Flatterer Quotes - Page 3

• Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.

  Plutarch

  Character, Men, Self

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• Take care how you listen to the voice of the flatterer, who, in return for his little stock, expects to derive from you considerable advantage. If one day you do not comply with his wishes, be imputes to you two hundred defects instead of perfections.

  Saadi

  Two, Voice, Perfection

  Saadi, Francis Gladwin, Eric Serejski (2016). “Gulistan or Rose Garden”, p.153, Innovations and Information

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• Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.

  Stendhal

  Pride, Men, Flattery

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• The besetting sin of able men is impatience of contradiction and of criticism. Even those who do their best to resist the temptation, yield to it almost unconsciously and become the tools of toadies and flatterers. "Authorities," "disciples," and "schools" are the curse of science and do more to interfere with the work of the scientific spirit than all its enemies.

  Thomas Huxley

  School, Men, Yield

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1967). “The Essence of T. H. Huxley: Selections Form His Writings”

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• There would be no sunshine in society if the born flatterers, I mean the so-called amiable people, did not bring it in with them.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Mean, Sunshine, People

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• We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active brothers-Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University building-had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjuct editors and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of arithmetic-that flatterer of credulity-the adventure must succeed and bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Brother, Book, Adventure

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2014). “Memories, Portraits, Essays and Records (Annotated Edition)”, p.54, Jazzybee Verlag

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• People who plead with you for favours
  May eventually prove to be great flatterers.
  Your friends are only those
  Who all the time cheerfully support
  Your heart's aspiration-flames.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Friends, Heart, Flames

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• Flattery leads to vulgarity; the flatterer is despised.

  Nachman of Breslov

  Flattery, Vulgarity, Despised

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• If he be so resolved, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, Lions with toils, and men with flatterers

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Glasses, Elephants

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works”, p.1631, Oxford University Press

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• Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favour, which an artful flatterer may gradually strengthen, till wishes for a particular qualification are improved to hopes of attainment, and hopes of attainment to belief of possession.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Wish, Prejudice

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.323

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• But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected; for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when selflove favors the deceit.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Deceit, Favors

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.122

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• There are, while human miseries abound, A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth, Without one fool or flatterer at your board, Without one hour of sickness or disgust.

  John Armstrong

  Way, Waste, Fool

  John Armstrong (2011). “John Armstrong's The Art of Preserving Health: Eighteenth-century Sensibility in Practice”, p.72, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

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• A hat is a shameless flatterer, calling attention to an escaping curl, a tawny braid, a sprinkling of freckles over a pert nose, directing the eye to what is most unique about a face. Its curves emphasize a shining pair of eyes, a lofty forehead; its deep brim accentuates the pale tint of a cheek, creates an aura of prettiness, suggests a mystery that awakens curiosity in the onlooker.

  Jeanine Larmoth

  Eye, Unique, Curves

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• Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.

  Epictetus

  Eye, Soul, Crow

  Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2015). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius The Golden Sayings Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.124, Lulu.com

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• Patience is a flatterer, sir, and an ass, sir.

  Aphra Behn

  Ass

  Aphra Behn (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Aphra Behn (Illustrated)”, p.1065, Delphi Classics

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• Prophet just means intellectual. They were people giving geopolitical analysis, moral lessons, that sort of thing. We call them intellectuals today. There were the people we honor as prophets, there were the people we condemn as false prophets. But if you look at the biblical record, at the time, it was the other way around. The flatterers of the Court of King Ahab were the ones who were honored. The ones we call prophets were driven into the desert and imprisoned.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Mean, Biblical

  "The U.S. Role in the World". Interview with Harry Kreisler, globetrotter.berkeley.edu. March 22, 2002.

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• To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Political, Orators, Monarchs

  Thomas Hobbes (1750). “The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury: Never Before Collected Together : To which is Prefixed, the Author's Life, Extracted from that Said to be Written by Himself, ...”, p.179

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• Heroes, notwithstanding the high ideas which, by the means of flatterers, they may entertain of themselves, or the world may conceive of them, have certainly more of mortal than divine about them.

  Henry Fielding

  Hero, Mean, Ideas

  Henry Fielding (1861). “Tom Jones”, p.478

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• 'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give, No hollow aid; alone - man with God must strive.

  Lord Byron

  Men, Alone Man, Vanity

  Lord Byron (1854). “Childe Harold's pilgrimage”, p.188

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• Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named.

  William Congreve

  Atheist, Pimp, Atheism

  William Congreve (1785). “Love for Love: A Comedy”, p.8

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• It has well been said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Self, Arches

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• A flatterer is the shadow of a fool.

  Thomas Overbury

  Shadow, Fool, Flattery

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• If we from wealth to poverty descend,
  Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend.

  John Dryden

  Giving, Want, Poverty

  John Dryden (1822). “Fables, from Boccaccio and Chaucer”, p.259

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• Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Children, War, Holiday

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• The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.

  Moliere

  Art, Errors, Giving

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