Flattery Quotes - Page 13

• I am not one of those who left the land to the mercy of its enemies. Their flattery leaves me cold, my songs are not for them to praise.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Song, Land, Enemy

  Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, Stanley Kunitz, Max Hayward (1997). “Избранные Стихи”, p.75, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There's a certain balance between finding an opportunity to do what you really enjoy and getting caught up in the flattery of people wanting you to do things.

  Jim Gaffigan

  Opportunity, People, Balance

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. February 28, 2006.

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• Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Character, Suffering, Peculiar

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.75

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• Truth and ceremony are two things.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Two, Ceremony, Two Things

  Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome), André Dacier, Thomas Gataker, Cebes (of Thebes.) (1701). “The Emperor Marcus Antoninus: His Conversation with Himself”, p.211

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• We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, Love Is, Self

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• And this is woman's fate: all her affections are called into life by winning flatteries, and then thrown back upon themselves to perish; and her heart, her trusting heart, filled with weak tenderness, is left to bleed or break!

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Heart, Fate, Winning

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1835). “The Miscellaneous Poetical Works”, p.173

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• It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Ambition, Thinking

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Rambler”, p.410

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• My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Dream, Doom And Gloom, Hopeful

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.85, Modern Library

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• Yes, Boss?' Dorcas, the last twenty or thirty years I've been a worthless, no-good parasite.' She yawned again. 'Everybody knows that.' Nevermind the flattery. There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stop being sensible--a time to stand up and be counted--strike a blow for liberty--smite the wicked.' Ummm...' So quit yawning, the time has come.' She glanced down. 'Maybe I had better get dressed.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Blow, Years

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.89, Penguin

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• Happy in all that ragged, loose collapse of water, the fountain, its effortless descent and flatteries of spray.

  Richard Wilbur

  Rain, Rivers, Water

  Richard Wilbur, “A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the VILLa Sciarra”

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• Cats like men are flatterers.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Cat, Men, Flatterer

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Works of Walter Savage Landor”, p.207

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• Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Vanity, Coins, Currents

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• Mountains of gold would not seduce some men, yet flattery would break them down.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Gold, Mountain

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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• To say a compliment well is a high art and few possess it.

  Mark Twain

  Art, Compliment, Wells

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.63, Courier Corporation

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• If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Hands, Praise

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.118

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• Inexperienced girls flatter themselves with the notion that it is in their power to make a man happy.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Girl, Men, Notion

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.44, Penguin

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• Praise a stranger with a few nice words and he becomes a stranger that calls you a friend.

  Simon Cowell

  Nice, Stranger, Praise

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• Are you tired? You should be! You've been running through my mind all day.

  Gary Barlow

  Running, Thinking Of You, Flirty

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• Both in thy private sessions, and the universal assizes, thou shalt be sure of the same Judge, the same jury, the same witnesses, the same verdict. How certain thou art to die, thou knowest; how soon to die, thou knowest not. Measure not thy life with the longest; that were to piece it out with flattery. Thou canst name no living man, not the sickest, which thou art sure shall die before thee.

  Thomas Adams

  Christian, Art, Blessing

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• For awareness you need not go to the Himalayas; you need not go anywhere. Your life gives you enough opportunities to be aware. Somebody insults you - listen to it in full awareness. And you will be surprised - the insult is no more an insult. You may even smile. It does not hurt; it hurts only when received in unawareness. Somebody praises and appreciates you - listen with alertness. And then nobody can persuade you to do foolish things. Nobody can bribe you; flattery becomes impossible. You will smile at the whole nonsense.

  Rajneesh

  Hurt, Opportunity, Insults You

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• A few good compliments produce a wealth of good and often financial benefits.

  Mariette Hartley

  Benefits, Financial, Wealth

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• Never patronise someone who knows they don't deserve it, for they will be quick to compliment your failures.

  John Stride

  Compliment, Knows, Deserve

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• Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. The acknowledgment of those virtues on which conscience congratulates us is a tribute that we can at any tine exact with confidence; but the celebration of those which we only feign, or desire without any vigorous endeavours to attain them, is received as a confession of sovereignty over regions never conquered, as a favourable decision of disputable claims, and is more welcome as more gratuitous.

  Samuel Johnson

  Decision, Desire, Debt

  Samuel Johnson (1793). “The rambler”, p.294

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• Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Hands, Opiates

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.65

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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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