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We do not like to praise, and we never praise without a motive. Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.

We do not like to praise, and we never praise without a motive. Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.

Approximate author period: c. 1646 AD · renaissance

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Francis, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1646 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint (1613–1680); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1871 English edition) (1871 AD)

Main maxims, complete printed maxim 144; J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell translation; Simpson Low, Son, and Marston,188FleetStreet,1871 (printed imprint spelling retained)

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.