Flattery Quotes - Page 11

• Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people's, preserve dignity.

  Doug Stanhope

  People, Acquiescence, Dignity

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• What wouldst thou do, old man?
  Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
  When power to flattery bows?

  William Shakespeare

  Fear, Men, Thinking

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1785). “The Plays of William Shakspeare ...”, p.387

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• Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.

  Antisthenes

  Business, Powerful, Mistake

  "Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers (§ 12)". Book by Diogenes Laertius, circa 200 AD.

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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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• I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual.

  Doug Stanhope

  Art, People, Pieces

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• A man who does not love praise is not a full man.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Doe, Praise

  "Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit".

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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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• The heart of a woman is never so full of affection that there does not remain a little corner for flattery and love.

  Pierre de Marivaux

  Heart, And Love, Doe

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• Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Please, Acceptable, Ifs

  Marguerite Countess of Blessington, Marguerite GARDINER (Countess of Blessington.) (1839). “Desultory Thoughts and Reflections”, p.95

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• It is the folly of weak-minded people, to imagine they are what flattery or conceit represents them; and that it is useless for them to be what they are not, since they seem already to have acquired the reputation of it.

  Norm MacDonald

  People, Useless, Reputation

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• Since you are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveler, I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reading, Home, People

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.414, Penguin

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• Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.

  William Shenstone

  Imagine, Enough, Application

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.142

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• Flatter me, but delicately, please, for I am fastidious.

  Mason Cooley

  Please, Fastidious

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• The most that can be said of flattery is that it is sometimes a cheap psychological trick with which charlatans and dishonest people lull others into a state of carelessness while they pick their pockets.

  Napoleon Hill

  People, Pockets, Sometimes

  Napoleon Hill (2009). “How To Sell Your Way Through Life”, p.20, John Wiley and Sons

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• Am I the only person in the world who is shocked and amazed at the ongoing flattery of uebergeek Mark Zuckerberg?

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Zuckerberg, Ongoing, World

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• You can stroke people with words.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, People, Strokes

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2009). “The Crack-Up”, p.207, New Directions Publishing

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• 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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• We would seldom be deceived by flattery, did our own conceit not promote the delusion.

  Norm MacDonald

  Conceit, Delusion, Deceived

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• Flattery won't hurt you if you don't swallow it.

  Kin Hubbard

  Hurt, Ifs

  Kin Hubbard, David S. Hawes (1995). “The Best of Kin Hubbard: Abe Martin's Sayings and Wisecracks, Abe's Neighbors, His Almanack, Comic Drawings”, p.28, Indiana University Press

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• I get out my work and have a show for myself before I have it publicly. I make up my own mind about it-how good or bad or indifferent it is. After that, the critics can write what they please. I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

  Georgia O'Keeffe

  Writing, Mind, Criticism

  Georgia O'Keeffe (1977). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, Viking Pr

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• Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Thinking, Done, Way

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• Some folks pay a compliment like they went down in their pocket for it.

  Kin Hubbard

  Pay, Pockets, Compliment

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