"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the evidence of Vandyck, Watteau, Francois Boucher, and Greuze, in whose pictures they are so frequently introduced, all the toy Spaniels of bygone days had much longer noses and smaller, flatter heads than those of the present time, and they had much longer ears, these in many instances ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... a 1/4 of a Mile from the breakers; but it was too Narrow for us to keep in long. However, what with the help of this Ebb, and our Boats, we by Noon had got an Offing of 1 1/2 or 2 Miles, yet we could hardly flatter ourselves with hopes of getting Clear, even if a breeze should Spring up, as we were by this time embay'd by the Reef, and the Ship, in Spite of our Endeavours, driving before the Sea into the bight. The Ebb had been in our favour, and we had reason to Suppose the flood which was now made ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... appealed to her vanity so much as being thought a clever business woman, and I protested: "Flatter you! In the first place, it is a well-known fact that women have more sense than men. In the second place, it is the talk of every cloak-shop that Mr. Chaikin owes his high position to you as much as to his own ability. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... walking on the public high-road. The frost began to make itself felt, and the country soon became flatter, containing mere field and meadow. By the road-side grew a great willow tree. Everything reminded him of home, and he sat down under the tree: he felt very tired, his head began to nod, and his eyes closed in slumber, but still he was conscious ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... forgotten her, and are going on gay and happy,—when you have thrown her very name away as a faded flower, she will be praying, hoping, fearing for you; though all men deny you, yet will not she. Yes, Mr. Burr, if ever your popularity and prosperity should leave you and those who now flatter should despise and curse you, she will always be interceding with her own heart and with God for you, and making a thousand excuses where she cannot deny; and if you die, as I fear you have lived, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... beauty, ingenuous and sparkling, deserved to be a duchess. Rigou knew nothing of the love affair between her and Jean-Louis Tonsard, which proves that he had let himself be fooled by the girl,—the only one of his many servants whose ambition had taught her to flatter the lynx as the only way to ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Maitland," he replied, "you flatter me. You should not be too hard on Sutgrove. I am sure that it was only the full comprehension of his own helplessness which prevented him making a fight of it. What could ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... cultivated gentleman, Roberta," Miss La Sarthe announced to her sister. "We must ask him to dinner the next time Mr. Miller is coming. We must show him some attention for his kindness to our great-niece; he will understand and not allow it to flatter him too much. You remember, Roberta, our Mamma always said unmarried women—of any age—cannot be too careful of les convenances, but we might ask him to dinner under ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... triumph, Octavius should, according to the precedents of the Republic, have given up the title of IMPERATOR; but he allowed the Senate, which was only too glad to flatter him, to give him that name for ten years,—a period which was repeatedly renewed. In this way he became permanent commander of the national forces. Next the Imperator (Emperor) caused himself to be invested with the authority of Censor. This enabled him to revise the list of Senators, ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... at one another's happy state, Moves us; we are all equal: every whit Of land that God gives men here is their wit, If we consider fully, for our best And gravest men will with his main house-jest Scarce please you; we want subtilty to do The city tricks, lie, hate, and flatter too: Here are none that can bear a painted show, Strike when you wink, and then lament the blow; Who, like mills, set the right way for to grind, Can make their gains alike with every wind; Only some fellows with the subtlest pate, Amongst us, may perchance equivocate At selling ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to Hoyle," said Hiram, flushing a little, for he sensed the satire. "We'll meet and vote the money and then we can sit back and take comfort in thinkin' that there's just the right man at the head of town affairs to economize us back onto Easy Street." He was eager to flatter. "This town understands what kind of a man it wants to keep in office. I take back all I ever said about opposin' ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... What tho' my Tongue never spoke, my Eyes said a thousand Things, and my Hopes flatter'd me hers answer'd 'em. If I'm lucky—if not, 'tis but a hundred Guineas thrown away. (Miranda and Patch ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... right, Wilton," replied the Earl. "But leave it to me: I myself will write to the Duke upon the subject, and doubt not shall find means to satisfy him, though I cannot flatter you, Wilton—and I tell you so at once—I cannot flatter you with the idea of any unexpected wealth. Your blood is your only possession; but that is enough. I will write myself in a ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... "Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen My dole of beauty trebled?" and he said, "Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine, And thine is more to me—soft, gracious, kind— Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips Most gracious; but she, haughty, ev'n to him, Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... you don't mean to insinuate that I have but one friend!" answered the sister, with another roguish twinkle of her mischievous eye; "because, dear brother, I have a great, great many, I flatter myself; but to tease you no longer, I have seen her, and she is just as ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... great penman in the first place, and had a very great confusion of ideas in the second. He certainly was indebted to me, as you will acknowledge, when you hear what I read and tell you. I served under him, cruising in the Channel; and I flatter myself that it was entirely through my writings that he got his promotion. He is now Captain Alcibiades Ajax Boggs, and all through me. We were cruising off the coast of France, close in to Ushant, where we perceived a fleet of ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... deepest hunger is always for loyalty in my own house. You have withheld it from me. You have done great service in your office, but you have grown envious. Now you resign, as you did once before when I came openly to you in friendship. And you think that again I shall flatter you and coax you to stay. I don't think I ought to do it. I will not do it. I must ...
— Abraham Lincoln • John Drinkwater
... said the exchange editor, "but then I suppose the affair is to be a very quiet one, and we can't take offence at that. The old man's not a bad lot, by any means. Let's do something to please him and to flatter his bride. What do you say to raising a fund to buy them a present, in the name of ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean: Meaning, however, is no great matter) Where woods are ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... morning, the vultures were all ready for him. I took them to his cabin myself. There was no fuss at all. He saw it was all up, and gave in without a murmur. They were only just in time, though. In another thirty seconds, he would have been off. It was a clever piece of work, I flatter myself, to net ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... reputation would not suffer me to do it. This damsel is a young virgin, a near relative, related also to a noble house, and we are travelling for our pleasure, accompanied by my servants, who although they are not here at present, will come directly, and I am waiting for them. Moreover, do not flatter yourselves that I should be such a coward as to let her be insulted, or suffer injury of any kind; but I would protect and defend her as long as my strength ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... the procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows over their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated their relation. But this was a mere pretence, probably intended to soothe and flatter the angry ghost: the arrows flew over the men without hurting them.[293] Similarly in ancient Egypt the man who cut open a corpse for embalmment had no sooner done his office than he fled precipitately, pursued by the relations with stones and curses, because he had wounded and mangled the body ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... deave me And bids me beware o' young men; They flatter, she says, to deceive me; But wha can think ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... high up on a limb, had a fine piece of cheese. He was just going to enjoy it, when along came Mr. Fox. Now the fox wanted the cheese, and he knew he could not catch the raven. So he began to flatter the raven's croaking voice, and to beg the raven for one of his "sweet songs." At last the poor raven, silly with flattery, opened his mouth to sing—when lo! the cheese dropped to the ground, and off ran the wily fox with the stolen treasure in his mouth. The raven flew ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... wine—instead of a water-clock; and this affront, it is said, he was content to put up, for the consideration of 8 pounds. But what of that? Wait till you get a patron who has poetical or historical tendencies, and spouts passages of his own works all through dinner: you must praise, you must flatter, you must devise original compliments for him,—or die in the attempt. Then there are the beaux, the Adonises and Hyacinths, as you must be careful to call them, undeterred by the eighteen inches ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—should do it at least, have had good masters—and flatter myself that I am not ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... cheery smile, that reached nearly to the tips of his mustache and almost sufficed to give them a faint curl, spread itself over his face as he turned from Wall Street into Broadway. He caressed the check with his fingers and softly observed, "H'm, I flatter myself that was well done. I have the money, and Thwicket has an abiding confidence in my wealth,—but oh, ye gods! what would I give to be able to put my fine Italian hand ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... "We flatter ourselves we do look pretty fine," Burns admitted, eying his wife with satisfaction. "That gauzy gray thing Ellen has on strikes me as the bulliest yet. If I could just get her to wear a pink rose in her hair I'd ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... so much that I cared about the loss of the fees, badly as I needed them. It was mainly that I had allowed the summer flies who buzzed about me for the Baron's sake to flatter me into the notion that I was an artist, when I was really nobody ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... it a like quantity of beef-suet finely shred, and a nutmeg grated, a little salt, some currants, and then beat some eggs in a little sack, and some sugar, and mix all together, and knead it as stiff as for manchet, and make it up in the form and size of a turkey-egg, but a little flatter; then take a pound of butter, and put it in a dish, and set the dish over a clear fire in a chafing-dish, and rub your butter about the dish till 'tis melted; put your puddings in, and cover the dish, but often turn ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... am full of alternate hopes and fears. General Fergus, as we walked home, was rather silent and bearish—I could not flatter myself that he had any friendly intentions towards me in his mind. But Montresor was more than kind, and gave me some fresh opportunities of which I was very glad to avail myself. Well, we ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I endeavoured to flatter his imagination with agreeable prospects of happiness in Italy. 'Nay, (said he,) I must not expect much of that; when a man goes to Italy merely to feel how he breathes the air, he can ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... we'll probably cruise and camp together, and then we all can enjoy some of his wonderful cooking," Nick hastened to add, feeling that it might pay to flatter his old enemy a little, if he expected to profit by it ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... waste, they would stop at the store only so long as was necessary for the getting together of an outfit, and would depart for the Forbidden River that night. Eyelids and Beorn were to be left in charge at Murder Point, which would serve to flatter at least one of them, and would keep them occupied. If they should demand an explanation for this sudden going away, the answer was obvious, that Granger did not choose to be arrested by the factor of God's Voice. There ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... you have heard about A. or more especially A.'s child, which having already told A. you can then tell B., and later C. in A.'s presence. Never do this as a habit, however, and never drag the incident into the conversation merely to flatter A., since if A. is a person of taste, he will be far more apt to resent than be pleased by flattery that ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... into a crack between two stones, and he pried to open them. The dry clay cement crumbled, the crack widened. Sighting along the barrel he aimed it with the narrow strip of Wades shoulder that was visible above the framework. Then he shot and hit. Wade shrank flatter and closer, hiding himself to better advantage. The rustler made his great blunder then, for in that moment he might have rushed out and killed his adversary. But, instead, he shot again—another time—a third. And his heavy bullets tore and splintered the boughs dangerously close to ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... or decided on the first day, October 11, 1468. On the second a council was held which sat late into the night. A minority of the council, the enemies of Louis, or those who were only anxious to flatter the passions of their master, advised him to use to the full the opportunity which chance and the foolhardiness and duplicity of his adversary had placed in his hands. They urged him to keep the King in secure confinement after providing for the virtual partition ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... other, not unselfpossessed, "whether I flatter myself that I can in any way dupe you, or impose upon you, or pass myself off upon you for what I am not, I, as an honest man, answer that I have neither the inclination nor the power to do aught of ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... gathered them for you, and, in sending my bouquet, I could not resist the temptation of adding a word. 'Before doing penance,' I said to myself, 'let me commit this one folly; it shall be the last.' We always flatter ourselves that each folly will be our last. The unfortunate note had scarcely gone, when I regretted having sent it; I would have given much to have had it back; I felt all its impropriety; I have dealt justly by it in tearing it to pieces. My only excuse was my firm resolution ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... Abenakis. Ogilby [Footnote: America, being an Accurate Description of the New World, etc. Collected and Translated by John Ogilby. London, 1670, Book II, Ch. II, p. 155.] says: "Hubbub is five small Bones in a small Tray; the Bones be like a Die, but something flatter, black on the one side and white on the other, which they place on the Ground, against which violently thumping the Platter, the Bones mount, changing Colour with the windy whisking of their Hands to and fro; which action in that sport they much use, smiting themselves ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... only one now remaining—has been entered upon by me; and I flatter myself that I have, in this way, discovered the cause of—and consequently the mode of removing—all the errors which have hitherto set reason at variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical thought. I have not ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... only is he bound to let it eat, but to furnish the food, often with his own hands, except that he must afterwards wash them, declaring, and even believing, that no spot of blood has ever soiled them. He is generally content to caress and flatter the brute, to excuse it, to let it go on. Nevertheless, more than once, tempted by the opportunity, he has launched it against his designated victim.[31141] He is now himself starting off in quest of living prey; he casts the net of his rhetoric[31142] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... let me flatter this woman. That is the only way of preventing any rumour. I must leave Althausen, I will pass her on to my successor, but I do not want to have an enemy behind me. If you have my secret, you old hypocrite, I will have yours, and I will know what there is at the bottom of ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... "but more like a boy's. Now, I never got a pet name. I started Langham, and Langham I've stopped, and I flatter myself I've made the name known ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... dispossessed of power, room is made for a democracy. But what do our rebels against democracy propose to substitute for the sovereign will of the majority, if they succeed by resistance in reducing it to impotence? Possibly they hope that their own exalted will may prevail. Let them not flatter themselves by any such vain dream. Even assuming what is improbable, viz., that they remain united among themselves, can they suppose that their example of successful revolt will remain without imitators, or that their anti-social doctrines ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... learned the mysteries of the city well in his four years' residence. Louis found him an amusing companion and skilfully managed to flatter the count by his favour towards the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... daring writers; why, then, this disapproval which, in France, attaches to all social truths when boldly proclaimed? This question will explain, in itself alone, historical errors. Apply the answer to the destructive doctrines which flatter popular passions, and to the conservative doctrines which repress the mad efforts of the people, and you will find the reason of the unpopularity and also the popularity of certain personages. Laubardemont and Laffemas were, like some men of to-day, devoted ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... lively imagination, joined to great and assiduous practice, carry the art to the highest perfection. But practice will give no eminent distinction without study. Whoever shall flatter himself with forming himself by practice alone, without the true principles and sufficient grounds of the art, can only proceed upon a rote of tradition, which may appear infallible to him. But this adoption of unexamined ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... I am sure. I have spent on your education money which I should be very glad of now. When people flatter you, Therese (as they will do; for there is not a negress in all the island to compare with you),—remember who made you a lady. You will promise me that ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... discrimination opposed this admiration, he could rarely spend an evening with Miss Fenton, without a strong prepossession in her favor. Still, with her, as with every one, he maintained a consistency of character that annoyed her. He could not be brought to flatter her in any way; and for this she thought him cold, and often felt under restraint in his society. One thing in her which he condemned, was her love of dress. Often he would express a wonder to himself, how a young woman of her good sense and information could be guilty of ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... talked much to the world, and it has heard him. Flung into life without a friend, governed only by the will of a race born to command, he has struggled through sneers and sarcasm to eminence. Men fear him now, women flatter, nearly all envy; yet he is alone. He knows this; he knows that in all the laughing groups who enjoy this wine-drinking and turkey-eating day his name has not been mentioned once. Nature allows no trifling with her laws; flowers do not bloom in deserts. He has crushed ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... [claw no man in his humour] To claw is to flatter. So the pope's claw-backs, in bishop Jewel, are the pope's flatterers. The sense is the same in ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... is a kind of physiognomy in the title of a book by which a skilful observer will know as well what to expect from its contents as one does reading the lines. I flatter myself this claim will be ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... performed the ceremony at Naples, but Petrarch preferred to be crowned on the Capitol by the senator of Rome. This honor was long the highest object of ambition, and so it seemed to Jacobus Pizinga, an illustrious Sicilian magistrate. Then came the Italian journey of Charles IV, whom it amused to flatter the vanity of ambitious men, and impress the ignorant multitude by means of gorgeous ceremonies. Starting from the fiction that the coronation of poets was a prerogative of the old Roman emperors, and consequently was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... confounding justice with your own desires and of mistaking the promptings of ambition or malice or envy for an inspiration from Heaven itself. No, I must not say all this or any of it, but, on the contrary, I must describe you to yourself and your family and the chosen intimates who flatter you beyond even my power to flatter, I must describe you, I say, as the Lord's, anointed, as the vice-gerent of God on earth, as being raised by God's favour above all human foibles, in short, as being supremely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... habits and customs of these people, he having dealt with them for many years, and, what is more, has been within sight of the famous city. From him I have gained all the information necessary to enable me to penetrate the swamp, and now flatter myself that I can speak the dialect of the Chan Santa Cruz tribe ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... Now when Uns al-Wujud saw him, he gave himself up for lost, and turning[FN44] towards the Temple of Meccah, pronounced the professions of the faith and prepared for death. He had read in books that whoso will flatter the lion, beguileth him,[FN45] for that he is readily duped by smooth speech and gentled by being glorified; so he began and said, "O Lion of the forest! O Lord of the waste! O terrible Leo! O father of fighters! O Sultan ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... "I have read and pondered much on what this book contains. It seems to me, that, if it teaches anything, it clearly teaches, that, no matter how we flatter ourselves that we are doing as we choose, and carrying out our own designs and wishes, we are all the time only fulfilling purposes that have been fixed from all eternity. Since, then, we are the subjects of an Inexorable Will, which no entreaties or acts of ours ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and then he remembered the precise words of the request which Des Cadoux had preferred the night before, but which, at the time, he had treated lightly. "Ma foi, you do not flatter me!" he cried. "Am I a murderer, then? Come, come, Citizen, here is the letter that you are to carry. It is addressed to Mademoiselle de Bellecour, at Treves, and encloses Ombreval's farewell ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... have more money? Well, it's not to be despised, but I've met men who didn't attach too much importance to it. They had the sense to see there were other things of greater value, and while I don't often flatter people, you're not poor in this respect. But if you liked a man who was far from rich, ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... 40 B.C., during the consulate of Pallio, whom the poet wished perhaps to flatter. Then presently Ovid sang the deathless soul and Tibullus gave rendezvous hereafter. The atmosphere dripped with wonders. The air became charged with the miraculous. At stated intervals the doors of temples opened of themselves. Statues perspired visibly. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... "no proper man can venture to flatter you in the state in which things are; and if you do not this very day set Broussel at liberty, to-morrow there will not be left one stone ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... mouthfuls. Well! shall I tell you what I think? That was a very shrewd move on his part, and I am no longer surprised that that fat ox-driver has been the favorite of sovereigns. He knows how to flatter them, in the little things that they don't talk about. In fact, the duke has doted on him ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... five batteries upon the fort. He was informed that none of his letters, with the insolent printed words at the top, LIBERTE EQALITE, GUERRE AUX TYRANS, &c. would be received; but that if he wrote like a soldier and a gentleman he would be answered in the same style. The Frenchman then began to flatter his antagonist upon the BIENFAISANCE and HUMANITE which, he said, were the least of the many virtues which distinguished Monsieur Troubridge. Monsieur Troubridge's BIENFAISANCE was at this time thinking of mining the fort. "If we can accomplish that," said he, "I am a strong ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... "Listen! Don't flatter yourself any longer. Your cause is hopeless, as hopeless as the cause for which the stupid colonists are contending. You are now free to put an end to this strife. Go over to the enemy and persuade Washington and the leaders of the revolt to ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... al Buddoor was completely dressed, she consulted her glass and women upon her adjustment; and when she found she wanted no charms to flatter the foolish passion of the African magician, she sat down on ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... According to my bill most circumspectly. I vow to God, I have done SCOTLAND wrong, (And (justly) against me it may bring an action) I have not given it that right which doth belong, For which I am half guilty of detraction: Yet had I wrote all things that there I saw, Misjudging censures would suppose I flatter, And so my name I should in question draw, Where asses bray, and prattling pies do chatter: Yet (armed with truth) I publish with my pen, That there the Almighty doth his blessings heap, In such abundant food for beasts and men; ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... "Eleanor and you have my age on your minds! Eleanor informed me that I was too old to be rampaging round making hay with you two boys! And she thinks I 'flatter' you," Edith said, grinning. "I trust I'm not injuring your immortal soul, Maurice, and making ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... delirium at that moment, the excess to which my heart is subject to be heated by the most trifling incidents, and the ardor with which my imagination seizes on the most attractive objects should be conceived. At these times, plans the most ridiculous, childish, and void of sense, flatter my favorite idea, and persuade me that it is reasonable to sacrifice everything to the possession of it. Would it be believed, that when near nineteen, any one could be so stupid as to build his hopes of future subsistence on an empty phial? ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... was to be expected. That princess has much good sense, and the same friendly relations towards us as the deceased. She has no religion, but acts the devotee. The chancellor Bestuchef is her greatest favorite, and, as he has a strong propensity to guinees I flatter myself that I shall be able to retain the friendship of the court. The poor emperor wanted to imitate Peter I., but he had ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... landed gentry of England—ye gods! Was it possible that this man believed in the necessity of the gentry as a virtuous example? Or did he merely view the fact that the aristocracy were there in actual possession, and as they could not be evicted, why then the next best thing was to cajole, flatter and discreetly advise them? Who shall say what this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... close to her, he saw that she was simply a young girl with good health, good muscles, and a rather pretty face and figure. He called her "Miss" because it seemed to flatter her; but Dud Stone felt himself infinitely older than this ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... and they crouch modestly in the shade of our massive garages. They have been taught their place. In Marathon it is a worse sin to have your lawn uncut than to have your books or your hair uncut. I have been aware of indignant eyes because I let my back garden run wild. And yet I flatter myself it was not mere sloth. No! I want the Urchin to see what this savage, tempestuous world is like. What preparation for life is a village where Nature comes to heel like a spaniel? When a thunderstorm disorganizes our electric lights for an hour or so we feel it a personal affront. Let ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... pedant, nor did he desire to make a display of his learning, and still less did he wish to do so in the presence of women, and in a private re-union; but the importunate and aggressive verbosity of the canon required, in his opinion, a corrective. To flatter his vanity by agreeing with his views would, he thought, be a bad way to give it to him, and he determined therefore to express only such opinions as should be most directly opposed to those of the sarcastic Penitentiary and ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... reward you for it—Oh, yes, I know you did not expect anything," said Miss Leonora; "you have told me as much on various occasions, Frank. You have, of course, always been perfectly independent, and scorned to flatter your old aunts by any deference to their convictions; and, to be sure, it is nothing to you any little pang they may feel at having to dispose otherwise of a living that has always been in the family. You are of the latest fashion of Anglicanism, and we are only a parcel of old women. It ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... democratic republics, are neither healthy, wealthy, nor wise; and they would be worse instead of better if their popular ministers were not experts in the art of dodging popular enthusiasms and duping popular ignorance. The politician who once had to learn how to flatter Kings has now to learn how to fascinate, amuse, coax, humbug, frighten, or otherwise strike the fancy of the electorate; and though in advanced modern States, where the artizan is better educated than the King, it takes a much bigger man to ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... of smoothing things over?" he asked. "Why not take me into your confidence? I flatter myself I have had some experience in patching up even serious differences between people, and you know I'm at ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist with some pride in ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not to flatter, to paint, to gild nor endeavour in any wise to reform or organize ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... them to write letters to the court insinuating that I thought of nothing but making my fortune. If more than forty thousand livres of debt which I have on my shoulders are an advantage, then I can flatter myself that I am very rich. In all my misfortunes, I have the consolation of seeing that M. de Beauharnois enters into my views, recognizes the uprightness of my intentions, and does me justice in spite of opposition." [Footnote: Memoire du Sieur de la Verendrye au sujet des Etablissements ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... your revenge. Thus by your pleasures being set aloft, Straight by your furies I should quickly fall. No, citizens, who readeth Sylla's mind, Must form my titles in another kind: Either let Sylla be dictator ever, Or flatter Sylla with ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... people whose dangers lie, as we have seen, on the side of their unchecked and unguided individual action, whose dangers none of them lie on the side of an over-reliance on the State, he quotes just so much of Wilhelm von Humboldt's example as can flatter them in their propensities, and do them no good; and just what might make them think, and be of use to them, he leaves on one side. This precisely recalls the manner, it will be observed, in which we have seen that ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... publish, and the strongest is that the various copies I have lent out are said to still find readers, though by this time they have lost the charm of novelty. Of course, it may be that the booksellers say this to flatter me. Well, let them flatter, so long as fibs of this kind encourage me to study ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... Paha River (pronounced Key-a-paw), a branch of the Niobrara which comes down out of Dakota and joins it a few miles below Grand Rapids. The country seemed to be much the same as that through which we had travelled, perhaps a little flatter and sandier. Just across the river we saw the first large herd of stock, some five or six hundred head being driven east ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... far as they think about the matter at all) to flatter themselves that the ill-feeling which blazed so suddenly into flame twelve years ago was more or less effectually quenched by Great Britain's assistance to the United States at the time of the Spanish War. Those Englishmen ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... To flatter in rhythm and rhyme, with due regard for euphony and cadence, is always safe, and is totally different from bursting out upon a defenseless woman with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... nursed up by an adoring wife, and a large circle of wife's sisters almost as adoring, to all of whom his smallest wishes are religious obligations, and his faintest virtues godly graces, and who vie with each other which of them shall wait upon him most servilely, flatter him most outrageously, pet and coax and coddle him most entirely, and so do him the largest amount of spiritual damage, and unfit him most thoroughly for the worth and work of masculine life. A man subjected to this insidious injury is simply ruined so far as any ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... very good reason for coming to see me," she began. "I don't flatter myself that it is ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... the public that the door is now opened again, and though the Hotel is not so spacious as the Prince-ly Mansion of their neighbour, yet being an old and well accustomed Stand, they flatter themselves that those gentlemen who have long frequented it, will not discontinue their custom, as no pains will be spared to accommodate Parties—Fire Clubs—steady Boarders, and all who may honor the house with their company. —> Particular attention ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... nursed his spirit, sharpened his sword? ... I am not speaking of the dumb ones far down in the mass, nor of the humdrum philistines that still make homes, have traces of the nest-instinct left; but of you, you,—the developed intelligences who flatter yourselves that you lead because you are free to do as you like. By your minds ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... however, some vague rumors, which led them to imagine the danger was for the time averted. They began, very prematurely, as the result showed, to be confident of success, and talked of punishing Philip for his presumption. In this they were encouraged by certain foolish orators, who sought to flatter the national prejudices. Demosthenes in this oration strives to check the arrogance of the people; reminds them of the necessity of defensive rather than offensive measures, and especially of the importance of ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... flatter myself. I've long had the idea, but I should never have worked it out and found the value of it but for Grey. I invented it to coach him in his history. You see we are in the Grecian corner. Over there is the Roman. You'll find ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... with it. Babies ain't the sort of things as gets lost easily. It's only on the stage that folks ever have any particular use for other people's children. I've known some bad characters in my time, but I'd have trusted the worst of 'em with a wagon- load of other people's kids. Don't you flatter yourself you're going to lose it! Whoever's got it, you take it from me, his idea is to do the honest thing, and never rest till he's succeeded in returning it to ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... curiously I scanned His mien and person, nor was free, in sooth, 95 From disappointment, not to find some change In look and air, from that new region brought, As if from Fairy-land. Much I questioned him; And every word he uttered, on my ears Fell flatter than a caged parrot's note, 100 That answers unexpectedly awry, And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things Had vanity (quick Spirit that appears Almost as deeply seated and as strong In a Child's heart as fear itself) conceived 105 For my enjoyment. Would that I could now ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the tower of the neighbouring town hall, and an expectant flutter spread over the audience,—a flatter which disseminated faint odours of sachet and other mysterious substances in which feminine apparel is said to the laid away. The stage was empty, save for a table which held a pitcher of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... have it tryed here by some who wish well to you, and as I go to London in the spring, I shall, together with Mr. Wedderburn and Mr. Elliot, consider what are the most prudent measures to take for your sake, or whether to take any. Mr. Smith is too busy or too indolent, but I flatter myself Dr. Black will be happy to make out this memorial for you. Let me know if I have any chance of seeing you this winter. I have none of being at Glasgow, and therefore wish you and Mr. Smith would come here, or you by yourself ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... above all, because the Story is just the spoiled child of art, and because, as we are always disappointed when the pampered don't "play up," we like it, to that extent, to look all its character. It probably does so, in truth, even when we most flatter ourselves that we negotiate with ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... I flatter myself that I have won some reputation in that line, and that not a few of the dear creatures have been very fond of me. It's really most too bad to break their soft little hearts; but then a man can't marry 'em all; ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... Much flatter cranium. Long, tearing canine teeth. Carnivorous. I'll call them just 'guardians' until we find ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... blameless. The leaders, the accursed aristocracy of blood, of place, of money, these make the corporate vampire, which battens upon the weak and ignorant poor; only in England they give them a trifle more, flatter them with skill, while the Irish are ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... of the fifth century Athens found herself the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and so they permitted ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... judgment with a vengeance. To be more modern, it reminds one of Begbie, the great frontier judge on the west coast, who tamed the outlaw miners who tried to start rough-house in the gold-rush days. The dishonest extortioners on the prairie could do nothing to frighten or flatter or tamper with men like Colonel MacLeod and his red-coated patrols. Hence, we read the sequel in the Colonel's report in December, 1874: "I am happy to be able to report" (happy is a choice word—there are some things that make a good man happy)—"to be able to report the complete stoppage of ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Freak of a capricious Minister will not remove the Court to some other place? Is it possible to have that Communication with our Constituents, or to be benefited by the Reasonings of the people without Doors here, as at Boston? We cannot but flatter ourselves, that every judicious and impartial Person will allow, that the holding the General Court at Cambridge, is inconvenient and hurtful to the Province; Nor has your Honor ever yet attempted to show a single Instance, in which the province can be benefited by it: No good ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... romantic child! I cannot say with truth that I have! I married when I was very young, and my husband was many years older than myself. He was afflicted with chronic rheumatism and gout, and to be quite honest, I could never flatter myself that he thought of me more than the gout. There! I knew that would amuse you!"—this, as Sylvie's pretty tender laugh rippled out again on the air, "And though it sounds as if it were a jest, it is perfectly true. Poor Monsieur Bozier! He was ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... McGregor's tone that she might have said more but for the stern belief that she must not flatter her children. Therefore to cut short the danger of such a crime she brusquely hurried Carl out of the ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... influence jargon has on human actions. A war on our own trade is popular." (February 15, 1775.) "The war with America goes on briskly, that is as far as voting goes. A great majority in both houses is as brave as a mob ducking a pick-pocket. They flatter themselves they shall terrify the colonies into submission in three months, and are amazed to hear that there is no such probability. They might as well have excommunicated them, and left it to the devil to put the sentence into execution." (February 18, 1775.) Not ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... her snares, poor thing, I don't feel much afraid of them. I daresay if Mr Wentworth had Sunday classes for the young people as I wished him to have, and took pains to give them proper instruction, such things would not happen. If you send her to my maid, I flatter myself she will soon come to her senses. Good morning; and you will please to send me the books—there are some others I want you to get for me next week," said Mr Elsworthy's patroness. "I will follow you, Dora, please," and Miss Leonora ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... "I flatter myself I am a bit of a judge; and when I have had it in my possession for a short time, I will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... this. It has all been done before. But tell me, what is new? Does the aspiring and perspiring summer vaudeville artist flatter himself that his stuff is going big? Then does the stout man with the oyster-colored eyelids in the first row, left, turn his bullet head on his fat-creased neck to remark ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... the Queen's fatal letter. Oh! how difficult I found it not to call the man every sort of name! The next morning John was off, and though he flattered himself he would be able to come back to me in any case, I flatter ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... draw for the balance of L.900, to silence some of them (I mean after taking from L.1,500, L.200, to refund to you, in case you now oblige me with an advance, and L.400, to protect my securities for the rules); and if this cannot be completed with the Colonel time enough, and for which reason I flatter myself that you will assist me with your friendly interference, I see but one mode, that of going abroad the moment I find my creditors hostile; for although I may find L.350 to L.400, to pay the rules, I cannot find means in haste to satisfy the rest, although I have ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... divines. For these things were composed for their benefit, all of whom he supposes to be such blockheads that they will not instantly detect the patch-work he has so awkwardly sewn together. So abjectly does he everywhere flatter France, Paris, the theologians, the Sorbonne, the Colleges, no beggar could be more cringing. Accordingly, if anything uncomplimentary seems to be said against the French, he transfers it to the ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... noble Scot, if speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have, As not a soldier of this season's stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter; I 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." In the first five lines of this skimble-skamble stuff I hear Shakespeare speaking in his cheapest way; with the oath, however, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... his. In six weeks our schooner yacht will be in the Elbe to offer him entertainment. He graciously deigns to accept a couple of English hunters at our hands; we shall improve his breed of horses, I suspect. Now, Richie, have I done well? I flatter myself I have been attentive to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... now women who are artful enough manage to evade the prohibition laid on their lips and make their preference known. I am proud to say that I have a royal husband, who would never have looked my way if I had not set out to make him do so; and if I do say it, who should n't, I flatter myself he has a better wife than he could have picked out without my help. There are plenty of women who can say the same thing; but, unluckily, it is the best sort of women, girls like you,—simple, sincere, noble, without arts of any sort,—who can't do this. On them the etiquette that forbids ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Lordships as the protectors of our rights, and the guardians of our virtues; but believe it not included in your high office, that you should flatter our vices, or solace our vanity: and, as vanity only dictates this prosecution, it is humbly hoped your Lordships ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... and Isabella; but failing hopelessly in both instances. You have seen him, when he realized the failure of an attempt which had made Rome too dangerous for him and compelled him to remain in exile, suddenly veering round to fawn and flatter and win the friendship of one whom ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... a picture, whereby the people and events of one century might be thrust into the middle of another; or the breaking of a wire, which would bring the course of time to a sudden period,—barring, I say, the casualties to which such a complicated piece of mechanism is liable,—I flatter myself, ladies and gentlemen,—that the performance will ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tend to the prejudice of it. But, if I could entertain hopes that you thought me worthy of the post of lieutenant-colonel, and would favor me so far as to mention it at the appointment of officers, I could not but entertain a true sense of the kindness. I flatter myself that, under a skilful commander or man of sense (which I most sincerely wish to serve under), with my own application and diligent study of my duty, I shall be able to conduct my steps without censure, and, in time, render myself worthy of the promotion that I shall ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... life, the whole Church of England would be bound to know all about it. I am quite sure that Thackeray believed every word that he said in the lectures, and that he intended to put in the good and the bad, honestly, as they might come to his hand. We may be quite sure that he did not intend to flatter the royal family;—equally sure that he would not calumniate. There were, however, so many difficulties to be encountered that I cannot but think that the subject was ill-chosen. In making them so amusing as he did and so little offensive great ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... silver or gold—let him none the more be called religious ([Greek: eusebes]). For he has wandered far from the path of religion, mistaking ritual for holiness, and attempting to bribe the Incorruptible, and to flatter Him whom none can flatter. God welcomes genuine service, and that is the service of a soul that offers the bare and simple sacrifice of truth, but from false service, the mere display of material wealth, he ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... you by my own experience. I have sometimes been in that security that I felt not dolour for sin, neither yet displeasure against myself for any iniquity in that I did offend. But rather my vain heart did thus flatter myself, (I write the truth to my own confusion, and to the glory of my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ), 'Thou hast suffered great trouble for professing of Christ's truth; God has done great things for thee.'... O Mother! this was a subtle serpent who thus ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... band!" Crailey chuckled, softly. "How the rogues keep the time! It's 'Rosin the Bow,' all right! Ah, that is as it should be. Mrs. Tanberry, you and I have one thing in common, if you'll let me flatter myself so far: we've always believed in good cheer in spite of the devil and all, you and I, eh? The best of things, even if things are ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... "Miss Hawking you flatter me. But seriously, you do not forget that some of the best and purest men in Congress took ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... estimating him not less accurately than the male moralist charitable to her sex would do. She quitted the bed, with a spring to escape her imagined lord; and as if she had felt him to be there, she lay down no more. A quiet life like that was flatter to her idea than a handsomely bound big book without any print on the pages, and without a picture. Her contemplation of it, contrasted with the life waved to her view by the timepiece, set her whole system rageing; she burned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
