Beware of a counsellor. And know before what need he hath: for he will devise to his own mind.
Advice Quotes
Shakespeare and Alexander Pope tie for the most entries, with Charles Churchill, La Rochefoucauld and Franklin behind. The dependable sourced lines are the cynical ones. Wilde, in An Ideal Husband (1895), says he always passes on good advice because it is never of any use to oneself, and Bierce, in 1911, defines advice as the smallest current coin. Disraeli’s definition of critics, in Lothair (1870), as men who have failed in literature and art is filed here too.
Flagged: “Many receive advice, few profit by it,” credited to Publilius Syrus and disputed; “Most men give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain,” credited to Tom Stoppard, and “When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice,” credited to Saul Bellow, both marked misattributed.
Blame where you must, be candid where you can,
And be each critic the Good-natured Man.
The worst men often give the best advice.
Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts.
Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in Art.
And you, my Critics! in the chequer'd shade,
Admire new light thro' holes yourselves have made.
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't...