Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Praise
Let everything that hath breath, praise the Lord.
Psalm cl. Ver. 6.
The plants look up to heaven, from whence
They have their nourishment.
Shakespeare.—Pericles, Act I. Scene 2. (Helicanus to Pericles.)
Praise is the tribute of men, but felicity the gift of God.
Bacon.—On Queen Elizabeth.
Praise was originally a pension, paid by the world.
Swift.—A Tale of the Tub. (The Author’s Preface.)
Our praises are our wages.
Shakespeare.—Winter’s Tale, Act I. Scene 2. (Hermione to Leontes.)
Praising what is lost,
Makes the remembrance dear.
Shakespeare.—All’s Well that Ends Well, Act V. Scene 3; or, as some unknown hand has written, “Though lost to sight, to memory dear.”
Praise cannot praise him with hyperbole:
He is one whom older look upon as on a book,
Wherein are printed noble sentences
For them to rule their lives by.
Wilkins.—Enforced Marriage, Act I.
The man is vain who writes for praise;
Praise no man e’er deserved who sought no more.
Dr. Young.—Night V. Line 3.
Long open panegyric drags at best,
And praise is only praise when well address’d.
Gay.—Epi. I.
Methinks she is too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise.
Shakespeare.—Much Ado About Nothing, Act I. Scene 1. (Benedick to Claudio.)
Idly do we waste the breath of praise.
Cowper.—The Task, Book VI. Line 711.
I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
To hear themselves remember’d.
Shakespeare.—Coriolanus, Act I. Scene 9. (Marcius to Cominius.)
Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.
Broadhurst.—British Beauties. Note from “The Garland,” a Collection of Poems, 1723; See 1, Notes and Queries, 233.
[Pope, in his translations of Horace, Epi. I. Book II., last line but seven, gives this passage as a quotation, but uses the word “scandal” instead of “satire.”]
If thou would’st all his generous deeds explore,
As soon the sandy grains thy tongue shall number o’er.
Wheelwright’s Pindar.—Olym. Ode II. Line 174. Olym. Ode XIII. Line 69. Nemean Ode II. Line 31.
For sooner could I reckon o’er
The sands upon the ocean shore.
Psalm cxxxix. Ver. 18. Tate and Brady.
Experience proves the man, and will his worth display.
Wheelwright’s Pindar.—Olym. Ode IV. Line 26; Olym. Ode VI. Line 142.
Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe,
Are lost on hearers that our merits know.
Pope.—Homer’s Iliad, Book X. Line 293.
Greatly his foes he dreads, but most his friends,
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.
Churchill.—The Apology, Line 19.
The love of praise, howe’er conceal’d by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows, in every heart.
Dr. Young.—Satire I. Line 51.
1.Speak you this in my praise, master?
2.In thy condign praise.
Shakespeare.—Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I. Scene 2. (Moth and Armado.)
’Tis something to be willing to commend;
But my best praise is, that I am your friend.
Southerne.—To Congreve.—The Old Bachelor.
Solid pudding against empty praise.
Pope.—The Dunciad, Book I. Line 52.