We are firm believers in the maxim that for all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian

“Goethe,” Foreign Review No. 3 (1828-08)
    (Source)

Reviewing Goethe's Sämmtliche Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe Letzter Hand (1827). Reprinted in Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1845).