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.

Random quote on Advice

Most quoted on advice:

To check young Genius' proud career,
The slaves who now his throne invaded,
Made Criticism his prime Vizier,
And from that hour his glories faded.

Thomas Moore

My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends advise me to do. I once thought that I was the only man who persevered to be friend of the white man since they have come and cleaned out (robbed) our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men anymore.

Black Kettle

For, poems read without a name,
We justly praise, or justly blame;
And critics have no partial views,
Except they know whom they abuse.
And since you ne'er provoke their spite,
Depend upon't their judgment's right.

Jonathan Swift

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt Citizenship in a Republic (1910)

We should never let support blind us, or become a substitute for continuing to be both self-critical, and dedicated to our goals. We should not be dissuaded by our critics, but we should be able to honestly ask ourselves if there is anything to learn from them. Hopefully, the fact that sympathizers and critics are taking notice means that we are actually doing something.

Arik Ascherman