Prince Philip praises

I have been exercising the American privilege of ignoring the UK's royal family, and so know very little of the man. I read a couple of obits, in which he seemed like a good guy with a strong sense of duty and a tendency to rub modern reporters' fur backwards--all pluses.

It seemed that he was most praised for what he refrained from doing--instead exercising a lifetime of self-discipline/self-control. For that matter, when people have written about Queen Elizabeth, she seems to be praised for the same thing. They both took a role and didn't try to extend their power.

The only "public servants" we have of comparable lifetime are judges, and when they haven't gone political their critics usually have, so I don't think we'll be praising any of our leaders in the ways Philip is.

I wonder about the rest of us. Self-control is supposed to be part of our lives, but rarely are our temptations so obvious to others that they'd praise us for not giving in. We mostly don't know each other well enough to do that. Accurate praise might be refreshing sometimes, though inaccurate praise might be problem.