"Be to their virtue very kind; be to their faults a little blind"
About this Quote
Matthew Prior packs a humane ethic into a couplet: praise what is best in others and, when possible, overlook what is small and humanly inevitable. The balance is deliberate. Very kind to virtue, only a little blind to faults. Generosity should outweigh scrutiny, but not erase judgment. The line models Augustan poise, the age of polished couplets and moral tact, where civility is both a social grace and a practical wisdom.
Prior, a diplomat as well as a poet, wrote with an ear for how people actually live together. The sentiment appears in his light verse on love and marriage, where he mocks jealousy and the pedant’s urge to correct. Partners and friends cannot be kept or improved by constant fault-finding. Affection grows where trust and admiration are expressed, and where minor irritations are quietly allowed to pass. The advice is less about naivete than about selective attention. What we choose to notice, repeat, and reward becomes the tone of a relationship.
The rhyme itself teaches the lesson. Kind and blind are paired, but the adverbs calibrate them. Very contrasts with a little, signaling proportion. Applaud virtues loudly and often; reserve censure for moments that matter. Virtue, in Prior’s period, meant character and steadiness, not perfection; faults meant foibles, not harms. The couplet therefore assumes limits. It does not counsel excusing cruelty, dishonesty, or abuse. It recommends tact about the everyday imperfections that accompany intimacy and community.
Read with the modern, inclusive their, the advice expands from courtship to civic life. In offices, friendships, and public discourse, a disciplined tilt toward charitable interpretation and measured criticism preserves cooperation. The Augustan ideal of good sense meets a psychologist’s insight about attention and reinforcement. We become kinder by practicing kindness; we encourage virtue by noticing it. Prior’s neat rule endures because it is both elegant and workable: be lavish with praise, sparing with blame, and let affection do part of the moral labor.
Prior, a diplomat as well as a poet, wrote with an ear for how people actually live together. The sentiment appears in his light verse on love and marriage, where he mocks jealousy and the pedant’s urge to correct. Partners and friends cannot be kept or improved by constant fault-finding. Affection grows where trust and admiration are expressed, and where minor irritations are quietly allowed to pass. The advice is less about naivete than about selective attention. What we choose to notice, repeat, and reward becomes the tone of a relationship.
The rhyme itself teaches the lesson. Kind and blind are paired, but the adverbs calibrate them. Very contrasts with a little, signaling proportion. Applaud virtues loudly and often; reserve censure for moments that matter. Virtue, in Prior’s period, meant character and steadiness, not perfection; faults meant foibles, not harms. The couplet therefore assumes limits. It does not counsel excusing cruelty, dishonesty, or abuse. It recommends tact about the everyday imperfections that accompany intimacy and community.
Read with the modern, inclusive their, the advice expands from courtship to civic life. In offices, friendships, and public discourse, a disciplined tilt toward charitable interpretation and measured criticism preserves cooperation. The Augustan ideal of good sense meets a psychologist’s insight about attention and reinforcement. We become kinder by practicing kindness; we encourage virtue by noticing it. Prior’s neat rule endures because it is both elegant and workable: be lavish with praise, sparing with blame, and let affection do part of the moral labor.
Quote Details
| Topic | Kindness |
|---|---|
| Source | Matthew Prior — line often quoted as "Be to their virtue very kind; be to their faults a little blind" (attributed; listed on Wikiquote). |
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