Advice About Criticism

“Hereafter, if you should observe on occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their due, and confess more fault then you can just leave be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it a great captain. Criticizing and centering almost everyone you have to do with will diminish friends, increase enemies, and thereby hurt your affairs.”

—Benjamin Franklin, Smyth 8:116. (1780.)