Faint Praise Quotes & Sayings

But he knew life, its foulness as well as its fairness, its greatness in spite of the slime that infested it, and by God he was going to have his say on it to the world. Saints in heaven - how could they be anything but fair and pure? No praise to them. But saints in slime - ah, that was the everlasting wonder! That was what made life worth while. To see moral grandeur rising out of cesspools of iniquity; to rise himself and first glimpse beauty, faint and far, through mud- dripping eyes; to see out of weakness, and frailty, and viciousness, and all abysmal brutishness, arising strength, and truth, and high spiritual endowment. — Jack London

Yet, after all, they were not bad souls; and though he failed so grotesquely, he did his incompetent best. — Isabella L. Bird

With faint praises one another damn. — William Wycherley

Brooke fussed over the wounded lady as they transferred her to the pallet, going so far as to plant a kiss on her brow to praise her bravery.
"What a kiss," Portia complained. "As if I were a child."
Brooke cupped her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly. He released her only when Portia's faint growl of protest melted to a pleased sigh. "There, was that better?"
"Quite." Portia's cheeks pinked.
"All right, then. Now be a good little girl, and lie still."
She swatted at him feebly as he and Denny lifted the pallet - Brooke carrying the end at Portia's head, and Denny lifting her feet. — Tessa Dare

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise. — Annie Dillard

I've read your summary."
"And?"
"It's not incompetent."
Be still, my heart, so I don't faint from such faint phrase. "Did you expect it to be written in crayon? — Ilona Andrews

O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame. — William Shakespeare

Begin now, as you read these words, as you sit in your chair, to offer your whole selves, utterly and in joyful abandon, in quiet, glad surrender to Him who is within. In secret ejaculations of praise, turn in humble wonder to the Light, faint though it may be. — Thomas Raymond Kelly