"Complimentary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ate fish to satiety at home. They did not join a marriage feast at the San Gallo, and pay their nine francs, for that! It should be observed that each guest paid for his own entertainment. This appears to be the custom. Therefore attendance is complimentary, and the married couple are not at ruinous charges for the banquet. A curious feature in the whole proceeding had its origin in this custom. I noticed that before each cover lay an empty plate, and that my partner began with the first course to heap upon it ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... inherent in my constitution.... While afflicted with melancholy, all the doubts which have ever disturbed thinking men come upon me. I awake in the night dreading annihilation, or being thrown into some horrible state of being.' He recounts a complimentary letter he had received from Lord Mayor Wilkes, and continues:—'Tell me, my dear Temple, if a man who receives so many marks of more than ordinary consideration can be satisfied to drudge in an obscure corner, where ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... many discordant elements. Most of the critics form non-conductors to the passage of what has been regarded as analogous to an electrical current, and their non-conductivity is very little greater than that of many of the people who receive complimentary tickets or have the honour of being on the first-night list. Perhaps the general public is unaware that the more fashionable theatres have a list of people to whom is accorded a preferential allotment ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... ago:—"I am the most independent crowned head in Europe," said he, "and the best fitted for my office of all my brethren." The praise might be deserved, but it seemed strange to the ex-Chancellor that it should come from his own mouth—he, therefore, bowed assent, and muttered some complimentary phrases about his Majesty's judgment, firmness, and the like. "Pooh, pooh, my lord," he observed, laughing heartily, "I do not mean that—I do not mean that, but that I can—brush my own boots!" This was practical philosophy, and indicated a clear perception of the constitution ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... find yet another controlling agency—that of Ceremonial usages. All titles of honour are originally the names of the god-king; afterwards of the god and the king; still later of persons of high rank; and finally come, some of them, to be used between man and man. All forms of complimentary address were at first the expressions of submission from prisoners to their conqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either human or divine—expressions which were afterwards used to propitiate subordinate authorities, and slowly descended ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
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