Monday, May 22, 2006

 

Praise

The ancient Latin poet Naevius (quoted by Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.31.67) represented the Trojan hero Hector saying to his father Priam:
I am glad, father, to be praised by you, who are a praiseworthy man (laetus sum laudari me abs te, pater, a laudato viro).
A character in Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley (chapter 30) varies this:
On abuse, on reproach, on calumny, it is easy to smile; but painful indeed is the panegyric of those we contemn.
See also C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967), p. 44:
Fatuous praise from a manifest fool may hurt more than any depreciation.



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