Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.

There is scarcely any man sufficiently clever to appreciate all the evil he does.

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.

We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.

Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.

There is at least as much eloquence in the voice, eyes, and air of a speaker as in his choice of words.

To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.