Flattery quotes
217 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside flattery — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them; for they prove, at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood."
"Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art ."
"Truth and ceremony are two things."
"Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed (from friendship). [Lat., Assentatio, vitiorum adjutrix, procul amoveatur.]"
"We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered."
"Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge."
"We despise no source that can pay us a pleasing attention."
"The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another."
"Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension."
"Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else."
"But here's the joy: my friend and I are one, Sweet flattery!"
"Invitation is the sincerest flattery."
"Flattery is a lie covered in a bed of flowery words."
"The gallantry of the mind consists in agreeable flattery."
"The encomium of one incapable of flattery is indeed flattering."
"Approve not of him who commends all you say."
"flattery would be worse than vain; there is no consolation in flattery."
"They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof."
"We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted."
"No wonder, Sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder."
