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More "Flatterer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them to the vulgar. As to the court, like the government, it is divided into two parties: the Duke's, headed by the Belverde, and containing the staider and more conservative members of the Church and nobility; and the Duchess's, composed of every fribble and flatterer, every gamester and rake, every intriguing woman and vulgar parvenu that can worm a way into her favour. In such an atmosphere you may fancy how knowledge thrives. The Duke's library consists of a few volumes of theological casuistry, and her Highness never opens a ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... to apply to him the above-named moralist's description of the wise man:—"He reproves nobody, praises nobody, blames nobody, nor even speaks of himself; if any one praises him, in his own mind he contemns the flatterer; if any one reproves him, he looks with care that he be not unsettled in the state of tranquillity that he has entered into. All his desires depend on things within his power; he transfers all his aversions to those things which Nature ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... The flatterer was flattered. Having delivered the weighty news, he had leisure to savour his own importance as the bearer of it. He drank a cup of tea. Josiah was thoughtful, but Clara brimmed over with a fascinating loquacity. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Kneller—remarkable for its knowledge of, and graceful tribute to, the "serene and silent art" of painting; and the very noble epistle addressed to Congreve, which reminds you of one giant hand of genius held out to welcome and embrace another. Gross flatterer as Dryden often was, there is something in this epistle that rings true, and the emotion in it you feel even all his powers could never have enabled him to counterfeit. Such generous patronage of rising, by acknowledged merit, was ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... this complimentary speech was shouted into old Martha's ear, and she responded by shaking her head and desiring the flatterer ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... each step in the pedigree of the angler suggests some injurious reflection about the Sophist. They are both hunters after a living prey, nearly related to tyrants and thieves, and the Sophist is the cousin of the parasite and flatterer. The effect of this is heightened by the accidental manner in which the discovery is made, as the result of a scientific division. His descent in another branch affords the opportunity of more 'unsavoury comparisons.' For he ...
— Sophist • Plato
... Henry. "Nothing is wanting, sir," said Nelson, in one of his letters, "to make you the darling of the English nation but truth. Sorry am I to say, much to the contrary has been dispersed." This was not flattery, for Nelson was no flatterer. The letter in which this passage occurs shows in how wise and noble a manner he dealt with the prince. One of his royal highness's officers had applied for a court-martial upon a point in which he was unquestionably wrong. His royal highness, however, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... exhibited the innate nobility of soul of the poor 'Northamptonshire Peasant.' Yet even this humility, the true sign of genius, was ill-construed by some of Clare's lukewarm patrons, who reproached him for being a flatterer when he ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... of Antigonus, spoken in the days of Herod, and in a manner to his face, that he was an Idumean, i.e. a half Jew, seems to me of much greater authority than that pretense of his favorite and flatterer Nicolaus of Damascus, that he derived his pedigree from Jews as far backward as the Babylonish captivity, ch. 1. sect. 3. Accordingly Josephus always esteems him an Idumean, though he says his father Antipater was ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... flatterer wrote two sonnets in honour of one of his patrons, and submitted their merits to his judgment, desiring him to retain the best. After having read one of them the patron said, 'The other ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... ejaculated Mr. Solomon Jenks, a young gentleman who affected a charming frankness and abruptness in his speech, but who was in reality the most specious flatterer of the entire party. Mr. Jenks rejoiced in the following personal advantages: red hair, a blue nose, goggle eyes, and jaws of ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... remind you that in your old age you were not ashamed to violate the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?—as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?—eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue? Say that you wish to ...
— Crito • Plato
... College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood characterises him as a butt for the wits and a flatterer of great men, and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though he took no higher degree than M.A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the degree of M.B., and Dr. Grosart's note—"Herrick, no doubt, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... leave off any of his mirth, and so sit and mourn for his sin." Such mind as this, lo, have some of those who are not unlearned, and have worldly wit at will, who tell great men such tales as perilously beguile them. For the flatterer who so telleth them would, if he told a true tale, jeopard ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... words, returned to her The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: "And O! my child, should ever a flatterer Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys, And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be, Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song, Confuse his magic who is all mockery: His sweets are death." Yet, still how she doth long But just to taste, then ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... hopes that everyone will get to heaven by the religion which he professes, provided he fears God and tries to do his duty. The name of this brisk lad is Ignorance. Leaving him, they are caught in a net by Flatterer, and are smartly whipped by 'a shining one,' who lets them out of it. False ideas and vanity lay them open once more to their most dangerous enemy. They meet a man coming towards them from the direction in which they are going. They tell him that they are on the way to Mount ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... would be regarded as little acquainted with the world and with court manners, for he would cause the person to be publicly ridiculed. In this case the praise would degenerate into satire and the incautious flatterer would fare badly."[203] Flattery has always been the return which court poets make for their slavery. Ariosto and Tasso were no more free from it than were Horace and Virgil. When the poet of the Orlando Furioso discovered that Cardinal Ippolito was beginning to treat him coldly, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... indirectly at their genuine opinion of its value, not being aware that a genuine opinion was the last thing likely to be extracted from such eminent critics. It was not Mr. Bambridge's weakness to be a gratuitous flatterer. He had never before been so much struck with the fact that this unfortunate bay was a roarer to a degree which required the roundest word for perdition to give ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... cozened: cheated, beguiled. The origin of this word is interesting: a cozener is one who, for selfish ends, claims kindred or cousinship with another, and hence a flatterer ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... that wit in them, which another discerns not; and see not those errors, which are evident to the unconcerned. Nor is this Self Kindness more fatal to men in their writings, than in their actions; every man being a greater flatterer to himself, than he knows how to be to another: otherwise, it were impossible that things of such distant natures, should find their own authors so equally kind in their affections to them; and men so different in parts and virtues, should rest ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... the flatterer is not often detected, for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... all things he is the most inconsistent; for if you express admiration of him moderately, he is offended that no very great court is paid to him, whereas if you pay court to him extravagantly, he is offended with you for being a flatterer. And the most important matter of all is that which I am about to say:—he disturbs the customs handed down from our fathers, he is a ravisher of women, and he puts men to death without trial. On the other hand the rule of many ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... "Ah! flatterer, flatterer! Ye have all the guile of the tongue our enemies give Clan Campbell credit for, and that I wish I had a little more of. Still and on, it's no time for fair words. Look! Elrigmore. You'll have ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... but a flatterer," said Nance, but she did not say it clearly, for what with bewilderment and satisfaction, her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... maintain that relation uninterruptedly in a smooth and even course a particular care was necessary: the bearings had to be most assiduously oiled. Nor was Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature of the lubricant. "You have heard me called a flatterer," he said to Matthew Arnold, "and it is true. Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." He practiced what he preached. His adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the very ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... discriminating sketch of his character, the peculiarities of which are happily illustrated by anecdotes. Many things of him, unknown even to his admirers, are here given to the world, and his biographer, fully appreciating the artist, has yet, not like a flatterer, but with true independence, spoken candidly of the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Socrates, pretending to compare faces with the beauteous Critobulus, rallied only, and not abused. And Alcibiades again was smart on Socrates, as his rival in Agatho's affection. Kings are pleased when jests are put upon them as if they were private and poor men. Such was the flatterer's to Philip, who chided him: Sir, don't I keep you? For those that mention faults of which the persons are not really guilty intimate those virtues with which they are really adorned. But then it is requisite that those virtues should ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... than in the affairs of love. A lady is beautiful, and she is praised to excess for her personal attractions. Her vanity is soothed, and her mind is so darkened, that she sees no bad motive whatever, and no blemish in the flatterer. "A woman," says one well versed in our nature, "can always find a palliation for the misdeeds which are set in motion by her own beauty." How often do we see the faults of the flatterer, in this way, actually converted into graces. Or a lady is but moderately well-favored, and is commended ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... to your hotel. Your quarrel is our quarrel and that of the great Whig party of this nation. Your speech upon this occasion is the greatest that has been made by any of us, for which we wish to honor and defend you.' This I consider no ordinary compliment, coming from Lincoln, for he was no flatterer nor disposed to bestow praise where it was undeserved. Colonel Baker heartily concurred in all he said, and between those two glorious men I left the stand and we marched out of the State House through our friends, who trooped after us evidently ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... so, flatterer?" asked Elizabeth. "Well, for once I will believe your words, and assume that the Princess Elizabeth may be fair without the aid of splendor in dress. We therefore accept the invitation, Woronzow. Announce that to the regent's messenger. But still it is sad and humiliating," ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... over the loose stone roofs, have in process of years cast their fruitful net over the whole village, and fastened it to the ground under their purple weight and wayward coils, as securely as ever human heart was fastened to earth by the net of the Flatterer. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... mine, though approved by all my captains, has been so fortunate as to meet your approbation or have any weight with you." And to show his title to consideration, he gives an extract from a letter written to him by Shirley, in which that inveterate flatterer hints his regret that, by reason of other employments, Warren could not take command of the whole expedition,—"which I doubt not," says the Governor, "would be a most happy event for his Majesty's service." [Footnote: Warren to Pepperrell, ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... lord, I cannot blame thee, Who am myself attach'd with weariness, 5 To the dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest. Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it No longer for my flatterer: he is drown'd Whom thus we stray to find; and the sea mocks Our frustrate search on land. ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... the right weapon with which to combat his wife's inclinations toward the Woman's Rights mania. A love of flattery was her weak point. It is with half her sex. We too often say, by way of expressing our disapproval of a certain man, "O, he is a gross flatterer!" thus very frequently condemning the quality we most admire in him;—or, if not the one we most admire, at least the one which affords us most pleasure and gratification when in his society. But ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the time.) "By the Lord above," said the nobleman, "the next greatest pleasure, to looking at her beauty, is to listen to your obliging discourse; I would rather pay you usury than obtain money gratis from any one else." "Of a surety, my lord," said one of his principal associates, who was called flatterer, "my uncle shows you no respect but what is fully your right; but with your permission, I will assert, that he has not bestowed half the commendation on her ladyship which she deserves. I cannot myself produce, and I will defy any man to produce ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Miss Percy. I feel sure he would not care for any of these other young ladies. I happen to know what he thinks of young ladies. But you—you are so different! I do not wish to be a flatterer, like so many of my shallow kind, but I am sure that he would appreciate the privilege of knowing you, would feel at his ease with you. But of course it all depends upon Mrs. Nunn. She may disapprove of your meeting one ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... him with an easy, kind air; he, always a flatterer with his lips, cast himself ten times on his knees before the prince, and gained nothing by all these demonstrations. He went to rejoin Mademoiselle on the following day at Choisy, and dared to scold her for having constructed and even bought this ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... chosen a subject of apparent splendour, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror and legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Cyrus and Themistocles. Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret revenge, and the first glance of favour might again tempt him to suspend and suppress a libel, in which the Roman Cyrus is degraded into an odious and contemptible tyrant, in which both the Emperor ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... get an extra biscuit for that," put in Roy, raising himself on his elbow and looking alarmed. "Just because you're a better flatterer than ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... represented as a very Diogenes, for carping and sarcasm—a very Aristophanes, to blacken character with ridicule and reproach. But he is as far removed from the cynic or the buffoon, as from the panegyrist or the flatterer. He is not the indiscriminate admirer that Plutarch was. Nor is he such a universal hater as Sallust. It is the fault of the times that he is obliged to deal so much in censure. If there ever were perfect monsters ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... dear Clara, in addressing you, so lately a stranger. Think not that I am an idle flatterer, when I say that your beauty and worth have awakened a deep love for you in my heart, and this love must be my excuse. I would have sought another interview with you, but I know the rules of your school ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... literature and taste, and beloved for the candour, moderation, and mildness of his character. Were I capable of paying a suitable tribute of admiration to him, I should certainly not withhold it at a moment[226] when it is not possible that I should be suspected of being an interested flatterer. But how weak would be my voice after that of the millions whom he governed. His condescending and obliging compliance with my solicitation, I with humble gratitude acknowledge; and while by publishing his letter to me, accompanying ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Mrs. Pasmer was a flatterer, and it cannot be claimed for her that she flattered adroitly always. But adroitness in flattery is not necessary for its successful use. There is no morsel of it too gross for the condor gullet and the ostrich stomach of human vanity; there is no society in which it does not give the utterer instant ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Flatterer," cried she, and then, with a change, "But why should I say so," she added, "when I protest I think the same? A week ago I had a council with my father director, the glass; and the glass replied, 'Not yet!' I confess my face in this way once a month. O! a very solemn moment. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the human soul had been reading him, liking him, and making him feel a heart-warming sympathy. The man who shrunk from lion-hunters, and who could return the churl's answer to the advances of sycophant and flatterer, enthusiastically poured out for the ungainly mountain boy all the rare quality and bouquet of his seasoned personal charm. It was a vintage distilled from experience and humanity. It had met the ancient requirement for the mellowing and perfecting ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... Sophie's wit never hesitated to break a lance even on those she liked. "What are you thinking of?" she said to Bernard, in one of his abstracted moods. "I was talking to myself," he replied. "Be careful," she said archly; "you gossip with a flatterer." To a physician, whom she met with a gun under his arm, she laughed aloud, "Ah, doctor, you are afraid of your professional resources failing." Her racy repartees were in every mouth from Paris to Versailles, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... replied Varin, who was always a flatterer, and who at last saved his ill-gotten wealth by the surrender of his wife as a love-gift to the Duc de Choiseul. "We all have our own injuries to bear. The Intendant was just showing us the spot of dirt cast upon him by ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Marquis [kissing her hand]—Flatterer! Now sit down, and let's talk about serious things. [Taking a newspaper from the table.] The gout hasn't kept me from reading the news. Do you know that poor Deodat's death is a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Boerhaave wrote in a letter that is preserved in the British Museum: "Linnaeus, who bears this letter, is alone worthy of seeing you, alone worthy of being seen by you. He who shall see you both together shall see two men whose like will scarce ever be found in the world." And the doctor was no flatterer, as may be inferred from his treatment of Peter the Great. But the aged baronet had had his own way so long, and was so well pleased with it, that he would have nothing to do with Linnaeus. At Oxford the learned professor Dillenius received him with ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... Majesty George the Third, who, let people say what they will of him, was truly the sailors' friend, and wished to be his subjects' friend, as far as he had the power. Sir Harry was a favourite, not because he was a flatterer, but because the King knew him to be ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard. Sakil's high roof, the Muses' palace, rung With endless cries, and endless sons he sung. To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first; But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst. Sakil without distinction threw his bread, Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed." I need not say that Sakil is Sackville, or that Laurus is a translation of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this sounds not like the Henry Carroll of a month since. You are a flatterer," said ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... pleasure, and made me very proud, as it comes from a person who is no flatterer, and would not have said it if he did not think so, or feel so. The new Cabinet you have by this time seen ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... feasters, and his house was open to all comers and goers at Athens. His large wealth combined with his free and prodigal nature to subdue all hearts to his love; men of all minds and dispositions tendered their services to Lord Timon, from the glass-faced flatterer whose face reflects as in a mirror the present humor of his patron, to the rough and unbending cynic who, affecting a contempt of men's persons and an indifference to worldly things, yet could not stand out against ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Liar replied. "What of these whom you see now about me?" "These are ministers,[7] these are lieutenants, and leaders of troops." The Ape thus lyingly praised, together with his crew, orders a present to be given to the flatterer. On this the Truth-teller {remarked} to himself: "If so great the reward for lying, with what gifts shall I not be presented, if, according to my custom, I tell the truth?" The Ape then {turns} to the Truthful Man: "And what do you think ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... have lately made her practise the passages in the Grand Aria, because, if she goes to Italy, it is necessary that she should sing bravuras. The cantabile she certainly will never forget, being her natural bent. Raaff (who is no flatterer), when asked to give his sincere opinion, said, "She does not sing like a scholar, but like ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... his wife, are each of them a gem; At the inn, and at his house two nights I staid, And what was to be paid, I know he paid: If nothing of their kindness I had wrote, Ungrateful me the world might justly note: Had I declared all I did hear, and see, For a great flatterer then I deemed should be, Him and his wife, and modest daughter Bess, With earth, and heaven's felicity, God bless. Two days a man of his, at his command, Did guide me to the midst of Westmoreland, And my conductor with a liberal fist, To keep me moist, scarce any alehouse ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... and by his side Bloody Catullus leaning on his guide: Decrepit, yet a furious lover he, And deeply smit with charms he could not see. A monster, that ev'n this worst age outvies, Conspicuous and above the common size. A blind base flatterer; from some bridge or gate, Raised to a murd'ring minister of state. Deserving still to beg upon the road, And bless each passing ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... kind of turning away and looking as if what Charley'd said really had made her feel like blushing a little. Then she faced round again and shook hands with Boston—who was so rattled he seemed only about half awake, and done it like a pump—and says to him: "Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself"—she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy—"to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... said Mrs. Holt, vigorously, "I am not a flatterer. I am telling you something for your own good—which you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the line of frontier posts to the north. But at least there would be the joy of seeing Jess in a few days and showing her his troop—her and Pappoose. How wonderfully that little schoolgirl must have grown and developed! How beautiful a girl she must now be if that photograph was no flatterer! By the way, where was that photo? What had he done with it? For the first time in four days he remembered his picking it up when Mrs. Hal Folsom collapsed at sight of Jake's swooning. Down in the depths of the side pocket of his heavy blue flannel hunting shirt he found it, crumpled ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others,—from one in whose breast no anger durable ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter, thus the rabbins have expressed— A cherub's face—a reptile all the rest. Beauty that shocks you, facts that none can trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that bites ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... applauded author, "At last I am beloved!" When a woman, be she maid, wife, or widow, lets the charming words escape her, "Thou art handsome," the words may be false, but the man opens his thick skull to their subtle poison, and thenceforth he is attached by an everlasting tie to the pretty flatterer, the true or the deceived judge; she becomes his particular world, he thirsts for her continual testimony, and he never wearies of it, even if he is a crowned prince. Ernest walked proudly up and down his room; he struck a three-quarter, full-face, and profile attitude before the glass; he ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... added a new word (mignardes) to the French language. One such, 628, hangs a little further along this wall. In 1657 he won royal favour by a portrait of the young Louis, a branch of art in which he excelled. Mignard was a supple flatterer, and Louis sat to him many times. Once, later in the monarch's life, his royal sitter asked if he observed any change. "Sire," answered the courtly painter, "I only perceive a few more victories on your brow." A portrait of Madame de Maintenon, 639, is seen (L. wall) in this room. Mignard's greatest ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... "Another base flatterer!" cried Ruth, laughing gaily. "I believe you girls say such things just to jolly me along, and so that you will not have to exercise any gray ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... I am not the flatterer of Congress, but in this instance they are right; and if that measure is supported, the currency will acquire a value, which, without it, it will not. But this is not all: it will give relief to the finances until such time as they can be properly ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... "'You flatterer! But, seriously, I thought every one knew the Margravine of Kalbs-Kuchen. She is the greatest heiress in Europe—has a magnificent independent principality, noble palaces, and such diamonds! That personage beside her is her relation, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... eagerness that they had never seen a regal countenance." "Yet there was no occasion to run very far to see the handsome face of a king." "Hold your tongue, madame la baronne de Pamklek, you are a flatterer. There is a crowned head which for thirty years has desired to visit France, but I have always turned a deaf ear, and will resist it as long as possible." "Who, sire, is the king so unfortunate as to banished by you ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... everything good and noble, and all the other expressions, whatever they may be; and the sigh 'Alas, poor Yorick,' which expresses everything at once—have become proverbial among us Germans.... Yorick was a crawling parasite, aflatterer of the great, an unendurable burr on the clothing of those upon whom he had determined ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... intelligent child, are absolutely inexhaustible; his curiosity about all things beyond this island, the prison-house of his existence, is perfectly intense; his countenance is very pleasing, mild, and not otherwise than thoughtful; he is, in common with the rest of them, a stupendous flatterer, and, like the rest of them, also seems devoid of physical and moral courage. To-day, in the midst of his torrent of enquiries about places and things, I suddenly asked him if he would like to be free. A gleam of light absolutely shot over his whole countenance, like the vivid ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... of what is pleasant in daily life: He that is as he should be may be called Friendly, and his mean state Friendliness: he that exceeds, if it be without any interested motive, somewhat too Complaisant, if with such motive, a Flatterer: he that is deficient and in all ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... Collins: you are a flatterer. You will superintend the breakfast yourself as usual, of course, ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... pleasure, my dear Eugene, that your conduct is worthy of the name you bear, and of the protector under whom it is so easy to learn to become a great captain. Bonaparte has written to me that you are every thing that he can wish. As he is no flatterer, my heart is proud to read your eulogy sketched by a hand which is usually far from being lavish in praise. You well know that I never doubted your capability to undertake great things, or the brilliant courage which you inherit. But you, alas! know how much I dislike your removal from ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the earliest opportunity of expressing her belief that you are acquainted with the Clickits; she is sure she has heard the Clickits speak of you—she must not tell you in what terms, or you will take her for a flatterer. You admit a knowledge of the Clickits; the plausible lady immediately launches out in their praise. She quite loves the Clickits. Were there ever such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent people—such a gentle, interesting little woman as Mrs. Clickit, or such a frank, unaffected creature ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... finest monuments of the imperial city. The Odeum, a roofed theatre, was erected by him, capable of holding twelve thousand people. He also made many additions to his palace on the Palatine—so lofty, that Martial, his flatterer, described it as towering above the clouds, and Statius compared the ceiling ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... it as his life-work to portray Russia truthfully, not to paint and powder and "prettify" it for show purposes, and the result was an outburst of fury on the part of those who were asked to look at themselves as real people instead of as the master-pieces of a professional flatterer. When Fathers and Children was published in 1862, the only people who were pleased were the enemies of everything in which Turgenev believed. "I received congratulations," ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... searching discernment, Mrs. Fabens had discovered in him more than one design which she pronounced artful; she studied his character, and told her husband and daughter in confidence, she believed him a cunning flatterer, and a cheat; and that he would not always sail in smooth water ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... finished flatterer. No man ever knew better, except it was Lely, how to pay the compliment of the brush. This form is the substantial, the lasting compliment for which golden guineas are gladly paid. Grace and elegance are the hall-mark of his every picture. But the artist was a courtier in ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... not merely a flatterer then it's long absence that gives charm. I assure you, Lieutenant Kenton, that we're very, very common clay. You ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... let you in by stealth, and put myself unguarded into your hands: oh I die with the apprehension of approaching danger! and yet I have not power to retreat; I must on, love compels me, love holds me fast; the smiling flatterer promises a thousand joys, a thousand ravishing minutes of delight; all innocent and harmless as his mother's doves; but oh they bill and kiss, and do a thousand things I must forbid Philander; for I have often heard ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the voice of Sylvia: "You must beware of Douglas, Papa; he is an inveterate flatterer." She laughed as she said it; and of those present it was Aunt Varina alone who caught the ominous note, and saw the bitter curl of her lips as she spoke. Aunt Varina and her niece were the only persons there who knew Douglas van Tuiver ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... mysterious procedure Few men have been admired by their own domestics Few men have made a wife of a mistress, who have not repented it First informed who were to be the other guests First thing to be considered in love matters: a fitting time Flatterer in your old age or in your sickness Follies do not make me laugh, it is our wisdom which does Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition Folly of gaping after future things Folly satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be Folly than to ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... persons than themselves. For their decrees are like the others' edicts; their demagogues like the others' flatterers: but their greatest resemblance consists in the mutual support they give to each other, the flatterer to the tyrant, the demagogue to the people: and to them it is owing that the supreme power is lodged in the votes of the people, and not in the laws; for they bring everything before them, as their influence is owing to their being supreme whose opinions they entirely ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... cases mentioned above, a man is not always bound to restitution: because counsel and flattery are not always the efficacious cause of robbery. Hence the counsellor or flatterer is bound to restitution, only when it may be judged with probability that the unjust taking ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... "You flatterer! You dear, bonny lover. You whom I had always loved and prayed for, when I knew not where you were! You who had not left me to be like Mariana, but had hurried home at once for me when your man's work was done,—doing just what a girl would ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... "Fouche," ch. xi., shows how Bonaparte's private police managed the affair. Harel was afterwards promoted to the governorship of the Castle of Vincennes: the four talkers, whom he and the police had lured on, were executed after the affair of Nivose. That dextrous literary flatterer, the poet Fontanes, celebrated the "discovery" of the Arena plot by publishing anonymously a pamphlet ("A Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte") in which he decided that no one but Caesar deserved the honour of a comparison with Bonaparte, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... weakness of our moral and intellectual being, of which the comparatively strongest are often the most, and the most painfully, conscious, needs the confirmation derived from the coincidence and sympathy of the friend, as much as the voice of honour within us denounces the pretences of the flatterer. Be assured, then, that I write as I think, when I tell you that, from the style and thoughts of your letter, I should have drawn a very different conclusion from that which you appear to have done, concerning both your talents and the cultivation which they have received. Both ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... Ferrara, instead of Mantua: because I would rather see the cell where they caged Tasso, and where he became mad and * *, than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer, whose cursed hexameters were drilled into me at Harrow. I saw Verona and Vicenza ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not proving a sufficient substitute for divine authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and who was the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the claim that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself unwittingly ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... beautiful boy," said Miss Stapylton, demurely. "Thank you, Olaf; I begin to think you are a dangerous flatterer. But he is only a boy, Olaf! And I had always thought of Gerald Musgrave as a learned person with a fringe of whiskers all around his ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... dear little flatterer you are! Does it really matter whether I look pretty or not? Aunt Marjorie would scold you, child, for praising my looks to my face; she would ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red rose from off this ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... flushed, and his heart warmed pleasurably. Here was a compliment from the very soul of nature. And albeit the lovely flatterer's experience of men was avowedly most limited, yet her taste was unvitiated as her sincerity, and her judgment may therefore have been more valuable than that of the most practised belle of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... "You are a little arch-flatterer," I said; "and the Basin, out of its goodness of heart, has made me vain, that is all. It won't do. I need to sweep some more floors and peel some more potatoes." She would not smile; she shook her puzzled head at me. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... new regent humbly bowed. Wolves, bears, and mighty tigers bend, And strive who most shall condescend. 10 He straight assumes a solemn grace, Collects his wisdom in his face. The crowd admire his wit, his sense: Each word hath weight and consequence. The flatterer all his art displays: He who hath power, is sure of praise. A fox stept forth before the rest, And thus the servile throng address'd. 'How vast his talents, born to rule, And trained in virtue's honest school: 20 What clemency his temper sways! How uncorrupt are all his ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... and his aim uncertain that day, yet Brithric's voice was louder than ever in praising the skill of the Atheling. The rest of the royal wards took their cue from the bold flatterer, and addressed to the prince the most extravagant compliments every time his arrow came near the mark, which they all purposely ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... is no flatterer of the little passions of men, will not be much incommoded by their presence. Gibbon paints his own situation in the heart of the fashionable world:—"I had not been endowed by art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address which unlock every door and every bosom. While coaches ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... word for a flatterer (assentator) implies no more than a person that barely consents; and indeed such a one, if a man were able to purchase or maintain him, can not be bought too dear. Such a one never contradicts you, but gains upon you, not by a fulsome way of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... all law and equity. Historians since Hume have commonly been willing to suppose that the Government proceeded upon some solid ground. In Lingard's Catholic eyes, Ralegh was simply an unscrupulous flatterer of Elizabeth, and an immoral adventurer. Not pledging his own judgment to the righteousness of the verdict, he remarks that 'the guilt of Ralegh was no longer doubted after the solemn asseveration of Cobham' on the scaffold. Hallam had no bias. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Metellus; Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours; Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. 190 Gentlemen all,—alas, what shall I say? My credit now stands on such slippery ground, That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, Either a coward or a flatterer. That I did love thee, Caesar, O, 'tis true: 195 If, then, thy spirit look upon us now, Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death, To see thy Antony making his peace, Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes, Most noble! in the presence of thy corse? ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... performer, actor; pedant, pedagogue, doctrinaire, purist, euphuist, mannerist; grimacier; lump of affectation, precieuse ridicule[Fr], bas bleu[Fr], blue stocking, poetaster; prig; charlatan &c. (deceiver) 548; petit maitre &c. (fop) 854; flatterer &c. 935; coquette, prude, puritan. V. affect, act a part, put on; give oneself airs &c. (arrogance) 885; boast &c. 884; coquet; simper, mince, attitudinize, pose; flirt a fan; overact, overdo. Adj. affected, full of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "Nay, but a flatterer often fosters by praising the erring thought. Isabel hath something, dear lord, of thy high heart and courage; and ever from childhood, her vaulting spirit, her very character of stately beauty, hath given her a conviction of destiny and power loftier than those ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... admiration and rapture; because they knew this was the sure way to please him, and to secure his favour. For flattery is nothing else but a commerce of falsehood and lying, founded upon interest on one side, and vanity on the other. The flatterer desirous to advance himself, and make his fortune; the prince to be praised and admired, because he is his own first flatterer, and carries within himself a more subtile and better prepared poison than any adulation ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... same old flatterer, Hans," said Inza; "but you mustn't try to flirt with me now. I'm ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... spoken,' said the Countess, pluming. 'Now let me explain myself. My dear, I have fought worldly battles too long and too earnestly. I am rightly punished. I do but quote Herbert Duffian's own words: he is no flatterer though you say he has such soft fingers. I am now engaged in a spiritual contest. He is very wealthy! I have resolved to rescue back to our Church what can benefit the flock of which we form ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... McCulloch-Williams Monotony Philip Gerry "Plug" Ivory and "Plug" Avery Holman F. Day Supper With Natica Robert E. MacAlarney By The Fountain Margaret Houston Bas Bleu Anna A. Rogers The Vagabond M. M. The Doing of the Lambs Susan Sayre Titsworth The Unattained William Hamilton Hayne The Flatterer George Hibbard The Miracle of Dawn Madison Cawein The Song of Broadway Robert Stewart Green Devils and Old Maids Emerson G. Taylor Two Sorrows Charles Hanson Towne Love and Mushrooms Frances Wilson Some Feminine Stars Alan Dale For ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... appreciation. When some flatterer hinted that Johnson had taken more than his right share of the evening's talk, Burke said, "Nay, it is enough for me to have rung the bell for him." Some one else spoke of a successful imitation of Johnson's style. Burke with vehemence ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the University building—had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjunct editors, and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of arithmetic—that flatterer of credulity—the adventure must succeed and bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that morning walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my first draught of consideration; it reconciled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... When it was done, the king showed him what manner of meat he had eaten, asking him how it liketh him. Harpagus made answer, though with an heavy heart, Quod regi placet, id mihi quoque placet; "Whatsoever pleaseth the king, that also pleaseth me." And here we have an ensample of a flatterer, or dissembler: for this Harpagus spake against his own heart and conscience. Surely, I fear me, there be a great many of flatterers in our time also, which will not be ashamed to speak against their own heart and ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... change the common form of our addresses to the throne, to do once, at least, what his majesty demands and the people expect, and to remember that no characters are more inconsistent, than those of a counsellor of the king, and a flatterer of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... I am afraid, too much concerned here. This is one instance of that adulation which we bestow on our own minds, and this almost universally. For there is scarce any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... my dream I start, and find them not; then I could weep To think how Fortune blights the fairest flowers; To think how soon life's first endearments fail, And we are still misled by Hope's smooth tale, Who, like a flatterer, when the happiest hours Pass, and when most we call on her to stay, Will fly, as faithless and as fleet ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... of the Earth art thou! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name[hv] Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who wooed thee once, thy Vassal, and became[hw] The flatterer of thy fierceness—till thou wert A God unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deemed thee for a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... utilitarian and selfish. Ovidian gallantry does not deserve such a name, because it is nothing but false flattery for the selfish purpose of beguiling foolish women. Arabic flatteries are of a superior order because sincere at the time being and addressed to girls whom the flatterer desires to marry. But this gallantry, too, is only skin deep. Its motives are sensual and selfish, for as soon as the girl's physical charm begins to fade she ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... his diurnal course all over the world, may be, for aught we know, photographing mankind, and registering us, too; and, if we are to judge from the specimens we do see, the collection cannot be very flattering. Who dares call the sun a flatterer? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... reforms should be found among the adherents of the worst abuses. But the murmurs of the suitor and the lamentations of the patriot had scarcely any avenue to the ears of the powerful. The King, and the Minister who was the King's master, smiled on their illustrious flatterer. The whole crowd of courtiers and nobles sought his favour with emulous eagerness. Men of wit and learning hailed with delight the elevation of one who had so signally shown that a man of profound learning and of brilliant wit might understand, far better than any plodding dunce, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grown into a flatterer," said Bob, with a laugh. "But come, mother, this way; I've brought the wagon for you. Look after the luggage, Tim—Oh! I forgot. This is Tim, Hetty—Tim Lumpy. You remember, you used to see us playing together when we were ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... would call you an old flatterer," she returned with a light laugh, but a tell-tale moisture ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... all the little girls, and praised their bright eyes and glossy curls. "For," said his mother, "he is a sad flatterer, and not nearly so truthful, I am sorry to say, as his brother, George Washington, who never told ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... other girl, just because she is pretty and I am not. Go! I don't love you any longer!" and then she caught the coaxing cat with both hands to her breast, pressed her smooth chin on the white head of the little flatterer, and gazed after the boat. In ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... a sad flatterer, my dear Beaufort," returned St. Aulaire, one hand on the hilt of his silver dress sword, the other holding his chapeau de bras. He regarded Beaufort for an instant with a sour smile, and then turned and made ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... another channel. But the words haunted her, "I would give my fortune to be Algernon." Could he be in earnest? Perhaps it was only a passing compliment—men were fond of paying such. But the Squire was no flatterer; he seldom said what he did not mean. She re-read Algernon's letter, and thought no more about the words that his ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can really do any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the essential point, ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... while human miseries abound, A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth, Without one fool or flatterer at your board, Without one hour of sickness ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy ourselves worth somewhat—I with my painting, and you with your wisdom. When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time. So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly—behaving exactly as if you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... ancient law. The virtuous man must therefore be promoted, and the vicious man must be surely punished. The man who is untruthful is a powerful instrument to endanger the state and a keen weapon to destroy the nation. The flatterer loves to tell the faults of the inferior to the superior, and also to disclose the errors of the superior to the inferior. Such men are alike unfaithful to the prince and unfriendly to fellow citizens, and in the end fail not ...
— Japan • David Murray
... iniquity my law! I trod the nations under me! Their wealth gilded my palaces, where now thou mayst see the fox and hear the owl. Wicked men were my cabinet counselors. The flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondmen wet the soil with tears and blood! Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo here have I my recompense, tormented with such downfalls as ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with ...
— The Republic • Plato
... said Mrs. Lancaster, gayly, "I have known Mr. Keith a long time, and I give you one standing piece of advice. Don't believe one word that he tells you; for he is the most insidious flatterer that lives." ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Colax, an old Play of Plautus)—Ver. 25. Although Nonius Marcellus professes to quote from the Colax of Plautus (so called from the Greek Kolax, "a flatterer" or "parasite"), some scholars have disbelieved in the existence of any Play of Plautus known by that name. Cooke says: "If Plautus had wrote a Play under the title of 'Colax,' I should think it very unlikely that it should have escaped Terence's eye, considering ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... difficult task. If I said that she was right, she would scorn me as a simple, empty-headed flatterer. If, on the other hand, I tried to contradict her, she was sure to conquer me with arguments. So I thought I ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... praise his trash. But if he keeps a table, drinks good wine, And gives his hearers handsomely to dine; If he'll stand bail, and 'tangled debtors draw Forth from the dirty cobwebs of the law; Much shall I praise his luck, his sense commend, If he discern the flatterer from the friend. Tu seu donaris seu quid donare voles cui; Nolito ad versus tibi factos ducere plenum Laetitiae; clamabit enim, Pulchre, bene, recte! Pallescet; super his etiam stillabit amicis Ex oculis rorem; saliet; tundet pede terram. Ut qui conducti ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... like the idea of pretty Duchesses?' she ventured reproachfully. 'And you are only a flatterer ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... set on her health and life and peace of mind; let your praise of her go to the full extent of her deserts, but let it be consistent with truth and with sense, and such as to convince her of your sincerity. He who is the flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindest appellation that her Christian name affords is the best you can use, especially before faces. An everlasting 'my dear' is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love that ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... world had been his marriage with Sally Flannelly,—that Sally whom Macdermot had rejected,—for from the time of his wedding he had much prospered in all worldly things. He was a hardworking man, and in that consisted his only good quality; he was plausible, a good flatterer, not deficient in that sort of sharpness which made him a successful attorney in a small provincial town, and he could be a jovial companion, when called on to take that part. Principle had never stood much ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... of yours, Leo, or rather of your Court; by his example alone we may learn that an enemy is not more baneful than a flatterer. For what did he bring about by his flattery, except evils which no king could have brought about? At this day the name of the Court of Rome stinks in the nostrils of the world, the papal authority is growing ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... indeed, to a long-exercised deference to Lundie and his family; for, while the Major himself was much too acute to be the dupe of one so much his inferior in real talents and attainments, most persons are accustomed to make liberal concessions to the flatterer, even while they distrust his truth and are perfectly aware of his motives. On the present occasion, the contest in skill was between two men as completely the opposites of each other in all the leading essentials of character as very well could be. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... sales were made not to get money, but to reduce the supply, to meet conditions. Money needs were not serious until both banks failed two years ago, and then it became a calamity. And now, my young counselor, adviser, flatterer, and friend, do you think I should seek a job in the ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... mean'st by this? Kent. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much; I know Sir, I am no flatterer, he that beguild you in a plaine accent, was a plaine Knaue, which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... have ridden you thousands of miles and you've heard all my songs over and over! Well, well, P.D., you are a subtle flatterer! Come along!" Then he turned to Jim Galway: "Has John ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... elaborate eulogy. No doubt Pope came to regard a letter from Hill with terror, though Hill compared him to Horace and Juvenal, and hoped that he would live till the virtues which his spirit would propagate became as general as the esteem of his genius. In short, Hill, who was a florid flatterer, is so complimentary that we are not surprised to find him telling Richardson, after Pope's death, that the poet's popularity was due to a certain "bladdery swell of management." "But," he concludes, "rest his memory in in peace! It ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... didst thou, poor fond thing! Heave and flutter to his sighs While the flatterer on his wing, Woo'd, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... de Broglie, d'Estaing, and others—all men of honor.' How far-sighted was my father, in recommending these men! They are the very nobles who have kept aloof from the late king's mistresses. With one exception, I adopt the list; but there is one among them, who stooped to be a flatterer of Du Barry. The Duke d'Aiguillon is certainly a statesman, but he cannot ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a flatterer, as you always were. If I can rival you in that blue cotton—Charlotte, do you think you ought to wear cotton ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... measure, Let me seize thy wetted string! Swiftly flies the flatterer, pleasure, Headlong, ever on ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... myself from seeming like a flatterer, I must say it's because of the woods feature that I remember you so well. The forest interests me. I'm afraid I'm inclined to be very foolish about the woods. Why, ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... that enemy of yours, Leo, or rather of your Court; by his example alone we may learn that an enemy is not more baneful than a flatterer. For what did he bring about by his flattery, except evils which no king could have brought about? At this day the name of the Court of Rome stinks in the nostrils of the world, the papal authority is growing weak, and its notorious ignorance is evil spoken of. We should ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... the honour that was doone him there, his intollerable pride in commanding the waters of the flouds not to rise, he humbleth himselfe and confesseth Christ Iesus to be king of kings, he refuseth to weare the crowne during his life, he reproueth a gentleman flatterer, his issue legitimate and illegitimate, his inclination in his latter yeares, what religious places he erected, repaired, and inriched; what notable men he fauoured and reuerenced, his lawes; and that in causes as well ecclesiasticall as temporall he had cheefe and sole gouernement ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... with the mass, few were as often right, and none of less selfishness, than this simple-minded and upright gentleman. He loved his native land, while he saw and regretted its weaknesses; was its firm and consistent advocate abroad, without becoming its interested or mawkish flatterer at home, and at all times, and in all situations, manifested that his heart was where it ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... "It was Flatterer that did this," said the Shining One. "He is a false apostle that hath transformed himself into ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "Young flatterer!" she answered, smiling and slightly flushing. "But tell me truly, Traverse, am I very much faded? Have care and toil and grief made ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... and make up to the other girl, just because she is pretty and I am not. Go! I don't love you any longer!" and then she caught the coaxing cat with both hands to her breast, pressed her smooth chin on the white head of the little flatterer, and gazed after the boat. In her ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... of the same opinion as Zenobia, for she was ambitious, and the dream was captivating. And Mrs. Ferrars soon gained Zenobia's good graces, for she had many charms, and, though haughty to the multitude, was a first-rate flatterer. Zenobia liked flattery, and always said she did. Mr. Under-Secretary Ferrars took a mansion in Hill Street, and furnished it with befitting splendour. His dinners were celebrated, and Mrs. Ferrars gave ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... It was during this war that a bold flatterer (whose name is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander and Trajan, in order to direct the victorious Constantius in the footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former of these has been published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai (Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.) ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... "Vain flatterer," said Zarah, yet seeming soothed even by the flattery which she scoffed at, "you would persuade me that it was honourable love which you expected the Duke was to have offered me. How durst you urge a gross a deception, to which time, place, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... affected reverence, do you believe they would have hailed his name with cheers, or have heard it with anything of respect?" And again; "We degrade our own honour and the sovereign's by unduly and unjustly praising him; and the mere slaverer and flatterer is one who comes forward, as it were, with flash notes, and pays with false coin his tribute to Caesar. I don't disguise that I feel somehow on my trial here for loyalty,—for honest English feeling." This was said by Thackeray at a dinner at Edinburgh, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... your flatterer's nature," cried Vixen. "He has slavered you with pretty speeches and soft words, as the cobra slavers his victim, and he will devour you, as the cobra does. He will swallow up your peace of mind, your self-respect, your independence, your money—all good things you possess. He will make ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... love, forsooth, thy plea—(profaned name!) The path of Christian neophyte hast thou trod, And, in God's name, hast mocked Almighty God! Earth, heaven, and hell in turn have been thy tool, And him thou hast traduced thou wouldst befool! Go,—bully-flatterer—liar!—Every part Thou playest, while delay doth break my heart! Enough of dallying! While thou dost dissolve Thy feeble soul in doubt, hear my resolve: The God who made me—Him will I adore; He holds my plighted faith,—and evermore He works salvation ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... As poison heals, in just proportion used: In heaps, like ambergrise, a stink it lies, But well dispersed, is incense to the skies. P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats. Is there a lord who knows a cheerful noon Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon? Whose table, wit or modest merit share, Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or play'r? Who copies yours or Oxford's better part, To ease the oppressed, and raise the sinking heart? Where'er he shines, O Fortune, gild ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... abundant and the public life vigorous; thus Livy was early trained in eloquence, and lived amid scenes of human activity. About 30 B.C. he settled at Rome, where his literary talents secured the patronage and friendship of Augustus. But though a courtier he was no flatterer. 'Titus Livius,' says Tacitus (Ann. iv. 34), 'pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cn. Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship.' He returned to his native town before his death, 17 A.D., ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... thus become aware of some good existing in themselves. And since this appreciation receives greater weight from the testimony of good and wise men, hence men take greater pleasure in being praised and honored by them. And because a flatterer appears to praise, therefore flattery is pleasing to some. And as love is for something good, while admiration is for something great, so it is pleasant to be loved and admired by others, inasmuch as a man thus becomes aware of his own goodness or greatness, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... there is, perhaps a worse, A brutal boorishness, which fain would win Regard by unbrushed teeth and close-shorn skin, Yet all the while is anxious to be thought Pure independence, acting as it ought. Between these faults 'tis Virtue's place to stand, At distance from the extreme on either hand. The flatterer by profession, whom you see At every feast among the lowest three, Hangs on his patron's looks, takes up each word Which, dropped by chance, might else expire unheard, Like schoolboys echoing what their masters say In sing-song drawl, or Gnatho in the play: While ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... the condition of a woman, that thy little tresses of brown have become the jet-black and flowing hair that becomes thy years, and that thou hast the stature, and, I say it not in idleness of speech, Martha, for thou knowest my tongue is no vain flatterer, but do I not see that thou hast grown into all the excellence of a most comely maiden? But 'tis not thus, or rather 'twas not thus, with her we mourn; for till this hour have I ever pictured my sister the little innocent we sported with, that gloomy night she was ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... are, while human miseries abound, A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth, Without one fool or flatterer at your board, Without one hour of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... summer day, a girl of twenty-two sat gazing from the casement in that turret-chamber—a girl whose face even a flatterer would have praised but little; and Philippa Fitzalan had no flatterers. The pretty child—as pretty children often do—had grown into a very ordinary, commonplace woman. Her hair, indeed, was glossy and luxuriant, and had deepened from its early flaxen into the darkest shade to which ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... the most inconsistent; for if you express admiration of him moderately, he is offended that no very great court is paid to him, whereas if you pay court to him extravagantly, he is offended with you for being a flatterer. And the most important matter of all is that which I am about to say:—he disturbs the customs handed down from our fathers, he is a ravisher of women, and he puts men to death without trial. On the other hand the rule of many has first a name attaching ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... with a man who thinks for himself and has no false scruples in putting his meaning plainly upon the page, or in unmasking sham wherever he finds it. This is nowhere so true as when he deals with literature; and just as in his treatment of life, he is no flatterer to men in general, so here he is free and outspoken on the peculiar failings of authors. At the same time he gives them good advice. He is particularly happy in recommending restraint in regard to reading the works of others, and ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... fable, the fox has been the principal hero. The most ancient fables on record, those of Lokman, the Arabian, from whom AEsop took most of his, gives him a very conspicuous place among the crafty courtiers of the lion. The chief phrase of which the wily flatterer makes use, as he bows with affected humility to his sovereign, is, "Oh, Father of Beauty," by which indirect compliment he generally gains his wishes. The early German writers have also chosen him as the principal hero of various ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... me. Truly, I might conceive the same in case a maid were rare ill-usen at home— were her father ever harsh unto her, and her mother all day a-nagging at her—then, if the man should show him no mere flatterer, but a true friend, would I not stick to the days she had known him. And yet, as methinks, it should be a strange case wherein a true man should not go boldly and honestly to the maid's father, and ask her of him, with no hole-and-corner work. But to think of so leaving our father ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... mauvais honte, false shame. affector, performer, actor; pedant, pedagogue, doctrinaire, purist, euphuist, mannerist; grimacier; lump of affectation, precieuse ridicule[Fr], bas bleu[Fr], blue stocking, poetaster; prig; charlatan &c. (deceiver) 548; petit maitre &c. (fop) 854; flatterer &c. 935; coquette, prude, puritan. V. affect, act a part, put on; give oneself airs &c. (arrogance) 885; boast &c. 884; coquet; simper, mince, attitudinize, pose; flirt a fan; overact, overdo. Adj. affected, full of affectation, pretentious, pedantic, stilted, stagy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... False flatterer, Hope, away! Nor think to lure us as in days of yore: We solemnize this sorrowing natal day, To prove our loyal truth—we can no more, And owning Heaven's mysterious sway, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... severe; Fantastic wits their darling follies love, But find you faithful friends that will reprove, That on your works may look with careful eyes, And of your faults be zealous enemies. Lay by an author's pride and vanity, And from a friend a flatterer descry, Who seems to like, but means not what he says; Embrace true ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... of the four men who kept guard on their sheep tell us to take heed lest Flatterer should spread ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... it were, for private distribution. But from his intimate relations, especially to the court of Prussia, some insinuations have been made as to the character of Humboldt. They are as unjust as they are severe in expression. He was never a flatterer of those in power. He has shown it by taking a prominent position, in 1848, at the head of those who accompanied the victims of the revolution of that year to their last place of rest. But while he expressed his independence ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... with a sigh: Thou art not listening to what I say. And then she smiled, with a little smile that shook my heart for delight, and she said: Aye! Chaturika told me of thy error. But trust her not, when she speaks of me, for she is a flatterer. And yet, thy crime was venial, and one easily forgiven: for she is very pretty, as I am not. But we are wandering from the point, and wasting time, and talking nonsense. Forget us both, and listen with attention, and I will begin all over again. And I swept away her beginning with a ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... returned to France, wrote other works, settled near the romantic shore of Lake Geneva, and returned honored, great, and feasted to Paris. Indulging in unaccustomed excesses, his frail and aged body sank beneath the weight. But Frederic and Voltaire maintained a correspondence many years after the flatterer's disgrace. Full of trouble, haunted by dreams of conspiracy and of poverty, successful in achieving more evil than usually falls to the lot of a single mind, Voltaire passed from the society of men to the presence of God. It has been truthfully said of him in proof of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... is this Passion alone, when misapplyed, that lays us so open to Flatterers; and he who can agreeably condescend to sooth our Humour or Temper, finds always an open Avenue to our Soul; especially if the Flatterer happen ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Chaminade's "The Flatterer" followed. In the midst of this the door opened quietly and closed again. Melissy finished, fingered her music, and became somehow aware that she was not alone. She turned unhurriedly on the seat and met the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... wealth,' ejaculated Mr. Solomon Jenks, a young gentleman who affected a charming frankness and abruptness in his speech, but who was in reality the most specious flatterer of the entire party. Mr. Jenks rejoiced in the following personal advantages: red hair, a blue nose, goggle eyes, and ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... "Oh! stop, you little flatterer, you will make me vain," said Isabel kissing her. "If I have done you any good, I am very glad indeed," she added in a more serious tone, "I have endeavored to do my duty, but I am afraid that I have not succeeded ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... animated, eager, with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on the Mirror. So Carlyle, who met him at dinner shortly after this, and was no flatterer, sketches him for us with a pen of unwonted kindliness. "He is a fine little fellow—Boz, I think. Clear, blue, intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large protrusive rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme mobility, which he shuttles ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... reign over her court of parasites, he had no notion of obeying, and a direct command or opposition roused his sullen temper of passive resistance. When he found 'that little nobody of a Mrs. John Dusautoy' so far from being a flatterer, or an adorer of his perfections, inclined to laugh at him, and bent on keeping him in order, all the enmity of which he was capable arose in his mind, and though in general good-natured and not aggressive, he had a decided pleasure in doing what she disapproved, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have passed since last we observed the lover. He is husband and father now, but what a change these few years have wrought in him! Forgotten are the lover's vows. She that once his goddess was, is now his slave. The fulsome flatterer of former times has degenerated into a chronic fault-finder. With the change of her name has begun his change of treatment of her. Cast aside are the many courtesies and expressions of endearment that marked his conduct to her prior to marriage, and which were the thousand ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... like blushing a little. Then she faced round again and shook hands with Boston—who was so rattled he seemed only about half awake, and done it like a pump—and says to him: "Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself"—she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy—"to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... knows that I am not the flatterer of Congress, but in this instance they are right; and if that measure is supported, the currency will acquire a value, which, without it, it will not. But this is not all: it will give relief to the finances until such time as they can be properly arranged, and save the country ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... no one plan of mine, though approved by all my captains, has been so fortunate as to meet your approbation or have any weight with you." And to show his title to consideration, he gives an extract from a letter written to him by Shirley, in which that inveterate flatterer hints his regret that, by reason of other employments, Warren could not take command of the whole expedition,—"which I doubt not," says the Governor, "would be a most happy event for his Majesty's service." [Footnote: Warren to Pepperrell, ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... by La Fontaine. The fourth chant of the Art Poetique is remarkable for its lofty conception of the position of the poet; its counsels express the dignity of the writer's own literary life. He has been charged not only with cruelty as a satirist, but with the baseness of a flatterer of the great. It would be more just to notice the honourable independence which he maintained, notwithstanding his poetical homage to the King, which was an inevitable requisition. Boileau's influence as a critic of literature ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... they make good that guard to preservation 40 Of both those in their order and first end, No mans particular (as hee thinkes) wrong Must hold him wrong'd; no, not though all mens reasons, All law, all conscience, concludes it wrong. Nor is comparison a flatterer 45 To liken you here to the King of Kings; Nor any mans particular offence Against the worlds sway, to offence at yours In any subject; who as little may Grudge at their particular wrong, if so it seeme 50 For th'universall ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... of taking up the defence of anybody, possessing so little devotion at bottom, so ugly, so mischievous, that it was quite natural that a regal personage should come to be unable to do without him. Once Anne had tasted Barkilphedro she would have no other flatterer. He flattered her as they flattered Louis the Great, by stinging her neighbours. "The king being ignorant," says Madame de Montchevreuil, "one is obliged to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... perfectly well, and ready to dance at this minute with your reverence," says her father. "Or stay, Chaplain, perhaps you only dance on Sunday?" The Colonel then turned to Harry again. "You paid your court very neatly to the great lady, Mr. Flatterer. My Lady Yarmouth has been trumpeting your praises at the Pump Room. She says she has got a leedel boy in Hannover dat is wery like you, and you are ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thought and of heroic action—every man admires these in woman in the best moments of his life. It is when he lowers himself to the level of the public meeting, or of the fashionable drawing-room, that he is changed into a flatterer, and he who flatters always despises the object of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... she was). "By the —- by the —- ," said the lord, "next to gazing at her beauty, my greatest pleasure was to hearken to your fair reasons; I had liefer pay you interest than get money elsewhere free." "Indeed, my lord," said one of his chief friends called Flatterer, "nuncle pays you not a whit less respect than is due to you, but an it please you, he has bestowed upon her ladyship scarce the half her mead of praise. I defy any man," quoth he, "to show a lovelier woman in all the Street of Pride, or ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... although he had made what was then a good deal of money by his plays and other poems he had spent it freely, and always seemed in need. Now he had to face want and poverty. But he faced them bravely. Dryden all his life had been a flatterer; he had always sailed with the wind. Now, whether he could not or would not, he changed no more, he flattered no more. A kind friend, it is said, still continued to pay him the two hundred pounds he had received as Poet Laureate, and he now wrote more plays ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... building—had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjunct editors, and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of arithmetic—that flatterer of credulity—the adventure must succeed and bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that morning walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished students was to me the most ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... horrible Frenchwoman! You are a flatterer, a base flatterer; such as always haunt the great! I hate it all. I a demon of a temper? I like Aunt Barbara? Oh, you wretch! I'll tell Aunt Barbara a to-morrow, and get you ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enough awake in a Man to undo him, the Flatterer stirs up that dormant Weakness, and inspires him with Merit enough to be a Coxcomb. But if Flattery be the most sordid Act that can be complied with, the Art of Praising justly is as commendable: For tis laudable to praise ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... my dear Eugene, that your conduct is worthy of the name you bear, and of the protector under whom it is so easy to learn to become a great captain. Bonaparte has written to me that you are every thing that he can wish. As he is no flatterer, my heart is proud to read your eulogy sketched by a hand which is usually far from being lavish in praise. You well know that I never doubted your capability to undertake great things, or the brilliant courage which you inherit. But you, alas! ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... theorems, and tenets of philosophers: his conversation being an example how a man might accommodate himself to all men and companies; so that though his company were sweeter and more pleasing than any flatterer's cogging and fawning; yet was it at the same time most respected and reverenced: who also had a proper happiness and faculty, rationally and methodically to find out, and set in order all necessary ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... dreadful flatterer," laughed Mrs. Carter. "Do you think it's right to try and soft soap your mother this way? Well, I'll promise to be polite and nice to Mr. Hand if he should call! Will ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... beauty, is to listen to your obliging discourse; I would rather pay you usury than obtain money gratis from any one else." "Of a surety, my lord," said one of his principal associates, who was called flatterer, "my uncle shows you no respect but what is fully your right; but with your permission, I will assert, that he has not bestowed half the commendation on her ladyship which she deserves. I cannot myself produce, and I will defy any man to produce one lovelier than herself, in the whole street ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... in order to damage the 'hooker of men' as much as possible; each step in the pedigree of the angler suggests some injurious reflection about the Sophist. They are both hunters after a living prey, nearly related to tyrants and thieves, and the Sophist is the cousin of the parasite and flatterer. The effect of this is heightened by the accidental manner in which the discovery is made, as the result of a scientific division. His descent in another branch affords the opportunity of more 'unsavoury comparisons.' For he is a retail trader, and his wares are either imported or home-made, ...
— Sophist • Plato
... to receive it, he replied, "If my son returns to a right mind, his patrimony is sufficient; if not, all supplies will be insufficient." But to Antipater he answered more sharply, who would have him engaged in something dishonorable. "Antipater," said he, "cannot have me both as his friend and his flatterer." And, indeed, Antipater was wont to say, he had two friends at Athens, Phocion and Demades; the one would never suffer him to gratify him at all, the other would never be satisfied. Phocion might well think ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... said Ileen. "If you only knew how I appreciate any one's being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired of people telling me I'm pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to have friends who ...
— Options • O. Henry
... ability. He is a thorough scholar, a conscientious student, and takes an exceedingly comprehensive survey of all questions. He is genial, generous and candid, and has all the necessary qualities of heart and brain to make a great President. He has no prejudices. Prejudice is the child and flatterer of ignorance. He is firm, but not obstinate. The obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the right. Andrew ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Ivory and "Plug" Avery Holman F. Day Supper With Natica Robert E. MacAlarney By The Fountain Margaret Houston Bas Bleu Anna A. Rogers The Vagabond M. M. The Doing of the Lambs Susan Sayre Titsworth The Unattained William Hamilton Hayne The Flatterer George Hibbard The Miracle of Dawn Madison Cawein The Song of Broadway Robert Stewart Green Devils and Old Maids Emerson G. Taylor Two Sorrows Charles Hanson Towne Love and Mushrooms Frances Wilson Some Feminine Stars Alan Dale For Book Lovers ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... drawing nearer to her, and eagerly surveying the exposed charms of her splendid person—"offer no apology for feasting my eyes on beauty such as yours. I am no fulsome flatterer when I declare to you, that you are the queen and star of all the beautiful women it has ever been my lot to behold! You are not ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... Kentuckian, came down into the valleys with the hacking cough and hectic flush to make a vain struggle against the destroyer that had fastened upon their vitals, nursing often a vain hope of recovery to the very last. Ah, remorseless flatterer! as I write these lines, the images of your victims crowd before my vision: the strong men that grew weak, and pale, and thin, but fought to the last inch for life; the noble youths who were blighted ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... no king present, and that proves I am no flatterer. I speak of my love and admiration to my king, but not to his face. I praise and exalt him behind his back; that shows that I love him dearly, not for honor or favor, but out of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... sufficient answer; but the answer in the play is "Prodigious." The flatterer always magnifies what he whom he is aiming to please wishes to have great. But while this smooth falsehood takes effect only with those who themselves attract and invite it; even persons of a more substantial and solid character need to be warned to be on their guard, lest ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... goods, the honours, and the preferment justly the due of others; and in those more numerous and certainly more unhappy countries, where the rule of the tyrant is substituted for the law of God, the unwearying flatterer, patient under blows and abstemious under high-feeding, will assuredly make ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... be a flatterer already!" Dame Vernon laughed. "You are coming on fast, and I predict great things from you. And now, Edith, lay aside that sampler you are pretending to be so busy upon and speak to ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... guest, Quit, oh I quit this mortal breast. Why wilt thou my peace invade, And each brighter prospect shade? Pain me not with needless Fear, But let Hope my bosom cheer; While I court her gentle charms, Woo the flatterer to my arms; While each moment she beguiles With her sweet enliv'ning smiles, While she softly whispers me, 'Lycidas again is free,' While I gaze on Pleasure's gleam, Say not thou 'Tis all a dream.' Hence—nor darken Joy's soft bloom With thy pale and sickly gloom: Nought have I to do with ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... absolutely deficient. Besides which, he had neither the inclination nor habit of sustained, systematic labour, another important condition of internal government. He was at once ambitious and indolent, a flatterer and a scoffer, a consummate courtier in the art of pleasing and of serving without the appearance of servility; ready for everything, and capable of any pliability that might assist his fortune, preserving always the mien, and recurring at need to the attractions of independence; a diplomatist ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were about to depart, one of the Shepherds gave them a note of the way. Another of them bid them beware of the Flatterer. The third bid them take heed that they sleep not upon the Enchanted Ground. And the fourth bid them God-speed. So ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... "Little flatterer! I can almost forgive Count L'Estrange for wanting to marry you; for I presume he it only a man, and not quite equal to impossibilities. How long is it since you knew ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... appeared less tempting, was more secure. I had just been disgraced by a misguided and ungrateful prince. I had already gone into a retirement where my only honours were proportioned to my fortitude in bearing condemnation, and my only flatterer was the hope of finding a companion and a Mentor in myself. You, my friend, parted with life before you; and you only relinquished the pursuit of Fortune at one court, to meet her advances at another. Nearly ten years have ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... selfish. Ovidian gallantry does not deserve such a name, because it is nothing but false flattery for the selfish purpose of beguiling foolish women. Arabic flatteries are of a superior order because sincere at the time being and addressed to girls whom the flatterer desires to marry. But this gallantry, too, is only skin deep. Its motives are sensual and selfish, for as soon as the girl's physical charm begins to fade she ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... college, where if a young man receives no other discipline at least he meets his equals in society and assuredly finds his betters; whereas in Mr. Gandish's studio our young gentleman scarcely found a comrade that was not in one way or other his flatterer, his inferior, his honest or dishonest admirer. The influence of his family's rank and wealth acted more or less on all these simple folks, who would run on his errands and vied with each other winning his favour. His very goodness of heart rendered him a more ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... overwhelm the authors with the whole load of infamy, of which part, perhaps the greater part, ought to fall upon their patrons. If he that hires a bravo, partakes the guilt of murder, why should he who bribes a flatterer, hope to be exempted from the shame of falsehood? The unhappy dedicator is seldom without some motives which obstruct, though not destroy, the liberty of choice; he is oppressed by miseries which he hopes to relieve, or inflamed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... between the counsel that a friend giveth and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... called? Who put the name upon Who but the Earl of Sussex as he died—as noble a chief, as true a counsellor as ever spoke truth to a Queen. But truth is not all at Court, and Sussex was no flatterer. Leicester bowed under the storm for a moment when Sussex showed him in his true colours; but Sussex had no gift of intrigue, the tide turned, and so he broke his heart, and died. But he left a message which I sometimes remember with my collects. 'I am now passing to another world,' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Met Malakoffs, D'lsraelis, Azeglio. Never before had opportunity for real conversation with D'lsraeli—a sad flatterer and otherwise less agreeable than so able a man of such varied pursuits ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... is a flatterer, my lord,' said Mrs Wititterly, turning to that young gentleman, who had been sucking the head of his cane in silence, and staring ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... more friends than a disposition to admire the qualities of others. I do not mean flattery, but a sincere admiration.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, flattery pleases very generally[1090]. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true: but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... interrupted the speaker with loud expressions of approbation. Christ spoke publicly on the mount, yet no one said aught until He had finished His discourse. How shall the hearer be otherwise than ridiculous? Nay, he will be deemed a flatterer and his praise no better than irony, when he declares that the teacher spoke beautifully; but what he said, this he cannot tell. This has all the appearance of adulation. For when, indeed, one has been hearing minstrels and players, it is no wonder if such has been the case with him, seeing he ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... light,— Red lips her white teeth showing. She must be graceful as a fawn, With bosom gently swelling, Her presence fresh as early dawn,— A heart for love to dwell in. She must be trusting, yet aware That flatterer's honey'd phrases Are often but a wily snare, To catch her in love's mazes. Accomplishments she must possess, These make life worth the having; And taste, especially in dress Yet still inclined to saving. In cookery she must excel, To this there's no ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... seemed chilled by age. The unfortunate composer had flattered himself that he would find in Vienna fresh chances of success and fortune; but he was received there with cold esteem, and happier rivals were in possession of the imperial favour and the public admiration. Being neither a flatterer nor an intriguer, Porpora's rough frankness was no passport to influence, and his ill-humour made enemies rather than friends. He held ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... better by him than he thinks, and that he must never treat it as his foe; he must not try to force its benefits and rewards. He must not approach it like the highwayman. Tell him never to flatter. That is the worst fault in a gentleman, for flattery makes false friends and the flatterer himself false. Tell him that good address is for ease and courtesy of life, but it must not be used to one's secret advantage as I have used mine to mortal undoing. If ever Guilbert be in great temptation, tell him his father's story, and read him these words to you, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... friends against their lower selves as well as against their detractors. Plutarch says, "The influence of a true friend is felt in the help that he gives the noble part of nature; nothing that is weak or poor meets with encouragement from him. While the flatterer fans every spark of suspicion, envy, or grudge, he may be described in the verse of Sophocles as 'sharing the love and not the hatred of the person he cares for.'" Such a bit as that makes us forget the centuries ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... fashionable Attic lisp, or careless articulation, turned the sound r into l. Colax, a flatterer; corax, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... his other Beauties, He won her unresisting tender Heart, He vow'd and sigh'd, and swore he lov'd her dearly; And she believ'd the cunning Flatterer, And thought her self the happiest Maid alive: To day was the appointed time by both, To consummate their Bliss; The Virgin, Altar, and the Priest were drest, And whilst she languisht for the expected Bridegroom, She heard, he paid ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... firmly established, every difficulty disappeared. But to maintain that relation uninterruptedly in a smooth and even course a particular care was necessary: the bearings had to be most assiduously oiled. Nor was Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature of the lubricant. "You have heard me called a flatterer," he said to Matthew Arnold, "and it is true. Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." He practiced what he preached. His adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... in the hands of doctors. A message from the Pope produced an imprudent letter from the poet, in which he says, "Holy father! I shudder at the account of your fever; but, believe me, I am not a flatterer. I tremble to see your bed always surrounded with physicians, who are never agreed, because it would be a reproach to the second to think like the first. 'It is not to be doubted,' as Pliny says, 'that physicians, desiring to raise a name by their ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... presence of probably the only Person in Europe who could tell us"? In the last year of his life he said to Mr. Matthew Arnold, in a strange burst of confidence which showed how completely he realized that his fall from power was final, "You have heard me accused of being a flatterer. It is true. I am a flatterer. I have found it useful. Every one likes flattery: and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." In this business Lord Beaconsfield excelled. Once, sitting at dinner by the Princess of Wales, he was trying to cut a hard dinner-roll. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... interest -.it the backstairs. It is a notion, that whatever is said of one, has generally some kind of foundation: surely I am a contradiction to this maxim! yet, was I of consequence enough to be remembered, perhaps posterity would believe that I was a flatterer! ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... stranger to the noble profession of arms, yet I could admire Bonaparte's clever military plans and his shrewd remarks on the great captains of ancient and modern times. I could not refrain from saying, "General, you often reproach me for being no flatterer, but now I tell you plainly I admire you." And certainly, I really spoke the true sentiments of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... conveyed to posterity, she felt an interest in his preservation, totally distinct from maternal affection; and to this his fine qualities served rather as an alloy, than an incentive. A youth weak enough to be really a convert, or sufficiently base to have affected being one to her opinions, a flatterer of her faults, and the tool of her designs, would have been invested by her erroneous judgment with those high deservings which actually adorned her noble offspring, though she ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... he writes to please, and not to serve, he is a flatterer and a hypocrite; if to serve and not to please, he turns cynic and satirist. The first deals in smooth falsehood, the last in rough scandal; the last may do some good, though little; the first does no good, and may do mischief, not a little; the last provokes your rage, the first provokes ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... group of figures falling at his approach, and the principal head in this group is made an exact likeness of Voltaire. When Dr. Goldsmith saw this picture, he was very indignant at it, and said:—"It very ill becomes a man of your eminence and character, Sir Joshua, to condescend to be a mean flatterer, or to wish to degrade so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Dr. Beattie; for Dr. Beattie and his book together will, in the space of ten years, not be known ever to have been in existence, but your allegorical picture and the fame of Voltaire will live for ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... trembled When he struck, With his broad head, 'Gainst the old column of the house-wall. Uller's splendid flatterer Swung the iron beam Straight 'gainst the head Of ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... sustenance to memories and seek discourse with the shades, unless one has made up one's mind to write only in order to reprove mankind for what it is, or praise it for what it is not, or—generally—to teach it how to behave. Being neither quarrelsome, nor a flatterer, nor a sage, I have done none of these things, and I am prepared to put up serenely with the insignificance which attaches to persons who are not meddlesome in some way or other. But resignation is not indifference. I would not like to be left standing as a mere spectator on ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... praises from your tongue; None else to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others' voices, that my adder's sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: You are so strongly in my purpose bred, That all the ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... lean forward, how are mortal fingers and bushes to diffuse the right complimentary expression over them? You must either do them the most hideous and complete justice, or give them up altogether. The late Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., was undoubtedly the most artful and uncompromising flatterer that ever smoothed out all the natural characteristic blemishes from a sitter's face; but even that accomplished parasite would have found Mr. Batterbury too much for him, and would have been driven, for the first time in his practice of art, to the uncustomary and uncourtly resource ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... Gentlemen, I am no flatterer of persons who sit in your place; and I have no difficulty in telling you twelve gentlemen, that, though I have no doubt you are honorable men, you cannot have lived in this city, in which you are all ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... a moral here, False flatterer of the prosperous hour? Let but an adverse cloud appear, And Thou art faithless, as ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy ourselves worth somewhat—I with my painting, and you with your wisdom. When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time. So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly—behaving exactly as if you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... spiritual ones, as is evident from their being disciples; and these are the characteristics which He pronounces blessed. In this democratic and socialistic age, it is important to keep clearly in view the fact that Jesus was no flatterer of poor men as such, and did not think that circumstances had such power for good or evil, as that virtue and true blessedness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... by Ferrara, instead of Mantua: because I would rather see the cell where they caged Tasso, and where he became mad and * *, than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer, whose cursed hexameters were drilled into me at Harrow. I saw Verona and Vicenza on ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... family, where will you find the aid which you may require? That a state of things not modelled from the lessons of antiquity can long continue;— that is what I have not heard. Ch'ing is now showing himself to be a flatterer, who increases the errors of Your Majesty, and not a loyal minister." 'The emperor requested the opinions of others on this representation, and the premier, Li Sze [5], said, "The five emperors were not one the double of the other, nor did the three dynasties accept one another's ways. Each had ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... at Lyons; and I do not go too far in advancing, that a man of very rigid virtue could not, from such a station, have attained so suddenly the one he now possesses. Virtue is of an unvarying and inflexible nature: it disdains as much to be the flatterer of mobs, as the adulator of Princes: yet how often must he, who rises so far above his equals, have stooped below them? How often must he have sacrificed both his reason and his principles? How often have yielded to the little, and opposed the great, not from conviction, but ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Prodigal, the Ambitious, the Voluptuous, the Bully, the Vain, the Hypocrite, the Flatterer, the Slanderer, call aloud for the Champion's Vengeance." —The Champion, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... a fawning flatterer. For he that is in love, soon as ever he has been smitten with the kisses of the object he loves, forthwith his substance vanishes out of doors, and melts away. 'Give me this, my honey, if you love me.' And then Gudgeon says, 'Oh apple of my eye, both that and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the passages in the Grand Aria, because, if she goes to Italy, it is necessary that she should sing bravuras. The cantabile she certainly will never forget, being her natural bent. Raaff (who is no flatterer), when asked to give his sincere opinion, said, "She does not sing like a ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... forward, with a magnanimity which would have well become many a better man, to support the candidature of Horne Tooke at Westminster, of the man who, after having been his fawning friend, his fulsome flatterer, had turned against him with the basest treachery and the bitterest malignity. There may have been, surely there must have been, a vein of irony in the words in which Wilkes complimented the apostate and the turncoat as a man of public virtues. But the irony was cloaked by courtesy; ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... temptation of seeking to please others by an unmanly assenting to their opinion, even when our own independent convictions did not agree with theirs. The existence of such a temptation, and the fact that too many yield to it, are both declared in the Latin for a flatterer—'assentator'—that is, 'an assenter'; one who has not courage to say No, when a Yes is expected from him; and quite independently of the Latin, the German, in its contemptuous and precisely equivalent ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... ought to be with some sign of respect to those present. Be no flatterer; neither play with any one who delights not to be played with. Read no paper or book in company. Come not near the papers or books of another when he is writing. Let your countenance be cheerful; but in serious matters ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... fawning dependents, the Fullertons, ceased to annoy him. They were poor parasites, but she thought for them, and they professed to love her in return. She had emptied her life of finer things, but this relation of patron and flatterer, such as it was, did something to fill the vacancy; and George made no ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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