Motivational Quotes

Praise

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.

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Praise

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

Steele, Sir Richard

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

Penn, William

Their silence is praise enough.

Terence

One should use praise to recognize what one is not.

Canetti, Elias

People blame themselves for the purpose of being praised.

Proverb

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Parker, Paul P.

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

Trump, Donald

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

Bierce, Ambrose

10.

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

Ash, Mary Kay

11.

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

Crane, George W.

12.

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.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

13.

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.

Ash, Mary Kay

14.

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

Bruyere, Jean De La

15.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

16.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

17.

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

Moliere

18.

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

Steele, Sir Richard

19.

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.

Cooley, Charles Horton

20.

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

Sidney, Sir Philip

21.

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

22.

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.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

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

Buck, Pearl S.

24.

The best way to get praise is to die.

Proverb, Italian

25.

Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly.

Syrus, Publilius

26.

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

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

27.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Proverb, American

28.

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

James, William

29.

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

Jacobsen, Henry

30.

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.

Crane, Frank

31.

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

Rogers, Will

32.

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

33.

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.

Vauvenargues, Marquis De

34.

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

35.

Praise does wonders for the sense of hearing.

Best of Bits and Pieces

36.

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

Felltham, Owen

37.

Praise makes good people better and bad people worse.

Proverb

38.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

39.

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.

Howells, William Dean

40.

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

Smith, Dean

41.

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.

Yeats, William Butler

42.

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

Fillmore, Charles

43.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

44.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

45.

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

Kipling, Rudyard

46.

The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a But.

Beecher, Henry Ward

47.

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

Shakespeare, William

48.

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

Bible

49.

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.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

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.

Cicero, Marcus T.