Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Flattery
It has been well said that “the arch-flatterer with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence is a man’s self.”
Quoted by Bacon—Essays. X. Of Love. Variation in Essay XXVII. Of Friendship; LIII. Of Praise. From Plutarch—De Adul. et Amico.
Assentatio, vitiorum adjutrix, procul amoveatur.
Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed (from friendship).
Cicero—De Amicitia. XXIV.
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
C. C. Colton—Lacon. P. 127.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow’d what came,
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease,
Who pepper’d the highest was surest to please.
Goldsmith—Retaliation. L. 109.
Adulandi gens prudentissima laudat
Sermonem indocti, faciem deformis amici.
The skilful class of flatterers praise the discourse of an ignorant friend and the face of a deformed one.
Juvenal—Satires. III. 86.
Gallantry of mind consists in saying flattering things in an agreeable manner.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxims. 103.
On croit quelquefois haïr la flatterie; mais on ne hait que la manière de flatter.
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done.
La Rochefoucauld—Maximes. 329.
No adulation; ’tis the death of virtue;
Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest
Save he who courts the flattery.
Hannah More—Daniel.
Qu se laudari gaudent verbis subdolis,
Sera dant pœnas turpes pœnitentia.
They who delight to be flattered, pay for their folly by a late repentance.
Phædrus—Fables. I. 13. 1.
By flatterers besieged
And so obliging that he ne’er obliged.
Pope—Prologue to Satires. L. 207.
Their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.
Psalms. V. 9.
Es ist dem Menschen leichter und geläufiger, zu schmeicheln als zu loben.
It is easier and handier for men to flatter than to praise.
Jean Paul Richter—Titan. Zykel 34.
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.
Cymbeline. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 63.
Why should the poor be flatter’d?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 65.
By God, I cannot flatter: I do defy
The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart’s love, hath no man than yourself;
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.
Henry IV. Pt. I. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 6.
What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison’d flattery?
Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 267.
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Julius Cæsar. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 208.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin.
Pericles. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 38.
O, that men’s ears should be
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!
Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 256.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
For, “get you gone,” she doth not mean, “away.”
Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne’er so black, say they have angels’ faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 100.
’Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery’s the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
Swift—Cadenus and Vanessa. L. 769.
Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
Swift—Poetry, a Rhapsody. L. 279.
Vitium fuit, nunc mos est, adsentatio.
Flattery was formerly a vice; it has now become the fashion.
Syrus—Maxims.
Pessimum genus inimicorum laudantes.
Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies.
Tacitus—Agricola. XLI.
Of folly, vice, disease, men proud we see;
And, (stranger still,) of blockheads’ flattery;
Whose praise defames; as if a fool should mean,
By spitting on your face, to make it clean.
Young—Love of Fame. Satire I. L. 755.
With your own heart confer;
And dread even there to find a flatterer.
Young—Love of Fame. Satire VI.