Quotes about praise

Praise invariably implies a reference to a higher standard.

— Aristotle

There are two things people want more than sex and money... recognition and praise.

— Mary Kay Ash

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, Make me feel important. Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.

— Mary Kay Ash

No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important.

— Mary Kay Ash

The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration.

— Hosea Ballou

The praise that comes from love does not make us vain, but more humble.

— Sir James M. Barrie

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

Praise does wonders for the sense of hearing.

— Best of Bits and Pieces

Let another praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips.

— Bible

Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner, for it was not sent him of the Lord. [Ecclesiasticus 15:9]

— Bible

Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

— Ambrose Bierce

Admiration; is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

— Ambrose Bierce

Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.

— Nicholas Boileau

Praising an honest person who doesn't deserve it, always wounds them.

— Nicholas Boileau

To say, well done to any bit of good work is to take hold of the powers which have made the effort and strengthen them beyond our knowledge.

— Phillips Brooks

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

— Jean De La Bruyere

If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win football games.

— Bear Bryant

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

— Pearl S. Buck

How little praise warms out of a man the good that is in him, as the sneer of contempt which he feels is unjust chill the ardor to excel.

— Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.

— Edmund Burke

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

One should use praise to recognize what one is not.

— Elias Canetti

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

— Marcus T. Cicero

By recognizing a favorable opinion of yourself, and taking pleasure in it, you in a measure give yourself and your peace of mind into the keeping of another, of whose attitude you can never be certain. You have a new source of doubt and apprehension.

— Charles Horton Cooley

It takes so little to make people happy. Just a touch, If we know how to give it, just a word fitly spoken, a slight readjustment of some bolt or pin or bearing in the delicate machinery of a soul.

— Frank Crane

Appreciative words are the most powerful force for good on earth!

— George W. Crane

Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A world of optimism and hope. A you can do it when things are tough.

— Richard M. DeVos

The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working.

— Albert Einstein

When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.

— Owen Felltham

We increase whatever we praise. The whole creation responds to praise, and is glad.

— Charles Fillmore

If you treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people happy.

— Samuel Goldwyn

I've always been a sucker for attention.

— Cuba Gooding Jr.

Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one is content with that lot of which he has chosen or which chance has thrown his way, but praises those who follow a different course?

— Horace

I know, indeed, of nothing more subtle satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does not come with money, nor does it flow from a fine physical state. It cannot be bought. But it is the keenest joy, after all; and the toiler's truest and best reward.

— William Dean Howells

Praise God even when you don't understand what He is doing.

— Henry Jacobsen

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise -- although the philosophers generally call it recognition!

— William James

The pain we feel When someone leaves our life is in direct proportion to the joy they bring while a part of our life for a few moments. In my life you made me feel as if I truly meant something to someone

— Javan

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

— Samuel Johnson

The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

— Samuel Johnson

A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.

— Samuel Johnson

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, Make me feel important. Never forget this message when working with people.

— Mary Kay

Never praise a sister to a sister in the hope of your compliments reaching he proper ears.

— Rudyard Kipling

A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

A man is never more serious than when he praise himself.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.

— James Russell Lowell

There is no stimulus like that which comes from the consciousness of knowing that others believe in us.

— Orison Swett Marden

There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.

— Orison Swett Marden

There is no praise to beat the sort you can put in your pocket.

— Moliere

Has a woman who knew she was well-dressed ever caught a cold?

— Friedrich Nietzsche

So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps.

— Peggy Noonan

You can handle people more successfully by enlisting their feelings than by convincing their reason.

— Paul P. Parker

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

— Norman Vincent Peale

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.

— William Penn

The simple act of playing positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.

— Thomas J. Peters

Many know how to flatter, few know how to praise.

— Wendell Phillips

Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.

— Plutarch

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

— Alexander Pope

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

— Alexander Pope

People blame themselves for the purpose of being praised.

— Proverb

Praise makes good people better and bad people worse.

— Proverb

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

— American Proverb

The best way to get praise is to die.

— Italian Proverb

I like to hear a man talk about himself because then I never hear anything, but good.

— Will Rogers

Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

— Will Rogers

I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.

— Charles M. Schwab

There's not one wise man among twenty will praise himself.

— William Shakespeare

It is great happiness to be praised of them who are most praiseworthy.

— Sir Philip Sidney

I do believe in praising that which deserves to be praised.

— Dean Smith

Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.

— Sydney Smith

Praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.

— Sir Richard Steele

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

— Sir Richard Steele

Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly.

— Publilius Syrus

Their silence is praise enough.

— Terence

I'm a bit of a P. T. Barnum. I make stars out of everyone.

— Donald Trump

If you must strike a man from behind, slap hi on the back.

— Source Unknown

When life seems just a dreary grind; and things seem fated to annoy; say something nice to someone else and watch the world light up with joy.

— Source Unknown

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.

— Marquis De Vauvenargues

A man desires praise that he may be reassured, that he may be quit of his doubting of himself; he is indifferent to applause when he is confident of success.

— Alec Waugh

A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.

— William Butler Yeats