Flattery Quotes

317 Flattery quotes by 206 unique authors

Implementation is the sincerest form of flattery. — L Peter Deutsch
What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let… — Samuel Johnson
Few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention. — Jack Woodford
In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant,… — Desiderius Erasmus
Flattery must be pretty thick before anybody objects to it.... — William Feather
I can spot empty flattery and know exactly where I stand. In the end it's really only my own approval or disapproval that means anything. — Agnetha Faltskog
The world is a severe schoolmaster, for its frowns are less dangerous than its smiles and flatteries, and it is a difficult task to keep… — Phillis Wheatley
'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend… — Jonathan Swift
Nothing is harder to resist than a bit of flattery. — Arnold Lobel
To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel. — Alan Bradley
The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves. — Edith Sitwell
Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery… — Gilbert K. Chesterton
Dogs live with man as courtiers 'round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice ... to push their favor in this world of… — Robert Louis Stevenson
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us. — Denis Diderot
But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for a wolf resembles a dog, so doth… — Walter Raleigh
Don't flatter the rich, or appear to willing before the great. — Thomas a Kempis
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. — Samuel Johnson
Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another. — Mark Twain
No wonder, Sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown… — Samuel Johnson
Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor… — Samuel Johnson
You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the… — Samuel Johnson
Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his… — Samuel Johnson
To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them; for they prove, at least,… — Samuel Johnson
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… — Samuel Johnson

Who Wrote These Flattery Quotes

206 authors contributed a total of 317 Flattery Quotes, led by these top contributors: