Quotes About Flattery

If solitude deprives of the benefit of advice, it also excludes from the mischief of flattery. But the absence of others' applause is generally supplied by the flattery of one's own breast.

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

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.

True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit.

Imitation is obviously a great form of flattery.

Copying or imitation is the highest form of flattery.

O Beauty, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy mirror.

The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of "winning friends.

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity.

My cut is blunt and futuristic, and Nicki Minaj started wearing that bob on her head after she came to my show, so at the end of the day, I know what I do, and I know what I possess, and I know who I am. I'm a trendsetter. The biggest form of flattery is imitation, so I'm flattered.

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

Say not unto thyself, Behold, truth breedeth hatred, and I will avoid it; dissimulation raiseth friends, and I will follow it. Are not the enemies made by truth, better than the friends obtained by flattery?

Every man kills the things that he loves. Some with a look, some with flattery, the coward with a kiss.

We never slam the door on flattery, we nudge it shut like a man rejecting his mistress: if she nudges back, we're delighted – and if she breaks it down, we rejoice.

Flattery is saying something nice in order to help yourself. Encouragement is saying something true in order help someone else.

Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.

Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes from a solemn character and stands before a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such commendation is a satire upon the author, makes the text look mercenary, and disables the discourse from doing service.

If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!

We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.

Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse.

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.

Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out.

Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary.

Flattery is a challenge. The proper turning away from it, undercutting, diminishing it without offense or vehemence, is a social grace sweeter even than the swift determination to keep ahead in the race of hospitality.

Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.

I can spot empty flattery and know exactly where I stand. In the end it's really only my own approval or disapproval that means anything.

In solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself; in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports--the feigned compassion of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth--they all deceive, and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.

Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?

We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.

Both in thy private sessions, and the universal assizes, thou shalt be sure of the same Judge, the same jury, the same witnesses, the same verdict. How certain thou art to die, thou knowest; how soon to die, thou knowest not. Measure not thy life with the longest; that were to piece it out with flattery. Thou canst name no living man, not the sickest, which thou art sure shall die before thee.