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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Applause

I would applaud thee to the very echo, that should applaud again.

Shakespeare.

A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.

Hannah More.

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

Johnson.

A universal applause is seldom less than two thirds of a scandal.

L’Estrange.

O popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

Cowper.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

C. C. Colton.

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.

The praise we give to newcomers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.

La Rochefoucauld.

Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows vain persons than virtuous ones.

Bacon.

When the million applaud you, seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; when they censure you, what good!

Colton.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.

Emerson.

Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the test of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves.

Bishop Whately.

Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.

Shenstone.

  • They threw their caps
  • As they would hang them on the horns o’ the moon,
  • Shouting their emulation.
  • Shakespeare.

    Applause waits on success: the fickle multitude, like the light straw that floats along the street, glide with the current still, and follow fortune.

    Franklin.

    Such a noise arose as the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest, as loud and to as many tunes,—hats, cloaks, doublets, I think, flew up; and had their faces been loose, this day they had been lost.

    Shakespeare.