quotations about flattery
No flatterer can be a good friend. A more wily and dangerous enchanter does not exist on the face of the earth, and yet it is the very life and soul of the fashionable world, for when it is absent the atmosphere is filled with vapors and complaints.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
"Flattery", Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Sweet words are like honey, a little may refresh, but too much gluts the stomach.
ANNE BRADSTREET
Meditations Divine and Moral
It is very easy to discern flattery in most people, but to discern its motives, requires an uncommon depth of penetration.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Flattery is refined deception--it is the froth of language--it is the alcohol of social intercourse--it is the prescription of the subtle--and the nectar of fools.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
All men are susceptible of flattery: its reception is neither precarious nor doubtful, when once the proper channel of communication is explored.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
LEO TOLSTOY
War and Peace
If it have an object, then flattery is the taking crafty advantage of weakness, which honor holds odious.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
Some men however, want more home flattery to keep them tolerably happy and up to the mark than any woman with a soul to be saved by truth can give.
ELIZA LYNN LINTON
"Flattery", The Girl of the Period and Other Social Essays