Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
Interpretation
True praise acknowledges someone's worth, while flattery is insincere and often self-serving.
This quote by Samuel Johnson highlights the distinction between genuine praise and empty compliments. True praise is a moral obligation that recognizes and honors someone's true merits or achievements, serving as a debt we owe to them. In contrast, flattery is often superficial, aimed at gaining favor without sincerity, and can be seen as a gift that may not reflect genuine admiration but rather ulterior motives. This distinction invites reflection on the nature of our compliments and the importance of sincerity in our interactions.
In practice
During a speech about genuine leadership, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of true recognition over mere flattery.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Doubt is invariably the result of want or weakness of faith.
The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come.
Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind – they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death.
When your desires drop, the world is there, but it is a totally new world. It is so fresh, it is so colorful, it is so beautiful! But a mind attached to things cannot see it because eyes are closed with attachment.
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
Invoke the Mercy of God and as milk returns not to the udder go not back to your wrongdoing." "Have compassion on yourself and on others and Infinite Compassion will be given to you." "In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, All Compassionate, bestow on me a Mercy that shall put me beyond the need of mercy from any other than Thee.
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