This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"When you praise someone you call yourself his equal." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once a minute something generous dies for want of it." - John Masefield
"Yet it is meet and proper that a nation should set apart an annual day for national giving of thanks. It is a public recognition of God as the Author of all prosperity. It is the erection of a memorial to the honor of him who has led us through another year. The annual proclamations which call to the duty of thanksgiving are calculated to remind the people of their indebtedness to God, to stir in their minds and hearts emotions of gratitude and praise, and to call out thanks and sincere worship which otherwise might not find expression. But if the observance of the day be not marked by real remembering of mercies and by real lifting of hearts to God in thanks, what blessing can possibly come with it?" -
"Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our powers of judgment are more completely exposed by being overpraised than by being unjustly underestimated." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Creativity is a flower that praise brings to bloom, but discouragement often nips in the bud." - Alex Faickney Osborn
"Praise undeserv'd is scandal in disguise." - Alexander Pope
"More people praise the Bible than read it, more read it than understand it, and more understand it than follow it." - Samuel Sandmel
"The poet is the equable man, not in him but off from him things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns, nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad, he bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less, he is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key... As he sees the farthest he has the most faith, his thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, in the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, he sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement, he sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams or dots." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
"Blessings be with them, and eternal praise who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares, the poets, who on earth have made us heirs of truth and pure delight, by heavenly lays." - William Wordsworth
"All our distinctions are accidental; beauty and deformity, though personal qualities, are neither entitled to praise nor censure; yet it is so happens that they color our opinion of those qualities to which mankind have attached responsibility." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
"God considers not the action, but the spirit of the action. It is the intention, not the deed wherein the merit or praise of the doer consists." - Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
"Every language in the world has something beautiful and something ugly about it, for language is nothing more than the expression of the activities, thoughts, and actions of human beings. There is naturally always something to blame and something to praise." - Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, known also as Fares Chidiac, Faris Al Chidiac
"Since all justice is rightness, the justice, which brings praise to the one who preserves it, is in nowise in any except rational beings… This justice is not rightness of knowledge, or rightness of action, but rightness of will." - Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL
"The world is full of paradox. For example, [in Buddhism] though no notion of a creator is entertained, great stress is laid upon the need for faith and piety. By faith is meant not trust in a benevolent diety avid for love, praise and obedience, but conviction that beyond the seeming reality misreported by our senses which is inherently unsatisfactory, lies a mystery which, when intuitively unsatisfactory, lies a mystery which, when intuitively perceived, will give our lives undreamed-of meaning and endow the most insignificant object with holiness and beauty." - John Blofeld, fully John Eaton Calthorpe Blofeld
"If there be any man who is not enlightened by this sublime magnificence of created things, he is blind. If there be any man who is not aroused by the clamor of nature, he is deaf. If there be any one who, seeing all these works of God, does not praise him, he is dumb; if there be any one who, from so many signs, cannot perceive the First Principle, that man is foolish." - Saint Bonaventure, born John of Fidanza Bonaventure
"Censure is often useful, praise often deceitful." - Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
"As a solid rock cannot be moved by the wind, the wise are not shaken by praise or blame." - Dhammapada NULL
"Just as solid rocks are not shaken by the wind, so wise men are not moved by either blame or praise." - Dhammapada NULL
"He who unreservedly accepts whatever God may give him in this world – humiliation, trouble, and trial from within or from without – has made a great step towards self-victory; he will not dread praise or censure, he will not be sensitive; or if he finds himself wincing, he will deal so cavalierly with his sensitiveness that it will soon die away. Such full resignation and unfeigned acquiescence is true liberty, and hence arises perfect simplicity." -
"An honest Man will receive neither Money nor Praise, that is not his Due." - Benjamin Franklin
"Real joy comes not from ease or riches or praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile." - Wilfred Grenfell, fully Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
"As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear, and the next the people hate. When the best leader's work is done, the people say, 'We did it ourselves.’" - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"The sage does not display himself, therefore he shines. He does not approve himself therefore he is noted. He does not praise himself, therefore he has merit. He does not glory in himself, therefore he excels." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"Of the best rulers the people (only) know that they exist; the next best they love and praise; the next they fear; the next they revile. When they do not command the people’s faith, some will lose faith in them, and then they resort to oaths! But (of the best) when their task is accomplished, their work done, the people all remark, “We have done it ourselves.”" - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"The surest way to bring about destruction of a civilization is to allow the abyss to widen between the values men praise and the values they permit to operate." - Harold Laski, fully Harold Joseph Laski
"Banish care. If there be bounds to pleasure, the saddest life must also have an end. Then weave your wreath of flowers, and sing your songs in praise of the all-powerful God; for the glory of this world soon fades away." - Nezahualcoyotl NULL
"All noble art, with all noble religion, breathes gratitude for life... Great art is a song of praise, an overflowing of life back to its source, a dithramb of thanksgiving and gratitude." - Alfred Richard Orage
"Praise loudly, blame softly." - Russian Proverbs
"Speculation does not precede faith. The antecedents of faith are the premise of wonder and the premise of praise." - Fritz A. Rothschild
"Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due. Reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend: it produces more labor and more talent than twice the wealth of a country could ever rear up. It is the coin of genius, and it is the imperious duty of every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the wisest economy." - Sydney Smith
"It is easy to be honest enough not to be hanged. To be really honest means to subdue one’s prepossessions, ideals - stating things fairly, not humoring your argument - doing justice to your enemies... making confession whether you can afford it or not; refusing unmerited praise; looking painful truths in the face." - Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL
"All instruction, all criticism, every reduction in choice, every manifestation of hierarchy, every act of secrecy subtly lowers people’s self-belief. Coaching, trust, openness, respect, authentic praise, freedom of choice and, of course, success raise it." - John Whitmore, fully Sir John Whitmore
"We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave of text and legend. Reason’s voice and God’s, Nature’s and Duty’s, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save justice and mercy and humility, a reasonable service of good deeds, pure living, tenderness to human needs, reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see the Master’s footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, but the calm beauty of an ordered life whose very breathing is unworded praise! A life that stands as all true lives have stood firm-rooted in the faith that God is good." - John Greenleaf Whittier
"How rare, men with the character to praise a friend’s success without a trace of envy." - Aeschylus NULL
"Some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in speaking about a man’s character we do not say that he is wise or has understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we praise the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of states of mind we call those which merit praise virtues." - Aristotle NULL
"Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard." - Aristotle NULL
"Unwelcome are the loiterer, who makes appointments he never keeps; the consulter, who asks advice he never follows; the boaster, who seeks for praise he does not merit; the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; the talker, who talks only because he loves to talk always; the profane and obscene jester, whose words defile; the drunkard, whose insanity has tot the better of his reason; and the tobacco-chewer and smoker, who poisons the atmosphere and nauseates others." - Author Unknown NULL
"If you want to praise, praise God. If you want to blame, blame yourself." - Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda NULL
"Never talk of yourself. You must either praise yourself, which is vain, or blame yourself, which is small-minded." - Baltasar Gracián
"If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others." - Blaise Pascal
"All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Expect not praise without envy until you are dead. Honors bestowed on the illustrious dead have in them no admixture of envy; for the living pity the dead; and pity and envy, like oil and vinegar, assimilate not." - Charles Caleb Colton