Praise Quotes

Most popular praise quotes

I can live for two months on a good compliment. - Mark Twain quote.
I can live for two months on a good compliment.

compliments funny

We praise or blame according to whether the one or the other offers a greater opportunity for our power of judgment to shine out. - Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
We praise or blame according to whether the one or the other offers a greater opportunity for our power of judgment to shine out.

blame human nature

If you call a thing bad you do little; if you call a thing good you do much. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote.
If you call a thing bad you do little; if you call a thing good you do much.

parenting

When someone does something good, applaud! That will make two people happy. - Samuel Goldwyn quote.
When someone does something good, applaud! That will make two people happy.
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. - Plato quote.
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Be it true or false, what is said about people often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do. - Victor Hugo quote.
Be it true or false, what is said about people often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

influence criticism

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free—and worth a fortune. - Sam Walton quote.
Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free—and worth a fortune.
People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is seasoned with praise. - Molière quote.
People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is seasoned with praise.

human nature

Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of praising where praise is due. - Sydney Smith quote.
Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of praising where praise is due.
The refusal of praise is a wish to be praised twice. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
The refusal of praise is a wish to be praised twice.
Be quick to praise people. People like to praise those who praise them. - Bernard Baruch quote.
Be quick to praise people. People like to praise those who praise them.
The sweetest sound of all sounds is praise. - Xenophon quote.
The sweetest sound of all sounds is praise.
He who praises another enriches himself far more than he does the one praised. To praise is an investment in happiness. The poorest human being has something to give that the richest could not buy quote.
Great tranquility of heart is his who cares for neither praise nor blame. - Thomas à Kempis quote.
Great tranquility of heart is his who cares for neither praise nor blame.

blame inner peace

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.
Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it. - Rabindranath Tagore quote.
Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.
Praise at least as often as you disparage. - John Perry Barlow quote.
Praise at least as often as you disparage.
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among the men the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.
There's no weapon that slays its victim so surely as praise. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton quote.
There's no weapon that slays its victim so surely as praise.
How a little praise warms out of a man the good that is in him. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton quote.
How a little praise warms out of a man the good that is in him.

persuasion

If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.

parenting

Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it. - John Masefield quote.
Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.
Praise is like champagne; it should be served while it is still bubbling.
— Robins Reader
Praise can give criticism a lead around the first turn and still win the race. - Bernard Williams quote.
Praise can give criticism a lead around the first turn and still win the race.

criticism

A pat on the back, though only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, is miles ahead in results. - Bennett Cerf quote.
A pat on the back, though only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, is miles ahead in results.

criticism

Appreciation is like an insurance policy. It has to be renewed every now and then.
Of all music, that which most pleases the ear is applause. But it has no score. It ends and is carried off by the wind. Nothing remains.

flattery

Praise, if you don't swallow it, can't hurt you. - Mort Walker quote.
Praise, if you don't swallow it, can't hurt you.

flattery

Praise can be your most valuable asset as long as you don't aim it at yourself. - Orlando Aloysius Battista quote.
Praise can be your most valuable asset as long as you don't aim it at yourself.
Fish for no compliments; they are generally caught in shallow water. - Dodie Smith quote.
Fish for no compliments; they are generally caught in shallow water.

vanity

Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child. - Phyllis McGinley quote.
Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child.
Sometimes we deny being worthy of praise, hoping to generate an argument we would be pleased to lose.

vanity

He who praises everybody praises nobody. - Samuel Johnson quote.
He who praises everybody praises nobody.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise. - Mary Kay Ash quote.
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise.

criticism

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise. - Lord Chesterfield quote.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

modesty

He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back. - Fred Allen quote.
He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back.
They say, "Gee, you look great." That means they thought you looked like hell before. - Richard Nixon quote.
They say, "Gee, you look great." That means they thought you looked like hell before.
The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places. - Samuel Butler quote.
The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world 'this was a man.
This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it. - Lyndon B. Johnson quote.
This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.
We recognize that flattery is poison, but its perfume intoxicates us.
Baloney is the unvarnished lie laid on so thick you hate it. Blarney is flattery laid on so thin you love it. - Archbishop Fulton Sheen quote.
Baloney is the unvarnished lie laid on so thick you hate it. Blarney is flattery laid on so thin you love it.
Flattery is alright if you don't inhale. - Adlai Stevenson quote.
Flattery is alright if you don't inhale.
Some people pay a compliment as if they expected a receipt. - Kin Hubbard quote.
Some people pay a compliment as if they expected a receipt.
A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. - Victor Hugo quote.
A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

compliments

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.
— Ecclesiasticus 44:1

biblical

I will praise any man that will praise me. - William Shakespeare quote.
I will praise any man that will praise me.
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt, not swallowed. - Josh Billings quote.
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt, not swallowed.
It is more difficult to praise rightly than to blame. - Thomas Fuller quote.
It is more difficult to praise rightly than to blame.
Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful. - Lady Blessington quote.
Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful.
A man doesn't live on bread alone. He needs buttering up once in a while.
To withhold deserved praise lest it should make its object conceited is as dishonest as to withhold payment of a just debt lest your creditor should spend the money badly. - George Bernard Shaw quote.
To withhold deserved praise lest it should make its object conceited is as dishonest as to withhold payment of a just debt lest your creditor should spend the money badly.
One has only to die to be praised.
— German proverb

German proverbs proverbs

An actor is like a cigar; the more you puff him the smaller he gets.

actors

The applause of a single human being is of a great consequence.

applause

I praise loudly; I blame softly. - Catherine the Great quote.
I praise loudly; I blame softly.

blame

A child is fed with milk and praise.

parenting

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved with criticism.

criticism

People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

deceit

Praises from an enemy imply real merit. - Thomas Fuller quote.
Praises from an enemy imply real merit.

merit proverbs enemies

Flattery is praise without foundation.
Eliza Leslie Miss Leslie’s Behavior Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies

flattery

It is easier and handier for men to flatter than to praise. - Jean Paul quote.
It is easier and handier for men to flatter than to praise.

flattery

Make a great deal more of your right to praise the good than of your right to blame the bad.  Never let a brave and serious struggle after truth and goodness, however weak it may be, pass unrecognized. - Phillips Brooks quote.
Make a great deal more of your right to praise the good than of your right to blame the bad.  Never let a brave and serious struggle after truth and goodness, however weak it may be, pass unrecognized.

Goodness

Find the good and praise it. - Alex Haley quote.
Find the good and praise it.

Goodness

The house praises the carpenter. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
The house praises the carpenter.

house

Praise is warming and desirable and it is what the human race lives on like bread. But praise is an earned thing.  It has to be deserved like an honorary degree or a hug from a child. - Phyllis McGinley quote.
Praise is warming and desirable and it is what the human race lives on like bread. But praise is an earned thing.  It has to be deserved like an honorary degree or a hug from a child.

hugs

It is a great sign of mediocrity to praise always moderately. - Marquis de Vauvenargues quote.
It is a great sign of mediocrity to praise always moderately.

mediocrity

So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another. - Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.
I believe that you should praise people whenever you can; it causes them to respond as a thirsty plant responds to water. - Mary Kay Ash quote.
I believe that you should praise people whenever you can; it causes them to respond as a thirsty plant responds to water.
Boldly sound your own praises, and some of them will stick. - Francis Bacon quote.
Boldly sound your own praises, and some of them will stick.
Praise is the only thing that brings to life again a man that's been destroyed.
The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a "but." - Henry Ward Beecher quote.
The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a "but."
Accepting praise that is not our due is not much better than to be a receiver of stolen goods. - Josh Billings quote.
Accepting praise that is not our due is not much better than to be a receiver of stolen goods.

proverbs

Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.
Praise is a debt we owe unto the Virtue of others. - Sir Thomas Browne quote.
Praise is a debt we owe unto the Virtue of others.
Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame. - Pearl Buck quote.
Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.
If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his deeds and designs, he would say, "I want to be praised." - E. M. Cioran quote.
If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his deeds and designs, he would say, "I want to be praised."
It isn't difficult, you know, to be witty or amusing when one has something to say that is destructive, but damned hard to be clever and quotable when you are singing someone's praises. - Noel Coward quote.
It isn't difficult, you know, to be witty or amusing when one has something to say that is destructive, but damned hard to be clever and quotable when you are singing someone's praises.
Noel Coward The Privilege of His Company: Noël Coward Remembered
Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise,
As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Too much praise makes you feel you must be doing something terribly wrong. - Dorothy Day quote.
Too much praise makes you feel you must be doing something terribly wrong.
Dorothy Day By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day
If you would reap praise you must sow the seeds,
Gentle words and useful deeds. - Benjamin Franklin quote.
If you would reap praise you must sow the seeds,
Gentle words and useful deeds.
The praise you take, altho' it be your due,
Will be suspected if it come from you. - Benjamin Franklin quote.
The praise you take, altho' it be your due,
Will be suspected if it come from you.
Praise, like penicillin, must not be administered haphazardly.
Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise—although the philosophers generally call it "recognition." - William James quote.
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise—although the philosophers generally call it "recognition."
Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we cannot flower and grow without it.
Jess Lair I Ain’t Much, Baby—But I’m All I Got
Refusal of praise reveals a desire to be praised twice over. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
Refusal of praise reveals a desire to be praised twice over.
We never praise except for profit. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
We never praise except for profit.
We seldom praise except to get praise back. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
We seldom praise except to get praise back.
There's no weapon that slays
Its victim so surely (if well aim'd) as praise. - Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton quote.
There's no weapon that slays
Its victim so surely (if well aim'd) as praise.
Praise is like ambergris; a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down. - Alexander Pope quote.
Praise is like ambergris; a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.
A little praise is not only the merest justice but is beyond the purse of no one. - Emily Post quote.
A little praise is not only the merest justice but is beyond the purse of no one.
Praise is the best diet for us, after all. - Sydney Smith quote.
Praise is the best diet for us, after all.
Sydney Smith A Memoir of The Reverend Sydney Smith: by His Daughter
I can eat it with a spoon or with a soup ladle or anything and I like it. - Gertrude Stein quote.
I can eat it with a spoon or with a soup ladle or anything and I like it.
Praise is sunshine; it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth. - Harriet Beecher Stoew quote.
Praise is sunshine; it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth.
We begin to praise when we begin to see a thing needs our assistance. - Henry David Thoreau quote.
We begin to praise when we begin to see a thing needs our assistance.
Even in the best, most friendly, and simple relations of life, praise and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels that they may run smoothly. - Leo Tolstoy quote.
Even in the best, most friendly, and simple relations of life, praise and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels that they may run smoothly.
One cares so little for the style in which one's praises are written. - Edith Wharton quote.
One cares so little for the style in which one's praises are written.
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart. - Edward Young quote.
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.
There's a limit to how many times you can read how great you are and what an inspiration you are, but I'm not there yet.
One thing is worse than being blamed for the wrong reason: being praised for the wrong reason.

parenting