"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be orderly, and orderly I am. I must have everything down in black and white, or I should go mad! Here is my commercial library: Daybook, Ledger, Book of Districts, Book of Letters, Book of Remarks, and so on. Kindly throw your eye over any one of them. I flatter myself there is no such thing as a blot, or a careless entry in it, from the first page to the last. Look at this room—is there a chair out of place? Not if I know it! Look at me. Am I dusty? am I dirty? am I half shaved? Am I, in brief, a speckless pauper, or am I not? Mind! I take no credit ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... excellent and benevolent William Allen, of the Society of Friends, wrote to Sir Patrick Ross, the Governor of the Colony, with whom he was on terms of friendship, soliciting him to use his influence in persuading Mr. Wood to consent: and I confess I was sanguine enough to flatter myself that we should thus at length prevail. The result proved, however, that I had not yet fully appreciated the character of the man we had ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... cook drew her slight figure up and said with an air of offended dignity, "I flatter myself that I am quite capable of making excellent toffy, Richard Blake, and am well aware ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... news Miechal writ Gibson, might be false; because I have not heard anything of it from yourself, nor from my uncle, who, I flatter myself, would writ a line to give me so much satisfaction: but I hope all my doubts will vanish if your ladyship does me the favour to confirm what will be so great a content to us. If I could but ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... the nomination was Sam Robinson, who owned the hotel at Woodsdale, and had invested considerable money there. Robinson was about forty years of age, and was known to be a bad man, credited with two or three killings elsewhere. Wood had always been able to flatter him and handle him; but when Cross was declared as the nominee for sheriff, Robinson became so embittered that he moved over to Hugoton, where he was later chosen town marshal and township constable. ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... be out all night in hiding, and in the morning they would come back and take their beatings. David comfortably reflected that Uncle Reuben couldn't do him much harm, and, though Louie could hardly flatter herself so far, her tone, also, in the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... forced to see it glide away, to let it vanish, disappear forever! And alas! that is not all. If I have deceived an inexperienced heart by words spoken or deeds done in a moment of weakness or temptation, can I flatter myself that I have acted ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... irreconcilable conservative. "I don't want him to flatter himself over having run the whole fiesta, no! Let me ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... things to you, that you may not flatter yourself by a false confidence of being able to resist the power of his majesty, who is able if it should so please him to employ irresistible force in repressing the commotions and disorders of Peru, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... it is, sir. It's so much flatter. Why, you can't hardly find a place to land here, without getting your ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... cried, checking with a gesture his flow of unexpected eloquence. "I declare! you are not so slow as you seem. I will tell you just how much of a sorceress I am. I thought to flatter you by saying a great lady had given you the ring, and lo, I was right unless you are adroitly leading me to believe in my own sorcery. Is she a great lady? ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... according to the manner in which it was pronounced, naturally always behind the General's back, for it went very hard indeed with the man who ventured to pick a quarrel with him, and still harder, if possible, with anybody who tried to flatter him. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Often he played the double spy, for England and for Rome. Lennox may well have been puzzled, he may have said so, but the report rests on the evidence of one who did not hear his words, who wished to flatter the scepticism of James's English enemies, and whose character (though on one point he is unjustly ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... miles along the coast, the cliffs suddenly gave way to flatter ground; here we turned inland in a north-easterly direction. Reports reached us that about 200 enemy infantry (with transport) were in a wood on our right flank. "No. 1" Section and one squadron of Poona Horse were detailed as "flank guard" to prevent ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... idea," he said, in a complacent tone. "Of course we have to keep everything as secret as possible, and I flatter myself—" ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... itself; it reverberates—it recalls, commemorates, resuscitates something else. At least half the merit of everything you enjoy must be that it suits you absolutely; but the larger half here is generally that it has suited some one else and that you can never flatter yourself you have discovered it. It has been addressed to some use a million miles out of your range, and has had great adventures before ever condescending to please you. It was in admission of this truth that my discriminating friend who showed me the Claudes found ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... plainer, although each breast-stroke—the pleasure of a while agone, but oh! such a tax now—must have lessened the distance. Even to that excursion there came an hour of accomplishment and repose; but to this, of pen over paper, I cannot flatter myself that the hour is yet. I have to abandon the work incomplete. As it has happened to me before, the theme has expanded under my hands, and I shall have to rise from my desk before I penetrate to the Carlist headquarters, of which I had to say ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... guilty of falling into the too common practice of indulging in scandal, the practice of talking of men disparagingly, of running down their character behind their backs. I by no means wish you to flatter any man, whether present or absent, or to speak favourably of character or of conduct which does not deserve it. But beware of detraction. Nothing is more unamiable in any man, especially in a young ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... was completely dressed, she consulted her glass and women upon her adjustment; and when she found she wanted no charms to flatter the foolish passion of the African magician, she sat down on a sofa expecting his arrival. The magician came at the usual hour, and as soon as he entered the great hall where the princess waited to ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... dear prince had another motive behind. At the end of the interview he said, "Madame, you would not have been as you now are had you been more conciliatory towards me. I know the king, and know how to manage him. I flatter myself that you would have been now presented had you deigned to hear my advice." "Did I reject it? Was I wrong in declining to have mademoiselle Guimard as ambassadress? Were you assured of her silence? Might she not have compromised us?" "You ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... "Nonsense! Don't flatter," cried West. "I can ride a bit, sir; but Ingleborough rides as if he were part of a horse. He's accustomed to taking long rides ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... a plain and honest man, That will not flatter with too many wordes; Some shriltong'd fellowes would have cogd and faind, Saying, ile draw the ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Let no wise man flatter himself with the strength of his own judgment, as if he was able to choose any particular station of life for himself. Man is a short-sighted creature, sees but a very little way before him; and as his passions are none of his best friends, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... popular assemblies; it was critical, exacting, intellectual, in a still higher degree. No audience has been more swayed by passion; none has been less swayed by the pretence of it. Always accessible to flattery, Athens counts as her two greatest orators the two men who never stooped to flatter her. The regal tones of Pericles, the prophetic earnestness of Demosthenes, in the response which each met, bear witness to the greatness of those who heard them. Even Cleon owed his greatest triumphs to the plainness with which he inveighed ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... freshness and gayety of an idyl. His description of the sweet smell wafted to the voyagers from the American shore, as from some delicate garden abounding with all kinds of odoriferous flowers, was noticed by Bacon, and utilized by Dryden to flatter one of his patrons." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... There was a subdued lustre in the scene and an air as of the shining trains of dresses tumbled over the carpet. At the furthest end of the room sat Mrs. Capadose, rather isolated; she was on a small sofa, with an empty place beside her. Lyon could not flatter himself she had been keeping it for him; her failure to respond to his recognition at table contradicted that, but he felt an extreme desire to go and occupy it. Moreover he had her husband's sanction; so he crossed the room, stepping over ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... it all, and was disgusted to find that his enemy thus became the hero of the hour. It was, indeed, the opinion generally of the Liberal party that Mr. Gresham had not said much to flatter his new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In praise of Plantagenet Palliser he had been very loud, and he had no doubt said that which implied the capability of Mr. Bonteen, who, as it happened, was sitting next ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... "I flatter myself," said the ex-Lord Mayor, "that, while in office, I did my humble best to maintain the traditions of the City, and I was fortunate enough to have the honour of receiving more than the average number of celebrities as guests. But I had one great disappointment, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God's universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said he, in that his politest tone, "I think it certainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last botte was a successful one. I tell you how I came to think of it. Three years ago my kind friend Lady Ferrybridge sent for me in the greatest state of alarm about her son Gretna, whose affair you remember, and implored me to use my influence with the young gentleman, who ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have shown that you possess true heroism. I see how very much wiser you are than I; and I solemnly promise to attempt no more violence, where personal violence is not offered to us. But to say that I could exchange my weapons for yours, I cannot. I never shall learn to dissimulate and flatter." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... who is on board, desires to be remembered to you. He does not like much to stay here, after my departure. Indeed, we all draw so well together in the fleet, that I flatter myself the sorrow for my departure ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... very slow work, sir, I think," observed Dicky to his superior, with whom, bye-the-bye, he felt himself in a ballroom on the most perfect equality. "I vote we shove forward, and look out for partners. There are lots of pretty girls, and I flatter myself that if they were asked they would prefer ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Bigot's mind which Angelique could not fathom, as little did Bigot suspect that, when Angelique seemed to flatter him by yielding to his suggestions, she was following out a course she had already decided upon in her own mind from the moment she had learned that Cecile Tourangeau was to be at the festival of Belmont, with unlimited opportunities of explanation ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... accompanying that physical difference, woman is the superior of man in mental and moral qualities. In proof of this see the report of the minority and all the eulogiums of woman pronounced by those who, like the serpent of old, would flatter her vanity that they may ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... impelling the vessel to retrace her mistaken path. The manoeuvre required the utmost attention, and the nicest delicacy in its direction. But her young Commander proved himself, in every particular, competent to his task. Here, a sail was lifted; there, another was brought with a flatter surface to the air; now, the lighter canvas was spread; and now it disappeared, like thin vapour suddenly dispelled by the sun. The voice of Wilder, throughout, though calm, was breathing with authority. The ship itself seemed, like an animated ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... or Englishman—for whom Mr. Trench wrote his "book," is it strange or wonderful that the Catholic people, so treated, would rejoice—would have bonfires on the hill tops at their deliverance from such conduct? I flatter myself that you, my lord—that the learned reading public—that the English people would sympathise with any people so treated for conscience' sake; and having pronounced the sentence of condemnation ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... ago. Then I had something to say about flowers to an agricultural bureau scientific, and about the chemistry of something to a savant or savan, or a word like that, of the Smithsonian Institution. I tell you, sisters, it was sharp work; but I flatter myself you were not in any ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... she is fully adequate to the maintenance of all her interests. In discharging the responsible trust confided to the Executive in this respect it is my settled purpose to ask nothing that is not clearly right and to submit to nothing that is wrong; and I flatter myself that, supported by the other branches of the Government and by the intelligence and patriotism of the people, we shall be able, under the protection of Providence, to cause all our just rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... and thin and for the most part healthy; or if any malady come thereof, at any rate 'tis not the gout, the wonted remedy for which is chastity and all beside that belongs to the regimen of a humble friar. They flatter themselves, too, that others wot not that over and above the meagre diet, long vigils and orisons and strict discipline ought to mortify men and make them pale, and that neither St. Dominic nor St. Francis went clad in stuff dyed in grain or any other ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... am going to stay by my own fireside?" said Meta, trying to laugh, but not very successfully. "Seriously, I have much to do here. When poor Flora gets well, she must be spared all exertion for a long time to come; and I flatter myself that they want me at Stoneborough sometimes. If your father can bear to spare you, there is no doubt that ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... laugh and drink, to find himself in his shirt without feeling either better or worse there, and will have the same occupations. But these preparatory ideas are to better to fix in the understanding that this two-footed soul will always accept as true those things which flatter his passions, caress his hates, or serve his amours: from this comes logic. So it was that, the first day the above-mentioned Carandas saw his old comrade's children, saw the handsome priest, saw the beautiful wife of the dyer, saw ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... inevitable if the present state of things continues. Has the agitation and discussion of the question of African slavery, in the free States, resulted in any good, or is it ever likely to result in any? I flatter myself that I have clearly shown, in the following pages, that hitherto its consequences have been evil and only evil, and that nothing but evil can grow out of it in future. I think that I have adduced historical facts which clearly and indisputably prove that northern agitation ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... week," he replied enthusiastically. "I'll sit for you as a study in Disappointment, Flat-busted, or Return from the Races. The title doesn't matter, because I'll be such an excellent study for any sort of man whose hopes have all been knocked flatter than ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... lineal representative of the Howards or Percys to exhibit himself in the character of a mountebank, as have got me to trust my person on the pinnacle of a three-legged stool. The rule of three is all very well for base mechanical souls; but I flatter myself I have an intellect too large to be limited to a ledger. "Augustus," said my poor mother to me, one day while stroking my hyacinthine tresses—"Augustus, my dear boy, whatever you do, never forget that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... report was received from aloft that all was clear ahead, and the explorers began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the polar sea. Several headlands were passed, and wide openings to the north and south. With a strong breeze from the eastward, running on until midnight, they found themselves in latitude ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... warm my hands, when they did not need it, and inquire after the health of my mother and grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles, and admire my clothes, and wish her little Jane was old enough to run to school with me, and flatter me on the beauty of my hair and eyes and complexion, in such a way that very few children would have been so stupid as not to have seen through it. Could you not have said something to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... carrying on war by Civilized nations, however it is not improbable that Gians may have exaggerated matters greatly being notoriously known for a disaffected person and concerned in sending Prisoners away with Intelligence to the Enemy at the time Captain Bird came out as we ware then informed. I flatter myself that I may by this time have an answer to the Letter I had the honor of writing to the Commandr. in Chief on leaving Detroit. Mr. Elliot is to be the Bearer of this who will be able to give you any farther information necessary ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... themselves, that at another year they cannot arrive. Though every funeral that passes before their eyes evinces the deceitfulness of such expectations, since every man who is born to the grave thought himself equally certain of living at least to the next year; the survivor still continues to flatter himself, and is never at a loss for some reason why his life should be protracted, and the voracity of death continue to be pacified ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... attributes are terms coined by people of their own damaging class, people with low motives, with even brutish morals. It is time that this age of ours, so rich in theoretic if impracticable humanitarianisms, forebore to flatter the spirits which work against it in its efforts toward higher and wiser achievement. The anarchists hanged in Chicago were men of mistaken purpose and fatuous belief. But at least they were conceivably sincere, however dangerous to peace and order. These czars and tycoons of finance, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... I do not wish, in paying my homage to the other sex, and in glorifying its possible power over ours, to be confounded with those thoughtless and trivial rhetoricians who flatter woman with a false lip worship; and, like Lord Byron's buccaneers, hold out to them a picture of their own empire, built only upon sensual or upon shadowy excellences. We find continually a false enthusiasm, a mere bacchanalian inebriation, on behalf of woman, put forth by modern verse ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Don't flatter yourself, Sammy my lad! Not by no means it ain't. I wouldn't like to have to stand up to all I could ackchelly bear. It's God, not us, knows how much we can stand, an' when He gets in the good licks on ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... peopled exclusively by Quakers would have been unsatisfactory. It is a prevailing tendency of man, having hit upon a truth, to begin to theorize upon it, and, as the phrase is, run it into the ground. Quakers would not fight, would not take an oath, would not baptize, or wear mourning, or flatter the senses with pictures and statues. A Quaker would resist evil and violence only by enlightening them. He would not be taxed for measures or objects which he did not approve. He could see but one way of reforming the world, and thought that God was equally circumscribed ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... beef-suet finely shred, and a nutmeg grated, a little salt, some currants, and then beat some eggs in a little sack, and some sugar, and mix all together, and knead it as stiff as for manchet, and make it up in the form and size of a turkey-egg, but a little flatter; then take a pound of butter, and put it in a dish, and set the dish over a clear fire in a chafing-dish, and rub your butter about the dish till 'tis melted; put your puddings in, and cover the dish, but often turn your puddings, ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit; never did he spare a sop for being rich, or flatter a knave for being great. He had a wit that was accompanied with an unaffected greatness of mind, and a natural love to justice and truth; a wit that was in perpetual war with knavery, and ever attacking those kind of vices most, whose malignity ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... went to rest, and never rose again, but died in the midst of their honor a painless and tranquil death. "What," said Croesus, angrily, "and dost not thou reckon us amongst the happy men at all?" Solon, unwilling either to flatter or exasperate him more, replied, "The gods, O king, have given the Greeks all other gifts in moderate degree; and so our wisdom, too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly, wisdom; and this, observing the numerous ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... three minutes this outside crowd did not know that anything special had happened. When they did, the news was at the moment received in silence. The soldiers in whom Rossi had trusted, whom he had hoped to flatter and bribe, stood at their posts and said not a word. Neither they nor any one asked, "Who did this? Where is he gone?" The sense of the people certainly was that it was an act of summary justice on an offender whom the laws could not reach, but they felt it to be indecent ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to take me up to the clubroom so's I can see that picture of Major Hardee that he presented the club with? Everybody says it's just lovely. Sarah T. says it's perfectly elegant, only not quite so handsome as the Major reelly is. She says it don't flatter him none." ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "You flatter me; you do, really. You elevate my self-respect. How I shall enjoy your conversation at—at——What is the name of your principality or grand duchy down in Maryland? I am told that your great plantations down in the South are quite equal ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Mabel's letter in mind, gave her guest some attention; but for the life of her could not see that he paid her any beyond what he had for the others or for his dinner. He joined Pierson at her side, and made no effort to oust him. He did not flatter her by recalling Lancelot; he seemed rather to muse out loud. James with his coat-tails to the fire was quite at his ease—and when Urquhart offered to drive her down to Westgate for the half-term (which she herself mentioned), it was James who said, "Capital! That will be jolly for you." "But ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... "You have entrapped me; and the deepest folly that I know would be to hope for justice in such clutches. I am to be sacrificed because, forsooth, I am dangerous to the conspiracy that you have afoot; and well can I foresee what the conspiracy designs. . . Yet did I flatter you overmuch, my Lord of Buckingham; it is no creature of your brain, this scheme whose end is treason. You are too vain and empty-headed to be of any service except to aid its execution—and then, later, to be the leading figure at your own. Your sires were overmuch ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... whims and served his interests. When Pericles had married a rich widow and she had kicked Peter out, there had come the Temple of Jimjambo, where the "Old Man" had been Tushbar Akrogas, the major-domo—terrible when he was thwarted, but a generous dispenser of favors when once you had learned to flatter him, to play upon his weaknesses, to smooth the path of his pleasures. All these years Peter had been forced to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee"; it had become an instinct with him—an instinct that went ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... "you overrate your own powers, and over-estimate my vanity. You are flattering yourself now, you can't flatter me, for ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to your promise," returned the old gentleman, "and when I am no more, you will receive the manuscripts. From what you say of the prevailing taste in literature, I cannot flatter you with the hope that you will gain much by the undertaking. And I tell you beforehand that you will find it not a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... is a kind of physiognomy in the title of a book by which a skilful observer will know as well what to expect from its contents as one does reading the lines. I flatter myself this claim will be disproved ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... have, so I have—that Jenkins girl—the daughter of poor Tom Jenkins, who died in the autumn; but, bless you, she's no good; she don't even know the meaning of drawing on a customer! You see, Miss Reed, I don't mean to flatter you, but you have got the tact, and just when the sales are beginning you will be invaluable. I can offer you a percentage on all the remnants you dispose of. Come, now, that's a bargain; you'll be right welcome ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... he met Mr. Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater compliment, because Mr. Scott would have been a friend worth making. Dand, on the other hand, he did not value sixpence, and he showed it even while he tried to flatter. Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange how one-sided the pleasure of it is! He who goes fishing among the Scots peasantry with condescension for a bait will have an ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the bottom, there is room for a life's reflection to flash through the mind—in the twinkling of an eye H. agonizingly felt that she was sitting on a hat, that the hat was being jammed, that it was getting flat and flatter every second, that the meek man was howling in French; and she was just thinking of her husband and children when she started to her feet, and the nightmare was over. The meek man, having howled out his French sentence, sat aghast, stroking his poor hat, while his wife opposite was in convulsions, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he'd wag his tail and go back to his den—all this being evidently done to show that he was as vigilant as ever—a sort of protest, that said, "Don't believe one word about my being blind and toothless, still less flatter yourself that the place is secure. It requires all my activity and watchfulness to protect; but go back in peace, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... may be taken as a sample of the case. Mr. Ince, the counsel on the other side, was constantly practising in the Rolls' Court, knew all the judge's peculiarities, how to flatter and humor him on the one hand, and how to irritate him against his opponent on the other. Nor was Mr. Ince above using his influence with the Master of the Rolls to obtain an unfair advantage, knowing that whatever he said would be believed against any contradiction ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... of this gate is for this cause here made mention of, to wit, to encourage them that would gladly enter thereat, according to the mind of God, and not to flatter them that are not for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of subordinates can not perform. Therefore I would be there with naked, informal, and sinecure duties, and utterly out of place. This you understand well enough, and the army too, but the President and the politicians, who flatter themselves they are saving the country, cannot and will not understand. My opinion is, the country is doctored to death, and if President and Congress would go to sleep like Rip Van Winkle, the country would go on under natural influences, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... is served by the death of such men, what example is proclaimed? The cause for which they die is unknown to the idle and the foolish, hateful to the turbulent, loved by the upright. The only lesson we can draw from such scenes is to flatter the persecutor, or else to imitate ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... path in dry weather is inferior to a plank runway and when the ground is soft or muddy the loss in efficiency of the men is serious. Where the runway must rise to the mixing board, give it a slope or grade seldom steeper than 1 in 8, and if possible flatter. Make a runway on a trestle at least 18 ins. wide, so that men will be in no danger of falling. See to it, also, that the planks are so well supported that they do not spring down when walked over, for a springy plank makes ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... assure your Excellency that I well know how to appreciate the great confidence which His Majesty's Government has placed in me, in granting the privilege of personally witnessing the state of my brethren in Russia. The influence which I flatter myself that I have with them, I have exercised for the purpose of strengthening them in their continual efforts to meet the wishes of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... man, and myself. I shall be very happy to visit St. Petersburg and to become the coadjutor of Mr. Lipoftsoff, and to avail myself of his acquirements in what you very happily designate a most singular language, towards obtaining a still greater proficiency in it. I flatter myself that I am for one or two reasons tolerably well adapted for the contemplated expedition, for besides a competent knowledge of French and German, I possess some acquaintance with Russian, being able to read without much ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... back you to win. But as far as 'worldly advantages' are concerned, do not trust to wealth for a moment. Do not flatter yourself that there will be any kind of a bargain, as if you were marrying a Persian girl. There is nothing venal in that young ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... Carolina. The administration of Governor Tryon embraces an important period in the history of the State. He was a soldier by profession, and being trained to arms, looked upon the sword as the true scepter of government. "He knew when to flatter, and when to threaten. He knew when 'discretion was the better part of valor,' and when to use such force and cruelty as achieved for him from the Cherokee Indians, the bloody title of the 'Great Wolf of ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... state of families, living in deserts, with no other occupation than the mere animal search for food, may still be seen in that ancient quarter of the globe; but in America such things are new and strange, unknown and unsuspected, and discredited when related. But I flatter myself that what is discovered, though not enough to satisfy curiosity, is sufficient to excite it, and that subsequent explorations will complete ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... was just as our deceased friend would, if living, have wished it to be; for he was, as you know, not altogether indifferent to this kind of observances[46].' It would, indeed, be presumptuous in me to flatter myself that in this edition everything is as Johnson and Boswell would, if living, have wished it. Yet to this kind of observances, the observances that can be shown by patient and long labour, and by the famous press ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Flank flanko. Flannel flanelo. Flap klapo. Flare brilego. Flash (lightning) fulmo. Flash (of wit) spritajxo. Flask boteleto. Flat plata. Flat (music) duontono sube. Flatten platigi. Flatter flati. Flatterer flatulo. Flattering flatema. Flavour gusto. Flaw difekto. Flax lino. Flay senhauxtigi. Flea pulo. Flee flugi. Fleece sxaflano. Fleecy laneca. Fleet (quick) rapida. Fleet sxiparo. Flesh (meat) viando. Flesh karno. Flexibility fleksebleco. Flexible ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... and, until this newest freak of his—and he has got me guessing as to what it means—I admit I thought he was quite as likely to lick me as I was to lick him. I've watched him pretty closely and I am a pretty fair judge of a man, I flatter myself. Did he tell you that, a while ago, I offered him a place ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hands, flushed. She was pleased that he said, so simply, that she was a remarkable woman. He would not say that to flatter her—he was far too self-opinionated and objective by nature. He said it as he would say a piece of sculpture was remarkable, because he knew it ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... probably we may have old Thwaite on our side. From what you say, it is quite possible that at this very moment the girl herself may be on our side. Let her remain at Yoxham as long as you can get her to stay, and let everything be done to flatter and amuse her. Go down again yourself, and play the lover as well as I do not doubt you know how to do it." It was clear then that the great legal pundit did not think that an Earl should be ashamed to carry on his suit ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... fellow-creatures, and it was inconceivable that any honour they might have lavished upon him would have given him one moment's pleasure. He was entirely alone among aliens who were unable to comprehend him, aliens who could not flatter him, whose opinions were valueless to him. He had no more common ground on which to air his knowledge, no more grounds for comparison by which to achieve self-conceit than a man might have in a world tenanted only by sheep. From what I have heard him say on the subject of ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... "Don't flatter yourself, Oscar. No girl would be so foolish as to write you a love-letter. It is an invitation to ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Sir Charles," was the reply. "You flatter me. It was one of those things which look greater than they are. Nobody here knew Bracegirdle but Mr. Cibber; Mr. Cibber cannot see well without his glasses, and I got rid of one of the candles; I ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... mother and sister know nothing of what you have undergone. Had they, their suffering and alarm would have been great. But do not flatter yourself that the arrest of Count Monte-Leone is unknown to them. One of the Neapolitan papers informed them yesterday of that fact; and I do not hide from you, that in my presence, your mother deplored your unfortunate intimacy with one ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... peau de chagrin. Pity the poor fractional capitalist, who has just managed to live on the eight per cent of his coupon bonds. The shears of Atropos were not more fatal to human life than the long scissors which cut the last coupon to the lean proprietor, whose slice of dry toast it served to flatter with oleomargarine. Do you wonder that my thoughts took the poetical form, in the contemplation of these changes and their melancholy consequences? If the entire poem, of several hundred lines, was "declined with thanks" by an unfeeling editor, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Berg has told me some things in your favor that you have omitted. I cannot flatter myself now that my love is stronger than yours, but you are stronger, you are braver. What is the secret of your strength? Your religion seems to do you more good ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... he could. It was inevitable that she must be hurt, even if he had married, not giving her what he had given this dompteuse. After all, was it so terrible? It could not affect her much in the eyes of the world. And her heart? He did not flatter himself. Yet he knew that it would be the thing—the fallen idol—that would grieve her more than thought of the man. He wished that he could have spared her in the circumstances. But it had all come too suddenly: it was impossible. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... then he remembered the precise words of the request which Des Cadoux had preferred the night before, but which, at the time, he had treated lightly. "Ma foi, you do not flatter me!" he cried. "Am I a murderer, then? Come, come, Citizen, here is the letter that you are to carry. It is addressed to Mademoiselle de Bellecour, at Treves, and encloses Ombreval's farewell ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Sleep! refus'd thy call, Sleep! that with sweet refreshment smiles on all,— When, till the morn, thine eyes, unclos'd and damp, Trac'd thy sad semblance in the glimm'ring lamp,— When from thy face Health's latest relic fled, Where Hope might flatter, with reluctant tread,— Still, darting forward from the weight of woe, Thy soul with all its energy would glow; Still with the purest passion wouldst thou prove The glow of friendship and the warmth of love. And ah! to sacred Memory ever nigh, Thy wit and humour claim the ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... the breadth of the Andes has no doubt contributed to give so much importance to the granitic plains that extend on their eastern side. Unceasingly confounding the tributary streams of the Amazon with those of the Orinoco, or (as the lieutenants of Raleigh called it, to flatter their chief) the Rio Raleana, to the latter were attributed all the traditions which had been collected respecting the Dorado of Quixos, the Omaguas, and the Manoas.* (* The flight of Manco-Inca, brother of Atahualpa, to the east of the Cordilleras, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... black children being born to an Arab couple, in whose ancestry no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in the valley of the Jordan, where it is remarkable that the Arab population in general have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair, than any other tribes ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... the Foibles and narrow Whims of a perfect Humourist. But, on the other hand, he stands upon a very enlarged Basis; Is a Lover of Reason and Liberty; and scorns to flatter or betray; nor will he falsify his Principles, to court the Favour of the Great. He is not credulous, or fond of Religious or Philosophical Creeds or Creed- makers; But then he never offers himself to forge Articles of Faith for the rest of the ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... don't mean to insinuate that I have but one friend!" answered the sister, with another roguish twinkle of her mischievous eye; "because, dear brother, I have a great, great many, I flatter myself; but to tease you no longer, I have seen her, and she is just as winning ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... "No, we do not flatter," responded Woronzow, the chamberlain of the princess, "we only love truth! You ask if we have ever seen any thing more beautiful than your private secretary, and we answer that we have ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... district which is habitually the seat of a war between alien armies, the ordinary virtues of diligence, honesty, and kindliness seem to be of little avail. The only way to escape destruction is to win the favour of the prevailing powers, take the side of the strongest invader, flatter the despot, placate the Fate or Fortune or angry god that is sending the earthquake or the pestilence. The Hellenistic period pretty certainly falls in some degree under all of these categories. And one result is the sudden and ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... family affair it once was, either," retorted Fouche, "and you'll find it out before long. However, we've got to do the best we can. Swear off your old ways and come out as a man of Peace. Flatter the English, and by all means don't ask your mother- in-law Francis Joseph to send back the only woman you ever loved. He's got her in Vienna, and he's going to keep her if he has to put her in a ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... other children, you will in time make up your mind to let me keep Johnnie entirely as mine. It puts a new value into life,—this chance of having an immortal intelligence placed in my hands to train. It will be a real delight to do so, and I flatter myself the result will surprise ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... High Admiral he received a memorial from me by the hands of Sir Robert Preston, and though it had not the effect, of procuring my restoration at that time, yet from the gracious manner in which, I am assured, it was received, I did flatter myself that his Majesty would have pleasure in the opportunity, which appeared to present itself when your lordship's Administration was formed, of originating a measure which all would consider gracious, and most, I hope, believe to be perfectly just. In reference ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... I am not to be master in my own house! Well, well; flatter yourself with foolish fancies if you will; but know that your destiny is fixed. You shall never leave this cave, except as my wife. This is your fate, and you may as well make up your mind to it at once. I will have no more words with you at present, but will leave you to reflect on ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... here," she replied. "But the photographer said if I wanted to be a success I'd have to learn to flatter people more. He said that he learned ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... and debate. Women's tactics are reduced to three shifts. In the first place, they declare that we cannot love as they love. (Coquetry! the Marquise simply threw it at me, like a challenge, this evening!) Next they grow pathetic, to appeal to our natural generosity or self-love; for does it not flatter a young man's vanity to console a woman for a great calamity? And lastly, they have a craze for virginity. She must have thought that I thought her very innocent. My good faith is like to become an ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making. Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter In sleep a King; but waking, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... has the slightest control over him—neither father, mother, nor tutor. The Marquis makes excuses for his bringing-up by saying that, having had a very severe, rod-using father himself, he was determined that if he ever had a child he would spare the rod. He can flatter himself that he has thoroughly succeeded in spoiling ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... funny; the gloating over realistic pictures of life as it is found, because life as it is found is a more absorbing study than that of geology or chemistry; the tasting of redundant scenes of love and intrigue, which flatter the reader like experiences of his own,—these excesses he was not willing to admit to his art, a magic that served his literary palate with still finer food. He wrote with temperateness, and in pitying love of human nature, in the instinctive ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... sometimes grave and sometimes comic, but never-failing. He describes solicitors (or suitors) at Court, all pushing their fortune. "Some singis, some dancis, some tells storyis." Some try to make friends by their devotion, some have their private advocates in the King's chamber, some flatter, some play the fool— ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... so; but I do not flatter myself that it is so with me; and I do not think that it would be so with any man over you. Perhaps I may assure you that, as far as I know myself at present, all my future happiness must depend on your answer. It will not kill me—to be ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Observatory, in a bare room, principally furnished with his own trunks and papered with his own despicable studies. No man has less taste for disagreeable duties than myself; perhaps there is only one subject on which I cannot flatter a man without a blush; but upon that, upon all that touches art, my sincerity is Roman. Once and twice I made the circuit of his walls in silence, spying in every corner for some spark of merit; he, meanwhile, following close at my heels, reading the verdict in my face ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... listen! Another time you shall hear more.— Yes, I tell you, as good as banished these eleven months. But the old man already begins to lament the hasty step, which, however, I flatter myself (with a smile) is not entirely his own. Amelia, too, is incessantly pursuing him with her tears and reproaches. Presently he will be having him searched for in every quarter of the world; and if he finds ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the rack, Jested to capture a hearing and laughed when they jested back: So would deceive them awhile, and change and return in a breath, And on all the men of Vaiau imprecate instant death; And tempt her kings—for Vaiau was a rich and prosperous land, And flatter—for who would attempt it but warriors mighty of hand? And change in a breath again and rise in a strain of song, Invoking the beaten drums, beholding the fall of the strong, Calling the fowls of the air to come and feast ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old. Take the least man, observe his head and heart, find how he differs from every other man; see how Nature by degrees grows around him, to nourish, infold, and set him off, to enrich him with opportunities, as if he were her only foster-child, and to flatter thus every other man in turn, making him her darling as though in expectation of finding no other, till, having extorted all his worth and beauty, and cherished him to the utmost of his possible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... stranger than in my proper person; for in the latter case, I deemed it probable that your delicacy and kindness might tempt you to conceal whatever was calculated to wound my feelings, and to exaggerate anything that might tend to flatter or to soothe them. Thank Heaven, I now learn that I have a right to the name my boyhood bore, and that my birth is not branded with the foulest of private crimes, and that in death my father's heart yearned to his too hasty but repentant son. Enough of this: I have ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ingenuous and sparkling, deserved to be a duchess. Rigou knew nothing of the love affair between her and Jean-Louis Tonsard, which proves that he had let himself be fooled by the girl,—the only one of his many servants whose ambition had taught her to flatter the lynx as the only way ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... tell me you've many who flatter, Because of your wit and your song: They tell me—and what does it matter?— You like to be praised by the throng: They tell me you're shadowed with laurel: They tell me you're loved by a Blue: They tell me you're sadly immoral— Dear Clarence, that cannot be true! But to me, you ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... three-legged stool behind the old writing-desk. I never saw anything like her in my life. Everything she thinks, she says, and as to flattering her, it can't be done. I've told her a dozen times at least that she was beautiful, and she didn't mind it any more than Rose does when I flatter her. Still, I fancy if I were to talk to her of love it might make a difference, and perhaps I shall ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... — That this should be Even she . . . God, how with time and change Thou makest thy footsteps strange! Ah, now I know They play upon me, and it is not so. Why, 't is a girl I never saw before, A little thing to flatter and make weep, To tease until her heart is sore, Then kiss and clear the score; A gypsy run-the-fields, A little liberal daughter of the earth, Good for what hour of truancy and mirth The careless season yields Hither-side the flood of the year and yonder of the neap; Then thank ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... I flatter myself, however, that truth will appear not altogether void of charms, and the adventures I take upon me to relate, not be less pleasing for being within the reach of probability, and such as might have happened to any other as well as the person they did.—Few there are, I am pretty certain, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... that followed he made excellent progress in the affections of the officers of L'Heureuse. He had a face full of bonhomie, an engaging knack of seeming to flatter his companions while he merely listened to their talk, a fund of anecdote, and (as we know) a voice for singing that conciliated all who had an ear for music. All these advantages he used. For the next ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... invaluable to the old lady,—alter her gowns and make and trim her hats, etc. "You're clever, and from helping me sew you have become proficient and have acquired considerable knowledge of dressmaking. If she's miserly and won't buy new, my child, you can flatter her by remodeling her old gowns, etc. Then she'll grow to depend on you. She'll consider you a good manager and feel that her money will not be wasted by you. Then, when you marry we'll go abroad to associate with peers and duchesses and members of the nobility. You'll feel ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... referred to in a note from a correspondent at Albany, in which we find the following sentences: 'If received, I hope it was not amenable to the censure in a late number of the KNICKERBOCKER, of certain correspondence, for having been written 'too carefully.' Now I do flatter myself upon so writing, that compositors can have no excuse for blunders, though I am well aware that to be esteemed a Genious, one's chirography should very nearly approach unintelligibility. If this be true, the patience ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... must have some idle mirth in 't, Else it will never pass. I am in love, In love with Corombona; and my suit Thus halts to her in verse.— [He writes. I have done it rarely: Oh, the fate of princes! I am so us'd to frequent flattery, That, being alone, I now flatter myself: But it will serve; 'tis seal'd. [Enter servant.] Bear this To the House of Convertites, and watch your leisure To give it to the hands of Corombona, Or to the Matron, when some followers Of Brachiano may be by. Away! [Exit Servant. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... sagacity. His cunning had influenced him to repel, with an assumption of ignorance, Luna's broad hints of guilty complicity; but his sagacity failed utterly to comprehend Pierre's more cunning silence. Pierre was actively acquainted with Morrison's weak points, and while he ceased not to flatter them he never neglected to gather rewards for his labour. If the fabled crow had had the wit to swallow his cheese before he began to sing he would at least have had a full stomach to console himself for being duped. This is somewhat prognostical; but even so, it is not safe to jump ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... is some sort of a Cape Horn for all. Boys! beware of it; prepare for it in time. Gray-beards! thank God it is passed. And ye lucky livers, to whom, by some rare fatality, your Cape Horns are placid as Lake Lemans, flatter not yourselves that good luck is judgment and discretion; for all the yolk in your eggs, you might have foundered and gone down, had the Spirit of the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... hatred was tempered with Corsican guile. Toussaint had requested that the Haytians should be under the protection of their former mistress. Protection was the last thing that Bonaparte desired; but he deemed it politic to flatter the black chieftain with assurances of his personal esteem and gratitude for the "great services which you have rendered to the French people. If its flag floats over St. Domingo it is due to you and your brave blacks"—a reference to Toussaint's successful ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... inhabitants of the country, some of the troops of the colony, and every Canadian that was able to bear arms, besides several nations of savages, had taken the field in a very advantageous situation,—I could not flatter myself that I should be able to reduce the place. I sought, however, an occasion to attack their army, knowing well that with these troops I was able to fight, and hoping that a victory might disperse them." Then, after recounting the events of the campaign with admirable clearness, he ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... black 'un, new done, that he saw with; the other was tied up), I give him warning that he'd better take that umbereller and patten to the Hackney-coach Office before he repents it. He was a young man in a weskit with sleeves to it and strings behind, and needn't flatter himsef with a suppogition of escape, as I gave this description of him to the Police the moment I found he had drove off with my property; and if he thinks there an't laws enough he's ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... first hotel his search had no reward. But in the second he found a Pulaski City man, whose acquaintance he had never previously prized, yet from whom he now hid four-fifths of his surprised delight and still betrayed enough to flatter the fellow dizzy. John took him back to his own hotel for breakfast, made sure he had only to ask a loan to get it, and let him go at last, unable to get the request ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Maghavat, and adopt an understanding established on certitude and truth. The gods, men, the Pitris, the Gandharvas, the snakes, and the Rakshasas, were all under my sway in days gone by. Thou knowest this, O Vasava! Their understandings stupefied by ignorance, all creatures used to flatter me, saying, "Salutations to that point of the compass whither Virochana's son Vali may now be staying!" O lord of Sachi, I do not at all grieve when I think of that honour (which is no longer paid to me). I feel no sorrow for this fall of mine. My understanding is firm in this ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... reader to need repeating here." They know that that is not true. It is a low kind of flattery. They know that the reader has forgotten every detail of it, and that nothing of the tremendous event is left in his mind but a vague and formless luminous smudge. Aside from the desire to flatter the reader, they have another reason for making the remark-two reasons, indeed. They do not remember the details themselves, and do not want the trouble of hunting them up and copying them out; also, they are afraid that if they search them out and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... began to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him. He gave God thanks, he never feared death; and the manner of death, though to others it might seem grievous, yet he had rather die so than of a burning fever. I wished him not to flatter himself, for this extraordinary boldness, I was afraid, came from some false ground. If it were out of a humour of vain glory, or carelessness of death, or senselessness of his own state, he were much to be lamented. He answered that he was persuaded ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... curiosity to know how it had come to pass, and there was rather too apparent a hope that something was going wrong. Their first inquisitive look was met by Lady Cecilia's careless glance in reply, which said better than words could express, "Nothing the matter, do not flatter yourselves." Then her expertness at general answers which give no information, completely baffled the two curious impertinents. They could only learn that the day for the marriage was not fixed, that it could not be definitively named till some business should be settled ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... was vaguely repelled and could not help hoping that he would never see Mollie again. He was just the man to be dangerous to Mollie; handsome, polished, ready of speech and perfect in manner, he was the sort of man to dazzle and flatter any ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... commanded Dacian that they should put him in a caldron full of molten lead, and when St. George entered therein, by the virtue of our Lord it seemed that he was in a bath well at ease. Then Dacian seeing this began to assuage his ire, and to flatter him by fair words, and said to him: George, the patience of our gods is over great unto thee which hast blasphemed them, and done to them great despite, then fair, and right sweet son, I pray thee that thou return to our law and make sacrifice to the idols, and leave thy folly, and I shall ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... see others whose centre is self. Their whole life looks so mean and low. Life over, the Ego alone left; and what a poor, wretched, snivelling creature after all—this what we pampered, this what we thrust forward for others to admire and flatter! If we were not in much the same case, we might be able to view it in others with somewhat different eyes. And yet do you know that, as a matter of fact, our Ego is dead—self is not—and the devil's greatest lie is to make us believe in this self? For do not you and I belong ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... she stood in the presence of her injured friends. She was not studying how to conceal or palliate her offence, but how she could best tell the whole truth. She gave herself no credit for any good deed she had done during her absence; she did not flatter herself that she had been benevolent and kind in using the stolen money as she had used it; she did not believe that her tender vigil at the bedside of the dying girl made her ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... Coffee-House daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Originally non-extant, it has become at length, after aeons of struggle, the chief concern of man, the "business of all men in common," as Locke puts it, all of which philosophy is tantamount to saying, that morality is merely a flatter of history. When you know its history, you know everything, very much as a photographer might claim to exhaustively know an individual man, because he had photographed him every six months from his cradle to his grave. A very inadequate ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... "But don't flatter yourself I care, or am jealous, because this scene has humiliated and angered me. You're not worth a moment's jealousy, ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... a fifth above, will vibrate 150, if tuned so that no waves are heard; but for reasons which will be fully explained later, the fifth cannot be tuned with mathematical precision. On account of certain peculiarities in our tempered scale, the fifth must always be left somewhat flatter than perfect. This fact is always learned with some ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... nothing like it. Flatter the peasant and you will be almost sure to move him. Say, 'Ah, what a time that was when you had the old wine in your cellars!' He will say, 'Nest-ce pas, monsieur?' and brighten up at the thought of it. Then you will continue: 'Yes, indeed, that was a wine worth drinking. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... recommended to bequeath them in turn to his son Howell if he were deemed worthy of the trust. "It is my most ardent desire that in whatsoever hands fortune may place said negroes," the will enjoined, "that all the justice and indulgence may be shown them that is consistent with a state of slavery. I flatter myself with the hope that none of my relations or connections will be so ungrateful to my memory as to treat or use them otherwise." Surely upon the death of such a master the slaves might, with even more than usual ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... neighborhoods at that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, high kind of humor. For "while his ships and army were doubling the Mull of Cantire, he had his own boat set on wheels, and therein, splendidly enough, had himself drawn across the Promontory at a flatter part," no doubt with horns sounding, banners waving. "All to the left of me is mine and Norway's," exclaimed Hakon in his triumphant boat progress, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... and it really doesn't matter If you crowd me in the street cars till I couldn't well be flatter; I'm only a consumer, and the strikers may go striking, For it's mine to end my living if it isn't to my liking. I am a sort of parasite without a special mission Except to pay the damages—mine is a queer position: The Fates unite to squeeze me till I couldn't well be ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... playfully. "I am delighted to pool distresses with you," he said, "but don't try to flatter me. Women laugh at me," he added, ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... him, Druce, he's mashed flatter than a stinking tin-can on a rock, can't move a motor. Bring that junk in here ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... the mattress," said Evan, coolly meeting his gaze. "Very thoughtful of you." He counted them ostentatiously. "Six of you—and a couple of deckhands in reserve. You flatter me, gentlemen!" ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... that you go to that charlatan, Howard Prince, in Californian Street to be faked up. I must be brutal—it's no use being anything else to women of your sort. You've got a certain species of eczema, and you flatter yourself that no one but you and Prince are aware of it. What have you got to say now, Miss Barlow?' But Ella Barlow had fainted. When she came to, which I managed after vigorous application of salts and water—the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell |
