Infinite praise surrounding contrary maxim (10)
I believe the answer is:
bottomless
'infinite' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'praise surrounding contrary maxim' is the wordplay.
'praise' becomes 'bless' (I've seen this before**).
'surrounding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'contrary' says the letters should be written backwards.
'maxim' becomes 'motto' (I've seen this before).
'motto' reversed gives 'ottom'.
'bless' placed around 'ottom' is 'BOTTOMLESS'.
(Other definitions for bottomless that I've seen before include "without 17 [BEHINDS] !" , "Quince thus was in a jam" , "never getting used up?" , "Inexhaustible" , "Having no limits" .)