A Quote by Benjamin Franklin

Praise to the undeserving is severe satire.

Benjamin Franklin

Quote Topics

Praise Satire Severe Undeserving

Quote Author

Benjamin Franklin
American - Politician
January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790

They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.

John Ruskin

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

Alexander Pope

"None is good, save One, that is, God", as the Lord Jesus bath said. The rest are only tools in His hands. "Gloria in Excelsis", "Glory unto God in the highest", and unto men that deserve, but not to such an undeserving one like me. Here "the servant is not worthy of the hire"; and a Fakir, especially, has no right to any praise whatsoever, for would you praise your servant for simply doing his duty?

Swami Vivekananda

The silence of a man who loves to praise is a censure sufficiently severe.

Charlotte Lennox

Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

John Keats

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Thomas Ken

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs... begins.

Isaac Hayes

But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.

Henry David Thoreau

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.

Isaac Hayes

Through my satire I make little people so big that afterwards they are worthy objects of my satire and no one can reproach me any longer.

Karl Kraus

The critics try to intellectualize my material. There's no satire involved. Satire is a concept that can only be understood by adults. My stuff is straight, for people of all ages.

Andy Kaufman

Satire, whether it be satire or not, everything has to have boundaries.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

I tell the truth and I don't try to sugarcoat things. But I also decided that if you don't use humor or satire, then it's just too dark all the time. And one of my favorite literary works is A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. As you know, that was an enormously famous satire piece that was able to point out, you know, things to people in a different way. And I do believe that satire and humor can reveal truth in a way that sometimes doesn't get revealed through other means. And so I decided to, every now and then, use satire and humor as well.

Ted Lieu

Satire is fascinating stuff. It's deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it's the only thing that makes any sense.