This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond
The censure of those that are opposed to us is the nicest commendation that can be given us.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.
Balance | Censure | Character | Evil | Good | Inquiry | Judgment | Mankind | Praise |
Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
The only benefit of flattery is that by hearing what we are not, we may be instructed what we ought to be.
Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.
Censure | Falsehood | Praise | Self | Self-praise | Superiority | Wisdom |
Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
In solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself; in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports - the feigned compassion of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth - they all deceive and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.
Books | Compassion | Flattery | Mind | Reflection | Retirement | Solitude | Strength | Wisdom | World | Friendship |