by Him as the Exponent of His Cause in bygone days and in the days to come; there is none other God save Him, the Glorified, the All-Praised, the Ever-Abiding. Whatever is in the heavens and on the earth is His and through Him are we guided aright.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to the First Letter of the Living

God

“Despise me not
And not be queasy
To praise somewhat
Verse is not easy”

J. V. Cunningham (1911–1985) American writer

'For my Contemporaries' from - The Helmsman 1942
Epigrams

“Praise is the best diet for us, after all.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, ch. 9
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

“I wouldn't put out a statement praising it, but we're not going to condemn it either. [Nixon's comment about the atrocities and genocide committed by the West Pakistan government against Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War]”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/xi/45650.htm,and The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass 1970s

War

“The vulgar opinion, then, which, on health reasons, condemns vegetable food and so much praises animal food, being so ill-founded, I have always thought it well to oppose myself to it, moved both by experience and by that refined knowledge of natural things which some study and conversation with great men have given me. And perceiving now that such my constancy has been honoured by some learned and wise physicians with their authoritative adhesion, I have thought it my duty publicly to diffuse the reasons of the Pythagorean diet, regarded as useful in medicine, and, at the same time, as full of innocence, of temperance, and of health. And it is none the less accompanied with a certain delicate pleasure, and also with a refined and splendid luxury, if care and skill be applied in selection and proper supply of the best vegetable food, to which the fertility and the natural character of our beautiful country seem to invite us.”

Antonio Cocchi (1695–1758) Italian physician and naturalist

The Pythagorean Diet: for the Use of the Medical Faculty

Men, Health, Pleasure, Food

“What we sow here, we reap there! Can it be supposed that the soul will enjoy a reward or endure a retribution for deeds of which it has no recollection? Is the thing possible? Will it enjoy the bliss of heaven, praising Christ forever as its great Saviour, without any remembrance of the sins and sufferings from which He redeemed and saved it? The idea is absurd.”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 305.

Soul, Idea, Suffering, Christ

“How to value my own self-esteem more than the praise of others.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 7 (1919), A School for Living

“[that] the highly praised handsomeness of my little son had disappeared and in its place was a monstrosity completely covered with pox blisters. Can you imagine how I felt?”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to his friend Martín Zapater https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3915977 and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Francisco_de_Goya_-_Portrait_of_Mart%C3%ADn_Zapater_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, n.p. Madrid, 10 November 1790, at Christies website The illness (probably chickenpox) of his only surviving son, Francisco Javier, also meant that Goya would be kept from his duties as 'pintor da camara' at the palace, because of forty days quarantine. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/goya-y-lucientes-francisco-de-1746-1828-autograph-4939859-details.aspx 1790s

Imagination

“Sir — In finding so much to praise in 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane,' which seems to be nothing more than a highly sensationalized, lurid, crude and over-dramatised picture of life at its lowest, surely your dramatic critic has taken leave of his senses.The effect this nauseating work had on me was to make we want to fill my lungs with some fresh, wholesome Leicester Square air. A distinguished critic, if I quote him correctly, felt the sensation of snakes crawling around his ankles while watching it.Yours truly,Peter Pinnell”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

This letter was written by Orton under a pseudonym and was published by the Daily Telegraph (p.283 of the Orton Diaries)
The Orton Diaries (1986), The Edna Welthorpe letters

Life, Quotes

“Mother Teresa is a true daughter of the Church in having her mind and heart closed to the religions of the countries of her labour, even adoption. Sometime back, some European Vedantists learning that she was at the Vatican went there to pay their respects. She rebuked them for "betraying Christ". Let me clarify the point a little further by bringing in Sister Nivedita. She is a lady Hindus are proud of. She helped India by helping it to rediscover itself. No higher service could be rendered to a nation in the grip of self-forgetfulness. She stood for national justice for India and she helped us by giving us national pride. This explains why Sister Nivedita is Hindu India's hero. This also explains why Western nations shower praise and money on Mother Teresa while Sister Nivedita remained unsung in the West and there were no contributions from that quarter even for her purely humanitarian work, like education and child care and relief work which she did with no less dedication, sympathy and loving care.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Quoted from Catholic Ashrams by S.R. Goel, Appendix V.

Love, Money, Education, Religion

“It is awkward to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man.”

H. Rider Haggard book Allan and the Holy Flower

Allan and the Holy Flower (1915), CHAPTER I, BROTHER JOHN

“For anyone seeking meaning for his life a figure from Greek mythology comes to mind. It is that of Atlas, bearing with endless perseverance the weight of the heavens on his back. — Atlas, resolutely bearing his burden and accepting his responsibility that gives us the example we seek. To seek out and accept responsibility; to persevere; to be committed to excellence; to be creative and courageous; to be unrelenting in the pursuit of intellectual development; to maintain high standards of ethics and morality; and to bring these basic principles of existence to bear through active participation in life — these are some of my ideas on the goals which must be met to achieve meaning and purpose in life.
And finally, the man who knows his purpose in life accepts praise humbly. He knows whatsoever talents we has were given him by the Lord and that these talents must be developed and used. In this way man renders thanks for the Lord's gift — and finds meaning in his life.”

Hyman George Rickover (1900–1986) United States admiral

Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life (1974)

Life, Way, Idea, Courage

“I have endowed everyone with a temperament of his own, given everyone an idiom of his own; so that what is praise for him is blame for thee, what is honey for him is poison for thee, what is light for him is fire for thee, what is rose for him is thorn for thee, what is good for him is evil for thee, what is beautiful for him is ugly for thee. In the people of Hindustan the idiom of Hindustan is praiseworthy; in the people of Sind, the idiom of Sind is praiseworthy. I do not see the outward and the speech; I see the inward and the state [of feeling]. For the heart is the substance and speech an accident. So, the accident is subservient, the substance is the [real] object. The religion of love stands apart from all religions. For lovers the [only] religion and creed is God.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Rumi, quoted from Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990) p. 20-21 https://archive.org/details/MythOfCompositeCultureHarshNarain

Love, God, People, Religion

“Praise with elation,
Praise every morning,
God's re-creation
Of the new day!”

Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer

Morning Has Broken (1931)

God

“The gentleman knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise. … He makes his eyes not want to see what is not right, makes his ears not want to hear what is not right, makes his mouth not want to speak what is not right, and makes his heart not want to deliberate over what is not right. … For this reason, power and profit cannot sway him, the masses cannot shift him, and nothing in the world can shake him.”

Xun Zi (-313–-238 BC) Ancient Chinese philosopher

Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2001), p. 260
An Exhortation to Learning

World, Heart

“They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000, and children of both sexes, 'more than the pen can enumerate'… In short, the Muhammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants, and plundered the cities, and captured their offspring, so that many temples were deserted and the idols were broken and trodden under foot, the largest of which was one called Somnat, fixed upon stone, polished like a mirror of charming shape and admirable workmanship' Its head was adorned with a crown set with gold and rubies and pearls and other precious stones' and a necklace of large shining pearls, like the belt of Orion, depended from the shoulder towards the side of the body….
'The Muhammadan soldiers plundered all these jewels and rapidly set themselves to demolish the idol. The surviving infidels were deeply affected with grief, and they engaged 'to pay a thousand pieces of gold' as ransom for the idol, but they were indignantly rejected, and the idol was destroyed, and 'its limbs, which were anointed with ambergris and perfumed, were cut off. The fragments were conveyed to Delhi, and the entrance of the Jami' Masjid was paved with them, that people might remember and talk of this brilliant victory.' Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Amen! After some time, among the ruins of the temples, a most beautiful jasper-coloured stone was discovered, on which one of the merchants had designed some beautiful figures of fighting men and other ornamental figures of globes, lamps, etc., and on the margin of it were sculptured verses from the Kurdn. This stone was sent as an offering to the shrine of the pole of saints… At that time they were building a lofty octagonal dome to the tomb. The stone was placed at the right of the entrance. "At this time, that is, in the year 707 h. (1307 a. d.), 'Alau-d din is the acknowledged Sultan of this country. On all its borders there are infidels, whom it is his duty to attack in the prosecution of a holy war, and return laden with countless booty."”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Somnath. Abdu’llah ibn Fazlu’llah of Shiraz (Wassaf) : Tarikh-i-Wassaf (Tazjiyatu’l Amsar Wa Tajriyatu’l Ãsar), in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 43-44. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Men, God, War, Children

“The more you make yourselves humble and ask for forgiveness, the more your true exaltedness is seen. Humility is a sign of exaltedness. The preface of a spotlessly pure heart (Iman-Islam) is patience (sabur), contentment and gratitude (shakur), having trust in God (tawakkal), and praising Him for everything that happens to us, saying, “Al-hamdu lillah!” Therefore, without feeling shame, ask forgiveness whenever necessary. This will be good. Allah, the Lone One who rules and sustains (Allahu ta’ala Nayan), will protect you and me.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

God, Feeling, Forgiveness, Heart

“It's disconcerting to realize that businessmen, generals, soldiers, men of action are less corrupted by power than intellectuals… You take a conventional man of action, and he's satisfied if you obey. But not the intellectual. He doesn't want you just to obey. He wants you to get down on your knees and praise the one who makes you love what you hate and hate what you love. In other words, whenever the intellectuals are in power, there's soul-raping going on.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1HqWUMxbs#t=2m23s with Eric Sevareid (1967)

Love, Men, Hate, Soul

“Here I must inject a personal note—I never shed blood upon the field of Sidwell Friends, nor did I fight the battles of Yale Law. I am a miner's son, and my father was a self-made man who unmade himself during my youth. Education was not a family legacy, and my kin belonged to the United Mine Workers of America, not to Skull and Bones. My forebears fought this country's wars from the bottom ranks, and I began my own military career as a private. I have felt the full arrogance of those to whom much was given, and personally, wish that I might come to bury the elite, not to praise them. Yet, those who would rise need examples to emulate. It grates on me to write it, but our military needs a return of the nation's elite to the officer corps, to the extent that a traditional elite, with its spotty but essential ideals of service, still exists.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

autobiographical aside from Beyond Terror, p. 319. Originally part of an essay entitled "Hucksters in Uniform" which appeared in the May 1999 edition of The Washington Monthly.
1990s, Hucksters in Uniform (1999)

War, Youth, Education, Family

“And then we come to the physics engine. Oh, the physics engine, for which so much praise has been sung. What they say is all true. It is fantastic the way you can pick up boxes, the way they fall, the way they tip over, the way they smash into bits when you hit them.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

On Half-Life 2, 26 November 2004
Fully Ramblomatic

Life, Way, Box

“He knew that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel the fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle,—converting what was earthly to spiritual gold,—had won the beautiful into his handiwork. Not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of all high performance must be sought within itself, or sought in vain.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

World, Beauty, Feeling, Learning

“Conflict is necessary for growth. But too often conflict becomes a haven for the soul. Until one day, the soul can no longer free itself. In real growth the soul learns to fly rather than having the ego inflated with praise from accomplishments as if it were a balloon. Only because it buys time, do we develop a strong and protective ego. This is the early stage in the soul’s evolution, until such time when the soul hatches out of its shell, which is the ego, into a new world in which there is incomparable beauty.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

World, Beauty, Soul, Strong

“The tongue of the sword of the Khalifa of the time, which is the tongue of the flame of Islam, has imparted light to the entire darkness of Hindustan by the illumination of its guidance… On the other side, so much dust arose from the battered temple of Somnat that even the sea was not able to lay it, and on the right hand and on the left hand the army has conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus, in which Satanism has prevailed since the time of the Jinns, have been demolished. All these impurities of infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultan's destruction of idol-temples, beginning with his first holy expedition against Deogir,44so that the flames of the light of the law illumine all these unholy countries, and places for the criers to prayer are exalted on high, and prayers are read in mosques. Allah be praised!'…'On Sunday, the 23rd, after holding a council of chief officers, he [Malik Kafur, converted Hindu and commander of the Muslim army] took a select body of cavalry with him and pressed on against Billal Deo, and on the 5th of Shawwal reached the fort of Dhur Sammund after a difficult march of twelve days over the hills and valleys, and through thorny forests. 'The fire-worshipping' Rai, when he learnt that 'his idol-temple was likely to be converted into a mosque,' despatched Kisu Mal' The commander replied that he was sent with the object of converting him to Muhammadanism, or of making him a zimmi, and subject to pay tax, or of slaying him if neither of these terms were assented to. When the Rai received this reply, he said he was ready to give up all he possessed, except his sacred thread.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 85-89
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

God, Law, Light, Time

“Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 21.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Money, God, Health

Quotes about praise page 6

Quotes about praise
page 6