I do not know at first what it is that charms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to-morrow’s memory.
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—Thoreau
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In no time whatever can small critics entirely eradicate out of living men’s hearts a certain altogether peculiar reverence for Great Men —genuine admiration, loyalty, adoration.
—Carlyle
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Those who, from the desire of our perfection, have the keenest eye for our faults generally compensate for it by taking a higher view of our merits than we deserve.
—J. F. Boyes
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Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.
—Buxton
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There is no surer mark of the absence of the highest moral and intellectual qualities than a cold reception of excellence.
—S. Bailey
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He is incapable of a truly good action who knows not the pleasure in contemplating the good actions of others.
—Lavater
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Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty, the power of appreciating beauty.
—Margaret Fuller Ossoli
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We never know a greater character until something congenial to it has grown up within ourselves.
—Channing
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You may fail to shine, in the opinion of others, both in your conversation and actions, from being superior, as well as inferior to them.
—Greville
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The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
—Emerson
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It often happens that those of whom we speak least on earth are best known in heaven.
—Caussin
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We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed or damps our efforts.
—Hazlitt
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He is a fool who is not for love and beauty. I speak unto the young, for I am of them and always shall be.
—Bailey
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To love her (Lady Elizabeth Hastings) was a liberal education.
—Steele
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Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
—Cowley
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No man ever thought too highly of his nature or too meanly of himself.
—Young
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It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior.
—Ruskin
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To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.
—Rochefoucauld
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You think much too well of me as a man. No author can be as moral as his works, as no preacher is as pious as his sermons.
—Richter
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It is common, to esteem most what is most unknown.
—Tacitus
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Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.
—Shakespeare
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To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.
—Goethe
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Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.
—Greville