Quotes About Flattery

Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.

After watching the State of the Union address the other night [1994], I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats.

Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart, That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious To have mistrusted her.

Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable, however much we may despise the flatterer.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

I have always found it interesting... that there are people who regard copyright infringement as a form of flattery.

Excellent flatterers welcome attentive audiences; mighty potentates enjoy public praise. In the most pleasing situation, a flatterer would genuinely admire the flatteree, please that person, please other present company, be pleased to stagger rivals, and get something out of it: applause, promotion, a favor, reciprocal praise. Flattery is as social as a banquet.

Imitation is always insult--not flattery.

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

Flattery must be pretty thick before anybody objects to it.

Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.

Flattery is like friendship in show, but not in fruit.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite problem, we usually spend about 95 percent of our time thinking about ourselves. Now, if we stop thinking about ourselves for a while and begin to think of the other person's good points, we won't have to resort to flattery so cheap and false that it can be spotted almost before it is out of the mouth.

Tis a barbarous temper, and a sign of a very ill nature, to take delight in shocking any one: and, on the contrary, it is the mark of an amiable and a beneficent temper, to say all the kind things one can, without flattery or playing the hypocrite,--and what never fails of procuring the love and esteem of every one; which, next to doing good to a deserving object who wants it, is one of the greatest pleasures of this life.

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

We must suit the flattery to the mind and taste of the recipient. We do not put essences into hogsheads, nor porter into phials. Delicate minds may be disgusted by compliments that would please a grosser intellect; as some fine ladies who would be shocked at the idea of a dram will not refuse a liqueur.

I have a car that I call Flattery because it gets me nowhere.

I hate careless flattery, the kind that exhausts you in your efforts to believe it.

Since you are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveler, I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism.

Flattery has to overcome my mistrust, and it does.

Love of another is merely empty flattery and self-deception for one who cannot accept himself without pretense.

The world's flattery and hypocrisy is a sweet morsel: eat less of it, for it is full of fire. Its fire is hidden while its taste is manifest, but its smoke becomes visible in the end.

The most subtle flattery that a woman can receive is by actions, not by words.

In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.