Sycophants Quotes

• Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

  Richard Steele

  Men, Fool, Add

  Richard Steele, Joseph Addison (1794). “The Guardian”, p.99

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• I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Jail, Soul, Coward

  Eugene V. Debs' anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio (June 16, 1918), as quoted in The Call Magazine, www.marxists.org. 1918.

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• Judas is neither a master of evil nor the figure of a demoniacal power of darkness but rather a sycophant who bows before the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashions. But it is precisely this anonymous power that crucified Jesus, for it was anonymous voices that cried 'away with him! Crucify him!'

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Fashion, Jesus, Voice

  Pope Benedict XVI, Irene Grassl (1992). “Co-workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, p.359, Ignatius Press

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• SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Greatness, Editors, May

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.220, University of Georgia Press

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• Journalists were never intended to be the cheerleaders of a society, the conductors of applause, the sycophants. Tragically, that is their assigned role in authoritarian societies, but not here - not yet.

  Chet Huntley

  Roles, Cheerleader, Applause

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• I've lived long enough to see the triumph of zealots and absolutists, to watch money swallow politics, to witness the rise of the corporate state. See the party of working and poor people become a sycophant of crony capitalism. Watch the union of church and state become fashionable again. Witness the coupling of news and entertainment. See everyday people cast overboard as the pirates and predators of Wall Street seized the ship of state. I didn't drift; I moved left just by standing still.

  Bill Moyers

  Wall, Party, Long

  Source: progressive.org

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• Sir, I am no sycophant or worshipper of power anywhere.

  Benjamin F. Wade

  Power, Worshippers

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• A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

  Billy Wilder

  Film Directing, Directors, Filmmaker

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• The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.

  Raymond Chandler

  Loneliness, Heart, Essence

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.120, Univ of California Press

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• It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Real, Doe, Flattery

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• I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with sound sleep & a warmer berth below it encircled, with the society of neighbors, friends & fellow laborers of the earth rather than with spies & sycophants ... I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ambition, Sleep, Men

  Thomas Jefferson, Saul Kussiel Padover (1956). “A Jefferson profile as revealed in his letters”

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• Almighty Father! let thy lowly child,
  Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold,--
  A patriot bard, by sycophants reviled.
  Let him live usefully, and not die old!

  Ebenezer Elliott

  Strong, Prayer, Children

  Ebenezer Elliott, Edwin Elliott “The Poetical Works”, Georg Olms Verlag

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• How can he [today's writer] be honored, when he does not honor himself; when he loses himself in the crowd; when he is no longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honor, Crowds, Today

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1856). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures ...”, p.265

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• In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents.

  Rollo May

  Status Quo, Dissent, Insurgent

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.34, W. W. Norton & Company

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• All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution.

  Leon Trotsky

  Communication, Party, Revolution

  Leon Trotsky (2000). “Their Morals and Ours: The Marxist View of Morality”, p.49, Resistance Books

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• Yoko had 10 years and I had 10 years and I would rather have had the 10 years I had than the ones she did. I had the raw talent and the raw human being, before the sycophants arrived.

  Cynthia Lennon

  Years, Raw Talent, Humans

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• Thanks to pathetic reporting by The New York Times and other media sycophants more than 50 years ago, Fidel Castro, following the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, was also seen by many as a liberator of Cuba. 'I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.' Castro said at the time. Only after he consolidated power, did he tell the truth: 'I am a Marxist-Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.'

  Cal Thomas

  New York, Media, Years

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• It really isn't anybody's business how many people we have working for us. What's offensive is that I'm portrayed as this prima donna with these sycophants telling me how great I am all the time. Yes, they do work for me, but we're working together for a higher good.

  Demi Moore

  People, Working Together, Complaining

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• The journalists are so devoted to Obama. They are such sycophants that they're worried about access.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Worried, Journalist, Devoted

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