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I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

Richard Steele

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Richard Steele
Age: 57 †
Born: 1672
Born: March 12
Died: 1729
Died: September 1
Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Writer
Dublin city
Sir Richard Steele
Closing
Offensive
Exception
Manner
Speaking
Praise
Giving

More quotes by Richard Steele

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It is a very melancholy reflection that men are usually so weak that it is absolutely necessary for them to know sorrow and pain to be in their right senses.
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He that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it.
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The man is mechanically turned, and made for getting. . . . It was verily prettily said that we may learn the little value of fortune by the persons on whom Heaven is pleased to bestow it.
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No woman is capable of being beautiful who is not incapable of being false.
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Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.
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A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered.
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Many take pleasure in spreading abroad the weakness of an exalted character.
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There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.
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Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.
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Since our persons are not of our own making, when they are such as appear defective or uncomely, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable fortitude to dare to be ugly.
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The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.
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Vanity makes people ridiculous, pride odious, and ambition terrible.
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Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every consort.
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It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.
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Conversation never sits easier upon us than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter, which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.
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I was going home two hours ago, but was met by Mr. Griffith, who has kept me ever since. . . . I will come within a pint of wine.
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I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him
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Pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.
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It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse by giving them the history of their pains and aches and imagine such narrations their quota of conversation.
Richard Steele
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Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.
Richard Steele