Sincere compliments definitely add to my happiness. I especially like "thank-you's." What about you?

It’s music to the ear

By J. Donald Adams

1953, Reader’s Digest

One of the best ways to smooth relations with other people is to be adept at the art of paying a compliment. The sincere, appreciative remark helps the other fellow to realize his own inherent worth. And, what is more, the ability to pay a compliment bolsters our own ego--which is not a bad thing either.

We never forget a compliment that has deeply pleased us, nor do we forget the person who made it. Yet often the luster of praise is needlessly dimmed by awkwardness in the manner of its giving. Like all ventures in human relations, the art of paying a compliment takes thought and practice.

According to Leonard Lyons, a compliment of the right sort was paid Toscanini by Judith Anderson when she saw him after a concert.

“She didn’t say I had conducted well,” said the maestro. “I knew that. She said I looked handsome.” It is human nature to enjoy praise for something we are not noted for. When someone calls attention to an unadvertised facet of our personality it makes him forever our friend.

We all pride ourselves on our individual distinctions. It is a gross misconception to think you are complimenting a person by telling him he looks exactly like So-and-So-, even if So-and-So is a movie idol.

The best compliments are those which reinforce our sense of personal identity. A woman acquaintance of mine who is slender to the point of being skinny was sitting on the beach when a friend remarked, “you certainly have a flat stomach!” After the first shock wore off, she felt pleased by this frank tribute to her appearance.

One of the most satisfying kinds of compliment to give or receive is the double, or relayed, compliment—one passed on to you by someone who heard it. Recently, a correspondent enclosed a letter h had received from a friend who happens to be a man of eminence in his field. This man’s opinion of a column I had written puffed me up considerably. Relayed to me by my friend, it was a compliment amplified—far more effective than if it had come direct.

The ingenuous compliment may touch us deeply, but it is probably the hardest to pay, for it depends on pure inspiration. I am reminded of an example that Margery Wilson cites in her book Make Up Your Mind.  She once had a butler who knew a great deal about sculpture. His hero was Guzon Borglum, the man who cared the massive portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt on a mountainside in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Borglum came to tea and the butler, beside himself with excitement, spilled a glass of wine on him. Swabbing the sculptor desperately with a napkin the butler said, “I could have served a lesser man perfectly.”

To his embarrassed worshiper Borglum replied, “I was never so complimented in my life!”

Among the varieties of complement is one with a particularly pleasing punch; I should call it a “bonus compliment of recall.” It is indeed a heart-warming surprise when a person remembers something you said a long time ago that made a lasting impression on him. That it should have been hoarded and served up to you at an appropriate time is an experience bound to smooth out your kinks of self-doubt.

Urging me to go on a tip, a friend once said, “Memories are the best investment you can make.” It was just as casual as that, yet it gave me courage to travel as I might not have, thinking I ought not to invest the money or the time. When I later reminded my friend o his remark, I found he had completely forgotten the incident. But my reminding him nourished his ego anew.

Compliments offered in the kidding vein hit home just as surely as those with a serious-minded approach. And they involve no responsibility on the part of the receiver for a mincing rejoinder. He can laugh with the crowd and happily accept his accolade.

I overheard a remark of this type in a restaurant recently. A group of businessmen were finishing lunch at the table next to mine. Said one of them, “Harry is the best computing machine here; he’s a real mathe-magician. So he gets stuck with figuring out the check!” They all chuckled; it was obviously a complement.

Pushed to the point of flattery, the compliment is distasteful to most of us. We have all known people so vain that no syrup is too sweet for their taste, but they are in the minority. If we have any sense of proportion about ourselves, we are at once aware that we are being over praised. This can be as painful as criticism.

A compliment casually worked in, so that the threads of a general conversation can easily be retrieved, makes less demands on the recipient and leaves him with more glow than he would have gained from the spotlight. For example, as simple a thing as a question may become a compliment. If, instead of telling a neighbor that you think he has a wonderful garden, you ask him for advice about yours, you accomplish a number of things. You have indicated that you admire his gardening skill; you have singled him out from the crowed. He can give you advice without any to-do about acknowledging the compliment. And he’s likely to feel you are a discerning guy.

Complements smooth the paths of social intercourse, help to dispel the recurrent dissatisfaction most of us have with ourselves and encourage us toward new achievement. “Appreciative words,” says Dr. George W. Crane, “are the most powerful force for good will on earth.”



Do compliments make you happy? Do they make you uncomfortable? Perhaps the ability to give and receive compliments with generosity and appreciation is a key to happiness.

What do you think?

email me at cathryngoodman@yahoo.com