"What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities"
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Praise is the stealth autobiography. Hare’s line flips our usual moral math: we love to size people up by what they denounce, because condemnation sounds discerning, even brave. But condemnation is cheap. Anyone can sneer on instinct, borrow a fashionable outrage, or mistake volume for judgment. What you praise, by contrast, costs you something: it ties you to a set of values, a standard of taste, a theory of what’s admirable, and an admission of what you wish to resemble.
The sentence is built like a Victorian parlor trap. “Perhaps” softens the blow, letting the reader step forward willingly; then “surer standard” quietly tightens the screw. Hare isn’t just talking about virtue. He pairs “character” with “information and abilities,” suggesting praise is also an X-ray of competence. To admire well requires knowledge of the thing admired, the discrimination to rank it, and the humility to recognize excellence outside oneself. Praise exposes your intellectual diet: whether you’re nourished by substance or seduced by glitter.
Context matters: Hare, a 19th-century English writer and compiler of biographies and travel impressions, lived in a culture obsessed with manners and moral signaling. In that world, condemnation could be performed as social hygiene. Hare’s skepticism lands on a sharper insight that still bites: your enthusiasms reveal your real allegiances. If you want to know who someone is, don’t only listen for their enemies. Listen for their heroes.
The sentence is built like a Victorian parlor trap. “Perhaps” softens the blow, letting the reader step forward willingly; then “surer standard” quietly tightens the screw. Hare isn’t just talking about virtue. He pairs “character” with “information and abilities,” suggesting praise is also an X-ray of competence. To admire well requires knowledge of the thing admired, the discrimination to rank it, and the humility to recognize excellence outside oneself. Praise exposes your intellectual diet: whether you’re nourished by substance or seduced by glitter.
Context matters: Hare, a 19th-century English writer and compiler of biographies and travel impressions, lived in a culture obsessed with manners and moral signaling. In that world, condemnation could be performed as social hygiene. Hare’s skepticism lands on a sharper insight that still bites: your enthusiasms reveal your real allegiances. If you want to know who someone is, don’t only listen for their enemies. Listen for their heroes.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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