"Flatterer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Major Burr, while yet at college, had acquired a reputation for gallantry. On this point he was excessively vain, and regardless of all those ties which ought to control an honourable mind. In his intercourse with females he was an unprincipled flatterer, ever prepared to take advantage of their weakness, their credulity, or their confidence. She that confided in him was lost. In referring to this subject, no terms of condemnation would be too strong to apply to ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... "Oh! stop, you little flatterer, you will make me vain," said Isabel kissing her. "If I have done you any good, I am very glad indeed," she added in a more serious tone, "I have endeavored to do my duty, but I am afraid that I ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... "Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with me A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree, I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd, And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... found an easy access to the emperor, by means of my father's intimacy with him, he being a very good courtier—or, in other words, a most prostitute flatterer—so I soon ingratiated myself with Zeno, and so well imitated my father in flattering him, that he would never part with me from about his person. So that the first armed force I ever beheld was that with which Marcian ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... "Hush, flatterer! not so loud, if you please. My father is taking an evening stroll, and is very quick of hearing. He has tied me up by my poor wings in the cavern, for he is mightily afraid of some beast running away with me. You know I have all my ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flatterer wrote two sonnets in honour of one of his patrons, and submitted their merits to his judgment, desiring him to retain the best. After having read one of them the patron said, 'The ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... elastic footsteps. Others still, like this young Kentuckian, came down into the valleys with the hacking cough and hectic flush to make a vain struggle against the destroyer that had fastened upon their vitals, nursing often a vain hope of recovery to the very last. Ah, remorseless flatterer! as I write these lines, the images of your victims crowd before my vision: the strong men that grew weak, and pale, and thin, but fought to the last inch for life; the noble youths who were blighted just as they began to bloom; ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... its lofty conception of the position of the poet; its counsels express the dignity of the writer's own literary life. He has been charged not only with cruelty as a satirist, but with the baseness of a flatterer of the great. It would be more just to notice the honourable independence which he maintained, notwithstanding his poetical homage to the King, which was an inevitable requisition. Boileau's influence ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... flatterer. Quit your joshing, Stella; hand it to Ben. He likes it, and the thicker it is the more ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... fields. At court, though no trifler or flatterer, he was a favourite counsellor in three successive reigns, but he never meddled much in civil or temporal affairs. His learning made him the equal and the friend of Grotius, and of the foremost contemporary scholars. His preaching was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... with your extravagant compliments again. You always were such a fascinating flatterer, Friday," said the man, coolly taking up one of her spools of silk and unwinding and rewinding it. "But as to that 'one word,' I certainly shall whisper it into Abel Force's ear, and also into the ears of that many-headed, mighty magician known to us all as 'Our Reporter,' when he shall ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Sylvia: "You must beware of Douglas, Papa; he is an inveterate flatterer." She laughed as she said it; and of those present it was Aunt Varina alone who caught the ominous note, and saw the bitter curl of her lips as she spoke. Aunt Varina and her niece were the only persons there ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... the most inconsistent; for if you express admiration of him moderately, he is offended that no very great court is paid to him, whereas if you pay court to him extravagantly, he is offended with you for being a flatterer. And the most important matter of all is that which I am about to say:—he disturbs the customs handed down from our fathers, he is a ravisher of women, and he puts men to death without trial. On the other hand the rule of ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... enemy of yours, Leo, or rather of your Court; by his example alone we may learn that an enemy is not more baneful than a flatterer. For what did he bring about by his flattery, except evils which no king could have brought about? At this day the name of the Court of Rome stinks in the nostrils of the world, the papal authority is growing weak, and its notorious ignorance is evil spoken of. We should ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... it.] Heavens, how unlike! Why Lenox, you were dreaming of the Venus de Medici when you drew this—Oh, you flatterer! ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... seeing Jess in a few days and showing her his troop—her and Pappoose. How wonderfully that little schoolgirl must have grown and developed! How beautiful a girl she must now be if that photograph was no flatterer! By the way, where was that photo? What had he done with it? For the first time in four days he remembered his picking it up when Mrs. Hal Folsom collapsed at sight of Jake's swooning. Down in the depths of the side pocket of his heavy blue flannel hunting shirt he ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... asking him how it liketh him. Harpagus made answer, though with an heavy heart, Quod regi placet, id mihi quoque placet; "Whatsoever pleaseth the king, that also pleaseth me." And here we have an ensample of a flatterer, or dissembler: for this Harpagus spake against his own heart and conscience. Surely, I fear me, there be a great many of flatterers in our time also, which will not be ashamed to speak against their own heart and consciences, like as this Harpagus did; which had, no doubt, a heavy heart, and ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... strange star again. And it was now so bright that the waxing moon seemed but a pale yellow ghost of itself, hanging huge in the sunset. In a South African city a great man had married, and the streets were alight to welcome his return with his bride. "Even the skies have illuminated," said the flatterer. Under Capricorn, two negro lovers, daring the wild beasts and evil spirits for love of one another, crouched together in a cane brake where the fire-flies hovered. "That is our star," they whispered, and felt strangely ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... least in the hands of doctors. A message from the Pope produced an imprudent letter from the poet, in which he says, "Holy father! I shudder at the account of your fever; but, believe me, I am not a flatterer. I tremble to see your bed always surrounded with physicians, who are never agreed, because it would be a reproach to the second to think like the first. 'It is not to be doubted,' as Pliny says, 'that physicians, desiring to raise a name by their discoveries, make ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Nothing is easier than for him to give extravagant promises while an election is depending, and to forget them as soon as the return is made. I will take no such course. I do not wish to obtain a single vote on false pretences. Under the old system I have never been the flatterer of the great. Under the new system I will not be the flatterer of the people. The truth, or what appears to me to be such, may sometimes be distasteful to those whose good opinion I most value. I shall nevertheless always abide by it, and trust to their good ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... at all as should make him go leave off any of his mirth, and so sit and mourn for his sin." Such mind as this, lo, have some of those who are not unlearned, and have worldly wit at will, who tell great men such tales as perilously beguile them. For the flatterer who so telleth them would, if he told a true tale, jeopard to lose ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Gloucester, about 1594, was educated at Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood characterises him as a butt for the wits and a flatterer of great men, and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though he took no higher degree than M.A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the degree of M.B., and Dr. Grosart's note—"Herrick, no doubt, playfully transmuted 'Doctor' into 'Physician'"—is misleading. He may have cared ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... his marriage with Sally Flannelly,—that Sally whom Macdermot had rejected,—for from the time of his wedding he had much prospered in all worldly things. He was a hardworking man, and in that consisted his only good quality; he was plausible, a good flatterer, not deficient in that sort of sharpness which made him a successful attorney in a small provincial town, and he could be a jovial companion, when called on to take that part. Principle had never stood much in his way, and he had completely taught himself to believe ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... ascribed such qualities to a prince who was known to be entirely lacking in them would be regarded as little acquainted with the world and with court manners, for he would cause the person to be publicly ridiculed. In this case the praise would degenerate into satire and the incautious flatterer would fare badly."[203] Flattery has always been the return which court poets make for their slavery. Ariosto and Tasso were no more free from it than were Horace and Virgil. When the poet of the Orlando Furioso discovered that Cardinal Ippolito was beginning to treat him ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... There is nothing in the book that offends me; although," he added, cautiously, "I do not mean to say that I sanction entirely either your religious, philosophical, or political speculations. I am no flatterer, and claim the privilege of a friend to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Ch'ang [4], or of the six nobles of Tsin. Without the support of your own family, where will you find the aid which you may require? That a state of things not modelled from the lessons of antiquity can long continue;— that is what I have not heard. Ch'ing is now showing himself to be a flatterer, who increases the errors of Your Majesty, and not a loyal minister." 'The emperor requested the opinions of others on this representation, and the premier, Li Sze [5], said, "The five emperors were not one the double of the other, nor did the ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... returns to a right mind, his patrimony is sufficient; if not, all supplies will be insufficient." But to Antipater he answered more sharply, who would have him engaged in something dishonorable. "Antipater," said he, "cannot have me both as his friend and his flatterer." And, indeed, Antipater was wont to say, he had two friends at Athens, Phocion and Demades; the one would never suffer him to gratify him at all, the other would never be satisfied. Phocion might well think that poverty a virtue, in which, after having so often been general of the Athenians, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... afraid, too much concerned here. This is one instance of that adulation which we bestow on our own minds, and this almost universally. For there is scarce any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... which neither was by my invitation or wish: can you be angry, if I treat Philander with the civility of a brother? Or rather, that I suffer him to see me, to receive my reproaches?'—'Stop here,' said he, 'thou fair deluding flatterer, or thou art for ever ruined. Do not charge thy soul yet farther;—do not delude me on—all yet I can forgive as I am dying, but should I live, I could not promise thee. Add not new crimes by cozening me anew; for I shall find out truth, though it lie hid even in the bottom of Philander's, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... at the age of sixty, still held Henry in her toils; an easy prey for the wiles of the flatterer, he was kept in ignorance of the hatred and anger heaping up against him. In the midst of riotous festivity, Henry II. died, a victim of the lance of Montgomery; and the twelve years' reign of debauchery, cruelty, and shameless ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... totally distinct from maternal affection; and to this his fine qualities served rather as an alloy, than an incentive. A youth weak enough to be really a convert, or sufficiently base to have affected being one to her opinions, a flatterer of her faults, and the tool of her designs, would have been invested by her erroneous judgment with those high deservings which actually adorned her noble offspring, though she wanted ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... said, "you are becoming as great a flatterer as the rest of them. But confess now, you did not call ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... sanguinary parole, and the ministry an infernal administration: quoting the well-known observation of the philosopher Thaies; "that of all wild beasts, the worst was a tyrant, and of all tame ones, a flatterer." The motion was negatived, as was also a motion subsequently made by General Conway, for inspecting the powers vested in his majesty's commissioners ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... so much the better. In all likelihood it would help her; but she did not dwell upon this adventitious encouragement. A more legitimate source of hope revealed itself in Mrs. Strangeways' allusion to her personal advantages. She was not ill-looking; on that point there needed no flatterer's assurance. Her looks, if anything, had improved, and possibly she owed something to her experiment in 'simplicity', to the air of mountain and of sea. Felix Dymes, Cyrus Redgrave, not to speak of certain other people—no matter. For all that, she must pay grave attention to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... is sweet of you," she said, giving him the full effect of her heavenly smile. "But I'm afraid you're a terrible flatterer." ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... devolved upon her own son Clotaire II.: but for his and her own protection, she had recourse to Gontran, the religious king of Orleans and Burgundy. By his order Prix, after a banishment of six years, was restored with honor to his see; Ragnemond, the bishop of Paris, who had been a principal flatterer of Chilperic in the persecution of this prelate, having assured this prince that the council had not deposed him, but only enjoined him penance. St. Prix assisted at the council of Macon in 585, where he harangued several times, and exerted his zeal in framing many wise ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Bonaparte's private police managed the affair. Harel was afterwards promoted to the governorship of the Castle of Vincennes: the four talkers, whom he and the police had lured on, were executed after the affair of Nivose. That dextrous literary flatterer, the poet Fontanes, celebrated the "discovery" of the Arena plot by publishing anonymously a pamphlet ("A Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte") in which he decided that no one but Caesar deserved the honour of a comparison with Bonaparte, and that certain destinies ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... of recent times—indeed, in both cases an acquaintance of his own,—and one taken from ancient history or legend. Jason, for his desertion of Hypsipyle and Medea, is the classical example of the first offence. Of this use of mythological persons we have many examples, but the typical flatterer of old time is a more curious selection, being a character in a play, whom Dante has ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... dear Clara, in addressing you, so lately a stranger. Think not that I am an idle flatterer, when I say that your beauty and worth have awakened a deep love for you in my heart, and this love must be my excuse. I would have sought another interview with you, but I know the rules of your school would have forbid, and the only alternative remaining is to make this ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... vine, which, first trained lightly over the loose stone roofs, have in process of years cast their fruitful net over the whole village, and fastened it to the ground under their purple weight and wayward coils as securely as ever human heart was fastened to earth by the net of the Flatterer. ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... boorishness, which fain would win Regard by unbrushed teeth and close-shorn skin, Yet all the while is anxious to be thought Pure independence, acting as it ought. Between these faults 'tis Virtue's place to stand, At distance from the extreme on either hand. The flatterer by profession, whom you see At every feast among the lowest three, Hangs on his patron's looks, takes up each word Which, dropped by chance, might else expire unheard, Like schoolboys echoing what their masters say ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... palace, rung With endless cries, and endless sons he sung. To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first; But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst. Sakil without distinction threw his bread, Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed." I need not say that Sakil is Sackville, or that Laurus is a translation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... de Broglie, d'Estaing, and others—all men of honor.' How far-sighted was my father, in recommending these men! They are the very nobles who have kept aloof from the late king's mistresses. With one exception, I adopt the list; but there is one among them, who stooped to be a flatterer of Du Barry. The Duke d'Aiguillon is certainly a statesman, but he cannot be of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... from wealth to poverty descend, Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend. 1362 DRYDEN: Wife ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... to the reader than it was attacked by the acute malignity of Dennis with all the violence of angry criticism. Dennis, though equally zealous, and probably by his temper more furious than Addison, for what they called liberty, and though a flatterer of the Whig Ministry, could not sit quiet at a successful play; but was eager to tell friends and enemies that they had misplaced their admirations. The world was too stubborn for instruction; with the fate ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... Greco-Lat. necromantia, divination by means of the dead. The popular form negromancie still survives in French. To curry favour is a corruption of Mid. Eng. "to curry favel." The expression is translated from French. Palsgrave has curryfavell, a flatterer, "estrille faveau," estriller (etriller) meaning "to curry (a horse)." Faveau, earlier fauvel, is the name of a horse in the famous Roman de Fauvel, a satirical Old French poem of the early 14th century. He symbolises worldly vanity carefully tended ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... the lordly flatterer's art, That won the maiden's ear,— The fluttering of the frightened heart, The blush, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Vejento next, and by his side Bloody Catullus leaning on his guide: Decrepit, yet a furious lover he, And deeply smit with charms he could not see. A monster, that ev'n this worst age outvies, Conspicuous and above the common size. A blind base flatterer; from some bridge or gate, Raised to a murd'ring minister of state. Deserving still to beg upon the road, And bless each passing wagon ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... do I know not what; and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe; What is decreed must be, and be this ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... the soothing measure, Let me seize thy wetted string! Swiftly flies the flatterer, Pleasure, 15 Headlong, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... pleasure, my dear Eugene, that your conduct is worthy of the name you bear, and of the protector under whom it is so easy to learn to become a great captain. Bonaparte has written to me that you are every thing that he can wish. As he is no flatterer, my heart is proud to read your eulogy sketched by a hand which is usually far from being lavish in praise. You well know that I never doubted your capability to undertake great things, or the brilliant courage which you inherit. But you, alas! know how much I dislike your ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... sustain. He owed his preferment, indeed, to a long-exercised deference to Lundie and his family; for, while the Major himself was much too acute to be the dupe of one so much his inferior in real talents and attainments, most persons are accustomed to make liberal concessions to the flatterer, even while they distrust his truth and are perfectly aware of his motives. On the present occasion, the contest in skill was between two men as completely the opposites of each other in all the leading essentials of character as very well could be. Pathfinder was ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Flatterer," said the queen, "if your father heard you, he would scold fearfully. If you compare me to the sun, how can ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... cross-examine the tale without offence to the courtesies of humanity; and while the eulogist, detected in exaggeration or falsehood, must pay the full penalty of his baseness in the contempt which brands the convicted flatterer. Publicly has Mr. Southey been reviled by men, who, as I would fain hope for the honour of human nature, hurled fire- brands against a figure of their own imagination; publicly have his talents been depreciated, his principles ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a very beautiful boy," said Miss Stapylton, demurely. "Thank you, Olaf; I begin to think you are a dangerous flatterer. But he is only a boy, Olaf! And I had always thought of Gerald Musgrave as a learned person with a fringe of whiskers all around his face—like ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... fortunes to the sea, wins a mighty harvest; he who seeks the camp and the field of war, may gird him with gold: the vile flatterer lies drunken on embroidered purple; the gallant who courts the favours of wedded wives, wins wealth by his sin: eloquence alone shivers in frosty rags and invokes the neglected ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... vantage, and get rid of them that way? Or shall I make an exception to my law by parleying with them for once? contempt might hit harder than stones. Yes, I think that is better; I will stay where I am, and receive them. Let us see, who is this in front? Ah, Gnathonides the flatterer; when I asked an alms of him the other day, he offered me a halter; many a cask of my wine has he made a beast of himself over. I congratulate him on his ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... "Flatterer! Coaxing flatterer! Don't believe a word she says, Miss Arnold. I am as empty-pated a rattle-skull, as ever was turned raw into one of her Majesty's regiments—and that's saying a good deal, I can tell you. But this dear creature here loves ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... who is no flatterer of the little passions of men, will not be much incommoded by their presence. Gibbon paints his own situation in the heart of the fashionable world:—"I had not been endowed by art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address which unlock every door and every ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... treated the flatterer to what the French call a fin sourire, and wondered how long Julia would stay away. This man would pay her a compliment ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... willingly have given had I known you. Nothing had been more easy than to commend a patron of a long standing. The world would join with me if the encomiums were just, and if unjust would excuse a grateful flatterer. But to come anonymous upon me, and force me to commend you against my interest, was not altogether so fair, give me leave to say, as it was politic; for by concealing your quality you might clearly understand how your work succeeded, and that the general approbation ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... a flatterer and a courtier," he said, playfully pinching Bourrienne's ear so violently that the latter was scarcely able to conceal a shriek of pain under a smile. "Yes, indeed, you are a regular courtier, and the republic has done well to banish you, for flattery is something very aristocratic, and injurious ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... luxurious feasters, and his house was open to all comers and goers at Athens. His large wealth combined with his free and prodigal nature to subdue all hearts to his love; men of all minds and dispositions tendered their services to lord Timon, from the glass-faced flatterer, whose face reflects as in a mirror the present humour of his patron, to the rough and unbending cynic, who affecting a contempt of men's persons, and an indifference to worldly things, yet could not stand out ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... though Hill compared him to Horace and Juvenal, and hoped that he would live till the virtues which his spirit would propagate became as general as the esteem of his genius. In short, Hill, who was a florid flatterer, is so complimentary that we are not surprised to find him telling Richardson, after Pope's death, that the poet's popularity was due to a certain "bladdery swell of management." "But," he concludes, "rest his memory in in peace! It will very rarely ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter, thus the rabbins have expressed— A cherub's face—a reptile all the rest. Beauty that shocks you, facts that none can trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that bites ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... tyranny: for their manners are the same, and they both hold a despotic power over better persons than themselves. For their decrees are like the others' edicts; their demagogues like the others' flatterers: but their greatest resemblance consists in the mutual support they give to each other, the flatterer to the tyrant, the demagogue to the people: and to them it is owing that the supreme power is lodged in the votes of the people, and not in the laws; for they bring everything before them, as their influence is owing to their being supreme whose opinions they entirely direct; for these are ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... do, not with a mere maker of books, but with a man who thinks for himself and has no false scruples in putting his meaning plainly upon the page, or in unmasking sham wherever he finds it. This is nowhere so true as when he deals with literature; and just as in his treatment of life, he is no flatterer to men in general, so here he is free and outspoken on the peculiar failings of authors. At the same time he gives them good advice. He is particularly happy in recommending restraint in regard to reading the works of others, and the cultivation of independent thought; ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... "Hence, flatterer!" cried the lady, smiling, but well pleased. "It is known to all that I am the Old Serpent—the deceiver—the ill fruit of the Knowledge of Evil. And now you say of Good also! And what is more and worse, you expect me to believe you. Wherein you also experiment! I pray you, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... misplaced. Bentinck was early pronounced by Temple to be the best and truest servant that ever prince had the good fortune to possess, and continued through life to merit that honourable character. The friends were indeed made for each other. William wanted neither a guide nor a flatterer. Having a firm and just reliance on his own judgment, he was not partial to counsellors who dealt much in suggestions and objections. At the same time he had too much discernment, and too much elevation of mind, to be gratified by sycophancy. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Earth art thou! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name[hv] Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who wooed thee once, thy Vassal, and became[hw] The flatterer of thy fierceness—till thou wert A God unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deemed thee for a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... service of the State do you invite me? determine for me. Am I to be the physician of the State who will strive and struggle to make the Athenians as good as possible; or am I to be the servant and flatterer of the State? Speak out, my good friend, freely and fairly as you did at first and ought to do again, and tell ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... of the wonderful stimulus and encouragement he could give to the young student. But he was no flatterer. No one could strike harder or swifter than ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Flatterer!" she said, with affected severity, but the delicate pink flush that bloomed in her cheeks showed ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... seeming like a flatterer, I must say it's because of the woods feature that I remember you so well. The forest interests me. I'm afraid I'm inclined to be very foolish about the woods. Why, ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... his heart warmed pleasurably. Here was a compliment from the very soul of nature. And albeit the lovely flatterer's experience of men was avowedly most limited, yet her taste was unvitiated as her sincerity, and her judgment may therefore have been more valuable than that of the most practised belle of fashion. But he ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... and takes an exceedingly comprehensive survey of all questions. He is genial, generous and candid, and has all the necessary qualities of heart and brain to make a great President. He has no prejudices. Prejudice is the child and flatterer of ignorance. He is firm, but not obstinate. The obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the right. Andrew Johnson was ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and favor when He came, Knowing yourselves right worthy, would ye care, With cautious reasoning, deep and hard, to prove That He would never come, and would your wrath Be hot against a prophet? Nay, I wot That as a flatterer you would look on him,— Full of sweet words thy mouth is: if He come,— We think not that He will,—but if He come, Would it might be to-morrow, or to-night, Because we look ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... that thou art grown into the condition of a woman, that thy little tresses of brown have become the jet-black and flowing hair that becomes thy years, and that thou hast the stature, and, I say it not in idleness of speech, Martha, for thou knowest my tongue is no vain flatterer, but do I not see that thou hast grown into all the excellence of a most comely maiden? But 'tis not thus, or rather 'twas not thus, with her we mourn; for till this hour have I ever pictured my sister the little innocent we sported with, that gloomy ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Heed not the flatterer's fulsome talk, He from thee hopes some trifle to obtain; Thou wilt, shouldst thou his wishes baulk, Ten hundred times as much ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... lies; I well believe she tempted them and failed, Being so bitter: for fine plots may fail, Though harlots paint their talk as well as face With colours of the heart that are not theirs. I will not let her know: nine tithes of times Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same. And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, Wanting the mental range; or low desire Not to feel lowest makes them level all; Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain, To leave an equal baseness; ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... sketch of his character, the peculiarities of which are happily illustrated by anecdotes. Many things of him, unknown even to his admirers, are here given to the world, and his biographer, fully appreciating the artist, has yet, not like a flatterer, but with true independence, spoken candidly of the faults of the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... "You are a little flatterer," cries the doctor; "but I dislike you not for it. And, to shew you I don't, I will return your flattery, and tell you you have acted with great prudence in concealing this affair from your husband; but you have drawn me into a scrape; for I have promised to dine with this fellow again ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... one of them being a Stranger in the province, & having been settled but about Six Weeks, performd the servile task a week before the usual Time when the people were not aware of it, they were however much disgusted at it. The Minister of the other is a known Flatterer of the Governor & is the very person who formd the fulsome Address of which I wrote you some time ago - he was deserted by a great number of his Auditory in the midst of his reading. Thus every Art is practisd & every Tool employd ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... "Thanks, flatterer," simpered Blackie, coming to the edge of the walk as I stepped from the automobile. "Was you expectin' ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Truly, I might conceive the same in case a maid were rare ill-usen at home— were her father ever harsh unto her, and her mother all day a-nagging at her—then, if the man should show him no mere flatterer, but a true friend, would I not stick to the days she had known him. And yet, as methinks, it should be a strange case wherein a true man should not go boldly and honestly to the maid's father, and ask her of him, with no hole-and-corner work. But to think ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... flatterer! Don't believe a word she says, Miss Arnold. I am as empty-pated a rattle-skull, as ever was turned raw into one of her Majesty's regiments—and that's saying a good deal, I can tell you. But this dear creature here loves a bit of romance in her ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... thou, poor fond thing! Heave and flutter to his sighs While the flatterer on his wing, Woo'd, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... abounded under the empire. Velleius Paterculus, an excellent historian descended from a patrician family, was born about B.C. 19. He was the friend and flatterer of Tiberius, and rose, in consequence, to several high offices. He was Quaestor in perhaps A.D. 7, and Praetor in A.D. 15. His Historicae Romanae, two books of which remain, is an abridgment of the history of the world, written in a clear and pleasing style, and is, in general, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... The flatterer was flattered. Having delivered the weighty news, he had leisure to savour his own importance as the bearer of it. He drank a cup of tea. Josiah was thoughtful, but Clara brimmed over with a fascinating loquacity. Then Mr. Duncalf said that he must really be going, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... "Oh, you flatterer!" she laughed. "I can't expect other people to see with your eyes; but, after all, the principal thing is to please you. That will be my business for the rest of my life, I suppose," she added, giving him a ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... offence, ruder in their behaviour, more grasping in their exactions, more domineering, more oppressive. Prudence should perhaps have counselled the Phoenician cities to submit, to be yielding and pliant, to cultivate the arts of the parasite and the flatterer; but the people had still a rough honesty about them. It was against the grain to flatter or submit themselves; constant voyages over wild seas in fragile vessels kept up their manhood; constant encounters with pirates, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... same old flatterer, Hans," said Inza; "but you mustn't try to flirt with me now. I'm ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... letter that is preserved in the British Museum: "Linnaeus, who bears this letter, is alone worthy of seeing you, alone worthy of being seen by you. He who shall see you both together shall see two men whose like will scarce ever be found in the world." And the doctor was no flatterer, as may be inferred from his treatment of Peter the Great. But the aged baronet had had his own way so long, and was so well pleased with it, that he would have nothing to do with Linnaeus. At Oxford the learned ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... be amused in reading their defense of the outrage against the council of regency. "We have thrown from the windows," they said, "the two ministers who have been the enemies of the State, together with their creature and flatterer, in conformity with an ancient custom prevalent throughout all Bohemia, as well as in the capital. This custom is justified by the example of Jezebel in holy Writ, who was thrown from a window for persecuting ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... diffused; As poison heals, in just proportion used: In heaps, like ambergrise, a stink it lies, But well dispersed, is incense to the skies. P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats. Is there a lord who knows a cheerful noon Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon? Whose table, wit or modest merit share, Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or play'r? Who copies yours or Oxford's better part, To ease the oppressed, and raise the sinking heart? Where'er he shines, O Fortune, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... of etiquette. Johnson says: "Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame, a flatterer." ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... critic most' severe; Fantastic wits their darling follies love, But find you faithful friends that will reprove, That on your works may look with careful eyes, And of your faults be zealous enemies. Lay by an author's pride and vanity, And from a friend a flatterer descry, Who seems to like, but means not what he says; Embrace true ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... I am not the flatterer of Congress, but in this instance they are right; and if that measure is supported, the currency will acquire a value, which, without it, it will not. But this is not all: it will give relief to the finances until ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... cost me as much more as I please for improving it. u will conclude it was the dearness tempted me. I believe I must keep an astronomer, like Mr. Beauclerk, to help me play with my rattle. The inventor, who seems very modest and simple, but I conclude an able flatterer, was in love with my house, and vowed nothing ever suited his camera so well. To be sure, the painted windows and the prospects, and the Gothic chimneys, etc. etc. were the delights of one's eyes, when no bigger than a silver penny. You would know how to manage it, as ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "Flatterer!" she countered brightly. "Have you been a whole year making pretty speeches, and must you keep it up now because you've got into the habit and since the pretty ladles of your travels are not here and I am? Aren't ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... things more irritating than to hear anyone perpetually bragging of his money, and if you happen to be poor yourself I do not think that it helps you to sit and listen more patiently. And then Gould was an injudicious flatterer; he made the flattered fellow uncomfortable. It is a nice thing, flattery, and causes one to feel good all over, if it is delicately applied with a camel's-hair brush, as it were. But Gould laid it on with a trowel. He only courted success; if anyone ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... that is no coward, nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluch a red rose from ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... but false friendship, fawning hypocrisy, dishonest civility, base merchandise of words, a plausible discord of the heart and lips. The flatterer is blear-eyed to ill, and cannot see vices; and his tongue walks ever in one track of unjust praises, and can no more tell how to discommend than to speak true. His speeches are full of wondering interjections, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... should bear his friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. Bru. I do not, till you practise them on me. Cas. You love me not. Bru. I do not like your faults. Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus. Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, For Cassius is aweary of the world; Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed, Set in a note-book, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... was always a flatterer, and who at last saved his ill-gotten wealth by the surrender of his wife as a love-gift to the Duc de Choiseul. "We all have our own injuries to bear. The Intendant was just showing us the spot of dirt cast upon him by the mob; ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "What a gross flatterer you are!" she said "Allegro, aren't you jealous? Which piece of toast do you fancy, Nick? Can I cut up some ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... From first to last his book betrays the close and eager student. He was an intimate friend of the worthless C. Memmius, whom he extols in a manner creditable to his heart but not to his judgment. [48] But he was no flatterer, nor was Memmius a patron. Poet and statesman lived on terms of perfect equality. Of the date of his work we can so far conjecture that it was certainly unfinished at his death (55 B.C.), and from its scope and ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... elected Major General of the North Carolina militia. For many years, he was clerk of the court of Mecklenburg county, and frequently a member of the State Legislature. He was the people's friend, not their flatterer, and uniformly enjoyed the confidence and high esteem of his fellow-citizens. He lived more than half a century on his farm, two miles from Charlotte. He died on the 29th of March, 1826, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and is buried in the graveyard of the Presbyterian ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... favour. Isocrat, to Nicocles, All are afraid to give him occasion of displeasure, though by telling him truth. To this purpose therefore sayes one; a Prince excells in learning to ride the great horse, rather than in any other exercise, because his horse being no flatterer, will shew him he makes no difference between him and another man, and unlesse he keepe his seate well, will lay him on the ground. This is plaine dealing. Men are more subtile, more double-hearted, they have a heart and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... this nation. Your speech upon this occasion is the greatest that has been made by any of us, for which we wish to honor and defend you.' This I consider no ordinary compliment, coming from Lincoln, for he was no flatterer nor disposed to bestow praise where it was undeserved. Colonel Baker heartily concurred in all he said, and between those two glorious men I left the stand and we marched out of the State House through our friends, who trooped after us evidently anticipating what Lincoln and Baker had suggested ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... for this offer, and from that moment the best understanding existed between the parties. The privateersman, who had received a much better education than he pretended to, and who was a consummate actor as well as, on certain occasions, a practised flatterer, determined to be more cautious in future, sparing his literary conjectures, whatever liberties he might take with other subjects. And yet this reckless and daring mariner never flattered nor deceived Ghita in anything! With her he had been all sincerity, the influence he had obtained over ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... flatterer you are, Hatty! It is a comfort that I don't grow vain. Do you know, I think Aunt Charlotte taught me a great deal. When you get over her little mannerisms and odd ways, you soon find out what a good woman she really is. She is always ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for securing effect. The condemnation of whatever is "done for effect" obviously springs from indignation at a disclosed insincerity in the artist, who is self-convicted of having neglected truth for the sake of our applause; and we refuse our applause to the flatterer, or give it contemptuously as to a mountebank whose dexterity has ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... pedigree of the angler suggests some injurious reflection about the Sophist. They are both hunters after a living prey, nearly related to tyrants and thieves, and the Sophist is the cousin of the parasite and flatterer. The effect of this is heightened by the accidental manner in which the discovery is made, as the result of a scientific division. His descent in another branch affords the opportunity of more 'unsavoury comparisons.' For he is a retail trader, and his wares are either imported ...
— Sophist • Plato
... chosen a subject of apparent splendour, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Cyrus and Themistocles. Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret revenge, and the first glance of favour might again tempt him to suspend and suppress a libel, in which the Roman Cyrus is degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both the Emperor and his consort Theodora are seriously represented as two demons, who had assumed a human ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... to all the little girls, and praised their bright eyes and glossy curls. "For," said his mother, "he is a sad flatterer, and not nearly so truthful, I am sorry to say, as his brother, George Washington, who ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of this complimentary speech was shouted into old Martha's ear, and she responded by shaking her head and desiring the flatterer to "go along." ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... Flatterer," cried Julia, "I too—Desdemona slain by a blackamoor. To some it is the cold hills and the valleys 'green and sad,' and the sea-birds' wailing," she continued in a low, strange voice, "and to some the glens of heather, ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... flatterer and so are you," laughed Grace. "Just because you girls like me you think the whole world ought to fall in line and worship me." Her bantering tone changing to seriousness she continued, "Not that I don't appreciate your affection, and love you with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... "Ah, Dolores, you flatterer! Seriously, though, don't you realize that we are Americans, and people of position? An injury to us would bring terrible consequences upon General Longorio's head. That is why he sent his soldiers ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... was a flatterer, and it cannot be claimed for her that she flattered adroitly always. But adroitness in flattery is not necessary for its successful use. There is no morsel of it too gross for the condor gullet and the ostrich stomach ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... this war that a bold flatterer (whose name is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander and Trajan, in order to direct the victorious Constantius in the footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former of these has been published for the first ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... felt the temptation of seeking to please others by an unmanly assenting to their opinion, even when our own independent convictions did not agree with theirs. The existence of such a temptation, and the fact that too many yield to it, are both declared in the Latin for a flatterer—'assentator'—that is, 'an assenter'; one who has not courage to say No, when a Yes is expected from him; and quite independently of the Latin, the German, in its contemptuous and precisely equivalent ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... ejaculated Mr. Solomon Jenks, a young gentleman who affected a charming frankness and abruptness in his speech, but who was in reality the most specious flatterer of the entire party. Mr. Jenks rejoiced in the following personal advantages: red hair, a blue nose, goggle eyes, and jaws ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... families in the village, a feeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had a chivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the life and doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant is too much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were often bestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'is understanding's no worse than it always were," was a ploughman's way of saying that an uncle of mine was in full possession of his faculties. "We call 'im ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... his predecessors." This courtier-like declaration, which would have been excusable even if it had had a less basis of truth than it unquestionably possessed in the case of Hwangti, was received with murmurs and marks of dissent by the literati. One of them rose and denounced the speaker as "a vile flatterer," and proceeded to expatiate on the superior merit of several of the earlier rulers. Not content with this unseasonable eulogy, he advocated the restoration of the empire to its old form of principalities, and the consequent undoing of ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... "You are a flatterer," Ruth accused him, smiling. "I am sure you and Cecile make friends quite as easily ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... this way: "Whether melancholy is incidental to man alone, or whether beasts also are liable to it." Division, and also partition, in this manner: "Whether there are three descriptions of good things." Description, like this: "What sort of person a miser is; what sort of person a flatterer;" and other things of that sort, by which the nature and life of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... me in the most flattering terms, and perhaps he may know that one may be clever, experienced in the ways of the world, and even distrustful of flattery, but yet one's self-love, ever on the watch, listens to the flatterer, and thinks him pleasant. This polite and pleasant abbe, who had become extremely crafty from having lived all his days amongst the high dignitaries at the court of the 'Servus Servorum Dei' (the best school of strategy), was not altogether an ill-disposed man, but ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... glancing at Madame Beavor, said, "And yet, madame, your charming gaiety consoles me amidst all my suffering;" upon which Madame Beavor called him "flatterer," and rapped his knuckles with her fan; the latter proceeding the brave Pole did not seem to like, for he immediately buried his hands in ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... are, what you are, and how you are? I shall go to Bologna by Ferrara, instead of Mantua: because I would rather see the cell where they caged Tasso, and where he became mad and * *, than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer, whose cursed hexameters were drilled into me at Harrow. I saw Verona and Vicenza ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Went gentle Rozinante's pace, Following his lord from place to place. To be an earl he did aspire, And reason good for such desire; But worth in these ungrateful times, To envied honor seldom climbs. Vain mortals! give your wishes o'er, And trust the flatterer Hope no more, Whose promises, whate'er they seem, End in a ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "Flatterer!" laughed Setchem, shaking her finger at her son. But it is true. Those who are now growing up dress and smarten themselves with stuffs from Kaft,—[Phoenicia]—mix their language with Syrian words, and leave the steward and housekeeper free when they themselves ought to command. Even ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Antigonus, spoken in the days of Herod, and in a manner to his face, that he was an Idumean, i.e. a half Jew, seems to me of much greater authority than that pretense of his favorite and flatterer Nicolaus of Damascus, that he derived his pedigree from Jews as far backward as the Babylonish captivity, ch. 1. sect. 3. Accordingly Josephus always esteems him an Idumean, though he says his father Antipater was of the same people with the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... his box at the Opera-Comique, his horses, his importance at festivals and reviews, and, above all, his orgies make him perfectly content.—Every evening, in full uniform, escorted by his aides-de-camp, he gallops to Choisy-sur-Seine, where, in the domicile of a flatterer named Fauvel, along with some of Robespierre's confederates or the local demagogues, he revels. They toss off the wines of the Duc de Coigny, smash the glasses, plates and bottles, betake themselves to neighboring dance-rooms and kick up a row, bursting in doors, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to last, Clarin, you are a temporizing flatterer; 30 You praise not what you feel but what he ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... some good existing in themselves. And since this appreciation receives greater weight from the testimony of good and wise men, hence men take greater pleasure in being praised and honored by them. And because a flatterer appears to praise, therefore flattery is pleasing to some. And as love is for something good, while admiration is for something great, so it is pleasant to be loved and admired by others, inasmuch as a man thus becomes aware of his own goodness ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Adulation-Can, lord treasurer; Prerogative-Can, head of the law; and Blasphemy-Can, high-priest. Whoever speaks truth, corrupts his blood, and is ipso facto degraded. In Europe you allow a man to be noble because one of his ancestors was a flatterer. But every thing degenerates, the farther it is removed from its source. I will not hear a word of any of your race before your father: what ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... planning and executing any work in another form, and perhaps this opinion arose from the idea which mankind have of their own beauty. But do not you, who are so great an adept in physics, see what a soothing flatterer, what a sort of procuress, nature is to herself? Do you think there is any creature on the land or in the sea that is not highly delighted with its own form? If it were not so, why would not a bull become enamored of a mare, or a horse of a cow? Do you believe an eagle, a lion, or a ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "Flatterer!" murmured the lady, suffering him to enfold her in his arms, and taste her lips for a moment. But the next minute she withdrew herself from his embrace, and said, half-smiling, half-abashed, "But flattery will not pay my debts. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert |
