QuoteProject
It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.
David Hume
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Avoiding criticism is more challenging than seeking approval from others.

This quote by David Hume highlights the notion that people often find it easier to seek praise than to dodge negative judgment. It suggests that societal expectations and scrutiny can be more daunting than the pursuit of accolades, emphasizing the power of public opinion and the challenges of living authentically amidst external evaluations.

Themes

CensureApplauseCriticismApprovalSociety

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be cited during a discussion on the challenges of public speaking.

More from David Hume

Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
David HumeRead
Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
David HumeRead
All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.
David HumeRead
The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness
David HumeRead
There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
David HumeRead
To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
David HumeRead

Similar quotes

Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life.
William J. ClintonRead
When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories at which the world has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get no completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs will never meet.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
I've seen many troubles in my time, only half of which ever came true.
Mark TwainRead
It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here.
Lady GagaRead
There's small choice in rotten apples.
William ShakespeareRead
Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them.
James M. BarrieRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.