"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape as a matter of ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... "I don't flatter myself they'll do that," burst out Lorna. "They're so happy they never think about me. Mrs. Clark, you don't know my home. I've nobody—nobody except my father. The others have brothers and sisters and friends, and all they want—and I ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... reading and late hours: the midnight oil, you know, must be supplied, and will be paid for; the nervous system gets strained to excess, and you have to call in the doctor. Well, what does he do? Why, he prescribes a regular course of tonics; and I flatter myself that I am a very docile patient, and take my bitter beer regularly, and without complaining." In proof of which Mr. Charles Larkyns took a ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... yesterday your letter of three sheets: I began to flatter myself that the storm was blown over, but I tremble to think of the danger you are in! a danger, in which even the protection of the great friend you have lost could have been of no service to you. How ridiculous it seems for me to renew protestations of my friendship for you, at an instant ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... boracits which they contain. Two other formations, far anterior to the three we have just mentioned, are the transition gypsum (ubergangsgyps) of Aigle, and the primitive gypsum (urgyps) of the valley of Canaria, near Airolo. I flatter myself that I may render some service to those geologists who prefer the knowledge of positive facts to speculation on the origin of things, by furnishing them with materials from which they may generalize their ideas on the formation of rocks in both hemispheres. The relative antiquity ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... in his very lack of reverence, in his impertinent assumption of equality, in his refusal to pay her the condescending homage due feebleness and old age, that seemed to flatter her. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Mr. Parr!" he said. "Now that I know the truth, I tell you frankly I would face poverty and persecution rather than consent to your offer. And I warn you once more not to flatter yourself that existence ends here, that you will, not be called to answer for every wrong act you have committed in accumulating your fortune, that what you call business is an affair of which God takes no account. What I say may ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... constantly deave me And bids me beware o' young men; They flatter, she says, to deceive me; But wha can think ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... "You flatter me," I responded. "If I could produce those voices I would go on the vaudeville stage to-morrow. I give you my word I am acting in entire good faith. I am quite as eager for the truth as any of you.—But, hark! the cone is ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... husband will I tell: God let his soul never come into hell. And yet was he to me the moste shrew;* *cruel, ill-tempered That feel I on my ribbes all *by rew,* *in a row And ever shall, until mine ending day. But in our bed he was so fresh and gay, And therewithal so well he could me glose,* *flatter When that he woulde have my belle chose, Though he had beaten me on every bone, Yet could he win again my love anon. I trow, I lov'd him better, for that he Was of his love so dangerous* to me. *sparing, difficult We women have, if that I shall not lie, In this matter a quainte fantasy. Whatever ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... you flatter yourself. You have lied over the reason. Pip, remember that I know you as you don't know yourself. You have been everything to me, though you are—(Fan-guard.) Oh, what a contemptible Thing it is! And so you are merely ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... was for the time averted. They began, very prematurely, as the result showed, to be confident of success, and talked of punishing Philip for his presumption. In this they were encouraged by certain foolish orators, who sought to flatter the national prejudices. Demosthenes in this oration strives to check the arrogance of the people; reminds them of the necessity of defensive rather than offensive measures, and especially of the importance of preserving their allies. ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... the lower class. Their skins, too, were much darker in color, though there was considerable variation in this respect. Among them were a sprinkling of men of entirely different type, almost black in hue, with thicker lips and flatter features. These were Ethiopians, whose land lay beyond that of Meroe and who had also felt the weight and power of the ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... 1770.—My poor little George is come to see me to-day, he seems pretty well, tho' he had a fit lately; it was near a twelve-month since he had one before, so was in hopes they had left him, but must not flatter myself so now. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... 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 ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... the power of the Gospel, that his glory may be seen in his Temple. Because of these things is there great wrath from the LORD against these Kingdoms, and this controversie shall be continued until we really turn away from our crooked paths. Therefore as we wish that none of this Land may flatter themselves in their evil wayes, but repent and amend, so we desire our Brethren of England to consider what hath been the bitter fruits of their slow progresse in and neglect of the Work of Reformation, and of their connivance ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... not get along so well. He was a man of harsh manner, who did not have the patience or the inclination to flatter with fine promises. Lovelace wanted everyone to understand that he was master. Very soon, when the people said they thought they should have the right to control their own affairs, the Governor told them that he did not think it was best for them to have too much to do with the governing ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... a man of the world," she answered, "and are trying to flatter me,—a woman of sixty! My dear child," she went on, "let me tell you that you are here among persons who believe strongly in God; who have all felt his hand, and have yielded themselves to him almost as though they ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... with you," he said,—"you know that very well; but you mustn't quarrel with me, if I talk honestly with you; it isn't everybody that will take the trouble. You flatter yourself that you will make a good many enemies by leaving your old communion. Not so many as you think. This is the way the common sort of people will talk:—'You have got your ticket to the feast of life, as much as any other man that ever lived. Protestantism ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... 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 to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... passed in the street; a young man who smiled and nodded. It was the boy, Lorry. He had been working on the car that morning. She had watched him work, rather enjoying his energy. A healthy young animal as unsophisticated as a kitten, and really innately kind and innocent of intent to flatter. He was not at all like the bright young savage who had roped and almost choked to death ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... although she possessed none of Sabine's indescribable charm, she had had numbers of admirers and would-be lovers and was in every way fitted to cope with any man. This evening, she had determined so to soothe, flatter and pet Henry that he should go to bed not realizing that there was any change in himself, but should be in reality completely changed. Her preparations had been swift but elaborate. She had rushed to Madame ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... "Ah! do not flatter me, Alfred Stevens, do not deceive me. I am too willing to believe you, for it is so dear a feeling to think that I too am a poet. Yet, at the first, I had not the smallest notion of this kind: I neither knew what poetry was, nor felt the desire ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... shall not take upon myself, however, to say, whether we are, from the circumstance, to infer, that the whole members of this family have no just claim to be descended from the Chitaur colony, but were impure mountaineers, who had this pedigree invented to flatter them, when they turned from their impure ways, and were induced to follow the Brahmans. It is possible, that the first chief of the Rising family, who obtained that country as an appanage, may have been of illegitimate birth, and that, his mother being impure, he may ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... wicked woman's contrivances, he thinks himself disinherited of his whole fortune, ill-treated, and neglected by a father, he never had in thought offended! He could give an opportunity to a sincere friend, who would not flatter him, to say, ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... have thrown her very name away as a faded flower, she will be praying, hoping, fearing for you; though all men deny you, yet will not she. Yes, Mr. Burr, if ever your popularity and prosperity should leave you and those who now flatter should despise and curse you, she will always be interceding with her own heart and with God for you, and making a thousand excuses where she cannot deny; and if you die, as I fear you have lived, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the Spirit says to the church at Ephesus. After reviewing the good qualities and characteristics of this church, much to their praise and credit, he does not flatter their vanity, by intimations or otherwise, to think themselves all right and in need of nothing; but "I have this AGAINST thee, that thou didst leave thy first love. Remember therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent." It is truthfully said "our best friends are those who warn us ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... Fraught with bold warriors, and a boundless store O thou! whom age has taught to understand, And Heaven has guided with a favouring hand! On god or mortal to obtrude a lie Forbear, and dread to flatter as to die. Nor for such ends my house and heart are free, But dear respect to ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... bread and salt, as becomes a Tartar who welcomes a friend. It was lucky for me that I had some little training in public speaking, and that "Polkovnika Franka" could make such excellent translations, or we might not have made such a good impression as I flatter myself we ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... As for me, I flatter myself that I was equally admirable in my own metier. I was assorting a motley collection of guide-books, novels, maps, smelling-salts, and kodaks when he came in, and was dying to look up, but I remained as ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... whom descended the four noble families of the Pomponii, Pinarii, Calphurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took the title of Rex, that is, king. Others again say that these pedigrees were invented to flatter these families, and state that the Pompilian family descends not from Tatia, but from Lucretia, whom he married after he became king. All, however, agree that Pompilia married Marcius, the son of that Marcius who encouraged Numa to accept the crown. This man accompanied Numa to Rome, was made ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... anaemic or consumptive. And there's no sense at all in getting cross with us about it, because we cannot help it. We are doing our best. In another hundred thousand years or so, provided all goes well, we shall be the perfect man. And seeing our early training, I flatter myself that, up to the present, we have ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... lesson, Prout. They need a sharp lesson, if only to bring down their over-weening self-conceit. Were I you, I should devote myself for a week to their little performances. Boys of that order—and I may flatter myself, but I think I know boys—don't join the Bug-hunters for love. Tell the Sergeant to keep his eye open; and, of course, in my peregrinations I may ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... condition of the apartments, as well as an abundant expenditure of tact and diplomacy on our part, saved us from other applicants, and we were beginning to flatter ourselves that we should escape this much-dreaded imposition when, late in the afternoon, two young naval officers called, accompanied by orderlies and pack-mules. They presented billets de logement, requesting to be given possession. We tried to discourage them, ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... pleasant or lasting without folly; so much so, that a people could not stand its prince, nor the master his man, nor the maid her mistress, nor the tutor his pupil, nor the friend his friend, nor the wife her husband for a moment longer, if they did not now and then err together, now flatter each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now smearing themselves with some honey of folly.' In that sentence the summary of the Laus is contained. Folly here is worldly wisdom, resignation and ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Wire tail same as in mounting. Wrap leg bones with cotton, tow, or excelsior according to size of specimen. Turn the skin back over a core of one of these materials, wrapped upon a splinter or stick, to size of natural body, but somewhat flatter. Sew up abdominal incision neatly. Catch the lips together with two or three stitches. Lay specimen, belly down, upon a soft-wood board. Pin fore paws alongside of the face and hind feet alongside ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... she knows their tongues are venal, sold to flatter wealth and power, And to crouch with serpent homage in the dust at Fortune's shrine, Ready to revile and slander if calamity should lower, And to flout as base, deceitful, what they ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... him to heel. It all rested on the fortuity of her getting five minutes alone with him. Granted this, she would have a chance. There are ways given to women whereby men of his type can be placated. She would have to flatter him by abasing herself, by throwing herself upon his mercy. But since this must be done, she was prepared ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... during the week, the market has been somewhat flatter in goods suited for the Eastern markets, in consequence of merchants being anxious to receive their advices by the Indian Mail before extending their transactions materially at present prices. In the Yorkshire woollen markets a fair trade continues to be done; and in Bradford a very active ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... agreed Steve. "I'll lie a little flatter, because the sun and the wetting has made my head ache. They're ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... preference for luxury. The principal diversion my ingenious mind discovered to while away my time with was a fiddle (an elderly one), which I routed out of a lumber closet, and from which, after due invocations to St. Cecilia, I drew such diabolical sounds as I flatter myself were never excelled by Tartini or his master, the devil himself. I must now close ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Comte did, indeed, profess to furnish a central law of belief. It is due, he said, to the tendency of man to flatter his own personality by foisting its image upon the universe. This, however, is but one way of saying that it is wholly gratuitous,—that it has no root in the truth of the world. But universal truth and universal law ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rise from their seats in affright, To see if the warner has told them aright, As they flatter themselves that it may be mere fancy, Or put little faith in the toad's necromancy; They find he speaks truly, the storm is approaching, Dark clouds o'er the beautiful blue are encroaching, The tempest lays low the tall grass in the field, To the furious blasts even forest-trees yield; ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... person in this respected audience whose mind is in such voluntary slavery as to induce the adoption of such a course. I see before me minds which sparkle in every look, and thoughts which are ever active, to acquire what is true, and adopt what is useful. And I flatter myself that the time spent in the investigation of the science of language will not ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... is staying to nurse her, and does not intend going home until he has escorted her back to Palermo. His zeal for the public service," she continues, "seems entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they all sit and flatter ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... 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 ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... abilities would enable me, for where that has been concerned the attention to my health, which I was most sensible was in the most imminent danger, has never swerved me a single half-mile out of the road of duty; so that I flatter myself I shall leave behind that character that it has ever been my utmost ambition to attain, which is that of an honest and faithful servant to the public whom I had ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... speaking of the "profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians" (p. 126) to arouse righteous anger against a certain class, to flatter his audience, or did he have some ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... sovran woman never made that discovery for herself—I believe it was a man in his mere man mood who first confided the secret to some young wife in distress—somebody else's young wife. [Laughter.] Feed him and flatter him. Why not? Is there anything more delightful in this world than to be flattered and fed? Let us do as we would be done by. It seems to me sometimes that it is impossible in reviewing our social relations ever ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... dearly! She has loved me dearly!" On his death-bed he wrote a letter to Bonaparte telling him that his daughter was in nowise responsible for his book, but it was never answered. It was enough for Napoleon to know that she did not flatter him; therefore he wished her out ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... this that possesses the magic word to stir and call forth the spirits that lie hidden in great work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is a sealed cabinet of mystery,—an unfamiliar musical instrument from which the player, however much he may flatter himself, can draw none but confused tones. How different a painting looks when seen in a good light, as compared with some dark corner! Just in the same way, the impression made by a masterpiece varies with the capacity of the mind ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... he'd have to modify. I sing alone sometimes, But singing isn't easy! Tra la, la, tra, la la! Still it isn't voice that I lack, I think, Tra la la, tra la la, No, 'tis the method. Of course one can't have everything. I sing pretty badly, But dance agreeably, And I do not flatter myself; Dancing shows off my advantages. 'Tis my one great attraction, But dancing isn't easy. Tra ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... of the Levant, cooled in snow. The worthy Consul was smoking his chibouque, and his daughter, as she rose to greet their guest, let her guitar fall upon the turf. The original of the portrait proved that the painter had no need to flatter; and the dignified, yet cordial manner, the radiant smile, and the sweet and thrilling voice with which she welcomed her countryman would have completed the spell, had, indeed, the wanderer been one prepared, or capable of being enchanted. As it was, Mr. Ferrers, while he returned ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... hour she had named I called on her, wearing my great coat, and with a sword for my only weapon. I found Nina with her sister, a woman of thirty-six or thereabouts, who was married to an Italian dancer, nicknamed Schizza, because he had a flatter ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... off by death and marriage, and of those whose value may be unexpectedly increased by a legacy, or a sister or brother's decease. Particular attention will be paid to rich widows.—The first part of this truly useful work is nearly ready for the press; and we flatter ourselves that its arrangement and execution will excite universal applause. The particulars concerning each lady will be distributed under four heads; the first will be devoted to her fortune and expectations; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... oyster has a deep or spoon-shaped attached valve, and a flat or flatter free valve. This form, or a modification of it, we find to be characteristic of all pelecypods which are attached to a foreign object of support by the cementation of one valve. All are highly modified, and are strikingly different from ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... the man she loved, for ever; and Monsieur D'Arblet had been kind to her; he had pitied her for being tied to a husband who drank and who gambled, and Helen had allowed herself to be pitied. D'Arblet had charming manners, and an accurate knowledge of the weakness of the fair sex; he knew when to flatter and when to cajole her, when to be tenderly sympathetic to her sorrows, and when to divert her thoughts to brighter and pleasanter topics than her own miseries. He succeeded in fascinating her completely. Whilst her husband was occupied with his own disreputable ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... eternal mind, and not in those political regulations or priestly and judicial formalities which express the perverted desires and artificial devices of men. The wearing of a certain dress, the bending of the knee, the muttering of a phrase, may flatter an earthly sovereign and gain a seat at his banquets. But it is childish folly to fancy any such thing of God. It is absurd to suppose that he has two schemes of government, one for the present state, another for the future; one for the elect, another for the reprobate; one for those who gaze ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... do. We have laid snares for the innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to extend, as occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we had before injured in their dearest relations. But yet, I flatter myself, sometimes, that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or Mowbray; for I, by taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou hast freed me, (and who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon my own head some of the evils I had brought ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... and by I discoursed largely, and in short he gives me good counsel, but tells me plainly that it is my best way to study a composition with my uncle Thomas, for that law will not help us, and that it is but a folly to flatter ourselves, with which, though much to my trouble, yet I was well satisfied, because it told me what I am to trust to, and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... whether she will think it worth while to make the attempt," observed Mr Deane. "Jack is in no way suited to her, whatever he may flatter himself is the case. However, let the lad go; he can come to no harm, at all events; and Mistress Alethea may give him a taste for better society than he seems ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... that white-veiled witch stares at me with her golden eyes?" said Nick. "Wish I could flatter myself she ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... vice; and we look in our experience, and find no vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal fitness. It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they are all emasculate and sentimentalised, and only please and weaken. Truth is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can read a bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in whose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... end. He, who had been defrauded of his life's happiness by a Baron's daughter, yearned to move the King to raise him to the rank of Baron. He loaded the Secretary Slick with gifts and favors, and seeing that his Majesty was graciously pleased to smile on me, his ward, he would be at much pains to flatter me, calling me his "golden hair" or "Blue-eyes;" and enjoin it on me that I should make mention of him to the King as his Majesty's most faithful servant, ever ready for any sacrifice in his service, at the same ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... done full justice to the advantages of your own actual position in this respect. You have overlooked the great work immediately before you. We have no magic talisman to offer you in carrying out that work. We shall not flatter you with the promise of unlimited success; we shall not attempt to gratify any personal ambition of public honors. We have no novel theories or brilliant illusions with which to ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... wet Bottles, many Vessels of good Drink are spoiled: but if the Bottles are clean and dry, yet if the Corks are not new and found, the Drink is still liable to be damaged; for if the Air can get into the Bottles, the Drink will grow flat, and will never rise. I have known many who have flatter'd themselves that they knew how to be saving, and have used old Corks on this occasion, that have spoiled as much Liquor as has stood them in four or five Pounds, only for want of laying out three ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... "We flatter ourselves we do look pretty fine," Burns admitted, eying his wife with satisfaction. "That gauzy gray thing Ellen has on strikes me as the bulliest yet. If I could just get her to wear a pink rose in her ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... may beleive you flatter me, But say thou dost and seeme to love me dearelye, For I confess, as freelye as I love, One littell sparke of thee outbuys my kyngdome; And when my kyngdomes gone pray what am I? A pore decrepyd mysserable thynge That ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... himself, the King directly gets tired, and is either ready to yawn or to go away.' Every great poet, when he is growing old, is a little like Louis XIV. in this respect. Madame Recamier had each day a thousand pleasant contrivances to excite and flatter him. She assembled from all quarters friends for him,—new admirers. She chained us all to the feet of her idol with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... judges. Even so far back as the Directory days, when Bernadotte was insulted at Vienna, he summed up the Austrian character in the following terms:—"When the Austrians think of making war, they do not insult; they cajole and flatter the enemy, so that they may have a better chance to stick a knife into him." He told the Directory they did not understand the Cabinet of Vienna; "it is the meanest and most perfidious to be found." "It will not make war with you because ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... uneasiness in respect to the course which the Roman general would pursue in the approaching battle. The measure that he had referred to was one to which the Romans were not accustomed to resort except in emergencies of the most extreme and dangerous character, and Pyrrhus ought not to flatter himself with the idea that the Romans regarded his invasion as of sufficient consequence to require them to have recourse to any unusual means of defense. They were fully convinced of their ability ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... you are the only sensible person of the whole family, the only one who is not a prodigal, and have made shift to live decently upon your own earnings, I rather think that I may be of use to you. I like you, because you browbeat me and do not flatter me, and I will tell you the truth; that bank-bill which you returned to me strongly interested me in your favour. There was a time when I was not the shrewd hard fellow that I am, but a true Dumany and ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... this book was written for French people, and is adjusted to the meridian of Paris. We must remember this always in reading it, and also remember that a Frenchman does not think English any more than he talks it. We sometimes flatter ourselves with the idea that we as a people are original in our tendency to extravagance of thought and language. It is a conceit of ours. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... prescribed measures. And because sores that are to be cut away should first be stroked with a gentle hand, I beg of thee, I beseech thee, and, as kindly as I can, I demand of thee that thy fraternity rebuke all who flatter thee and offer thee this name of error, and not consent to be called by a foolish and proud title. For truly I say it weeping, and out of deepest sorrow of heart attribute it to my sins, that this my brother, who has ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... having one sheave over the other, and the lower smaller than the upper (see LONG-TACKLES), in contradistinction to double blocks, which also have two sheaves, but one abreast of the other. They lie flatter and more snugly to the yards, and are ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... for yourselves," called Dennis. "We're level with the gun," and, trying to squeeze themselves flatter, if such a performance had been humanly possible, they heard the rhythmical tac-tac abreast of them and the weird whistle of the deadly stream of bullets a few feet ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... with the Papacy. Ferdinand, as we have just seen, had expressed himself contented with the situation of affairs at Trent. But the French prelates still remained in opposition, and the French Court was undecided. Cardinal Morone, upon his arrival at Trent, began to flatter the Cardinal of Lorraine, affecting to take no measures of importance without consulting him. This conduct, together with timely compliments to several Frenchmen of importance, smoothed the way for ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... bathed. The bath filled up as lock-up drew near. With the exception of a couple of infants splashing about in the shallow end, and a stout youth who dived in from the spring-board, scrambled out, and dived in again, each time flatter than the last, they had the place ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Not flatter vice. We curse vice only behind its back, and that's like making a long nose at it round a corner. I am a zoologist or a sociologist, which is the same thing; you are a doctor; society believes in us; we ought to point out the terrible harm which threatens it and the next generation ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... currant-water; and playing dominoes for shapeless sous, which they rattle incessantly in their preposterous trousers! I am meditating a book on the French army, in which I shall lay great stress on the above, I flatter myself, rather acute bit of observation. Carrie (she grows prettier daily) rather inclines to the idea that the moderation of these French dragoons is in their favour; and this is the first time I have found her judgment at fault. But then it would be ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... homage. In making my request to the emperor, your father, and praying him to intrust to me the happiness of your imperial highness, may I hope that you will understand the sentiments which lead me to this act? May I flatter myself that it will not be decided solely by the duty of parental obedience? However slightly the feelings of your imperial highness may incline to me, I wish to cultivate them with so great care, and to endeavor so ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... for a considerable time to come, I've made up my mind to give you a holiday. You're young, you see, an' foolish, and your mind needs improvin'. In short, you want a good deal o' the poetry knocked out o' you, for it's not like your mother's poetry by any means, so you needn't flatter yourself—not built on the same lines by a long way. Well—where ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... flatter myself that Canadians are a good deal like United States folks already, and I don't mind congratulating both our nations on the resemblance. But I'm bound to add that, while I would wish to imitate the American people in many ways still further, I wouldn't be like ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... dinner in St. Andrew's Hall given by a Piscatorial Society of which my host is President. It was a weary sitting of five hours with innumerable speeches. Of course I had to say "a few words," and if I can get a copy of the papers I will send them to you. I flatter myself they were words of wisdom, though hardly likely to contribute to my popularity ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... up into her countenance with guileless simplicity, but earnest affection; "How could I be sorry that a ray of the sun came across the gloom of a cheerless day—that light has broken in upon darkness, though it remained so short a time? I do not flatter myself with being able to march quite so light-hearted as I once used to could, or to sleep as sound, for some time to come; but I shall always remember how near I was to being undeservedly happy, I shall. So far from blaming you, Mabel, I only blame myself for being ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... Gower's lips that haunted, that frightened ambitious men away, that sent men who knew they hadn't a ghost of a chance with her discontentedly back to the second-choice women who alone were available for them. Fortunately for Mildred, Stanley Baird, too wise to flatter a woman discriminatingly, did not tell her the secret of her fascination. If he had told her, she would no doubt have tried to train and to use it—and so would ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... as a distinct element in the modern population. In going northward, however, he soon began to find that the prevailing physiognomy was of a northern character: 'The form of the face is broader, the cheek-bones project a little, the nose is somewhat flatter, and at times turned a little upwards; the eyes and hair are of a lighter colour, and even deep-red hair is far from being uncommon. The people are not very tall in stature, but usually more compact and strongly built than their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... still lurk in a shamefaced half-consciousness in the minds of modern men. There was no need in the eighteenth century for any fine analysis to detect the naive belief that women exist only as auxiliary beings to contribute to the comfort and to flatter the self-esteem of men. The belief was avowed and accepted as the unquestioned basis of human society. Good men proclaimed it, and the cleverest women dared not ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... tears, he could always order up this reserve at the proper moment to battle; he could draw upon tears or smiles alike, and whenever need was for using this cheap coin. He would cringe to a shoeblack, and he would flatter a minister or a monarch; be haughty, be humble, threaten, repent, weep, grasp your hand, or stab you whenever he saw occasion—but yet those of the army who knew him best and had suffered most from him, admired him most of all; and as he rode along the lines ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... worn out by excitement and fatigue, at four o'clock in the morning retired to his chamber for a few hours of sleep. He was so far deceived as to flatter himself that, through the measures which had been adopted, all serious trouble was at an end. He slept soundly, and did not rise until eleven o'clock, when he came down to the breakfast-room in morning-gown and slippers, and with a smiling countenance. Here appalling ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... objects where God has placed it. It is no where to be found but in the enjoyment of the religion of Christ. This will sweeten every earthly pursuit, make every burden light, afford solid enjoyment in life and divine consolation in the hour of death. Flatter not yourself that there is any happiness beneath the sun aside from this. "There is no peace saith my God to the wicked," and, he who says there is, contradicts Jehovah, and is yet "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." A speculative faith is of but little consequence, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... said. "Flatter me. Make me get swelled head. Don't think of the consequences. Ladle it out. Tell me I ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... outrage of many tyrants: the rich and the powerful were more jealous of their independent, scattered, and, as it were, feudal life. But these he sought to conciliate by promises that could not but flatter that very prejudice of liberty which naturally at first induced them to oppose his designs. He pledged his faith to a constitution which should leave the power in the hands of the many. He himself, as monarch, desired only the command in war, and ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... most comely of the Romans) might introduce him to the favor of Sophia; and the widow of Justin was persuaded, that she should preserve her station and influence under the reign of a second and more youthful husband. But, if the ambitious candidate had been tempted to flatter and dissemble, it was no longer in his power to fulfil her expectations, or his own promise. The factions of the hippodrome demanded, with some impatience, the name of their new empress: both the people and Sophia were astonished by the proclamation ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... 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
... into the front area so that it exploded and blew away the front wall." And I outlined the history of that canine clairvoyant, Willy Woolly. "The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about his tenants, anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps it would be well for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... itself the grille through which they show like beauteous wraiths or frescoes in the flat. That screen is emblematic of their real exclusion from the higher government which their social participation in parliamentary elections, and the men's habit of talking politics with them, flatter them into a delusive sense of sharing. A woman may be the queen of England, but she may not be one of its legislators. That must be because women like being queens and do not ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... made by Fabre d'Eglantine. Maillan, "Memoires," 323. (Speech of Fabre d'Eglantine at the Jacobin Club in relation to the address of the commune, demanding the expulsion of the Twenty-Two.) "You have often taken the people to task; you have even sometimes tried to flatter them; but there was about this flattery that aristocratic air of coldness and dislike which could deceive nobody. Your ways of a bourgeois patrician are always perceptible in your words and acts; you never wanted to mix with the people. Here is your doctrine in few words: after the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... must have been calculated upon in the scheme of our system as a factor in their evolution. In spite of the consistent teaching of all the great religions, the mass of mankind is still utterly regardless of its responsibility on the thought-plane; if a man can flatter himself that his words and deeds have been harmless to others, he believes that he has done all that can be required of him, quite oblivious of the fact that he may for years have been exercising a narrowing and debasing ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... I flatter myself that our Dick is a gentleman. I do, indeed. And, as he is yet perfectly in his senses, ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... case with all the bodies in nature. In them the simplest movements, the most ordinary phenomena, the commonest actions, are inexplicable mysteries, whose first principles are for ever sealed to us. How shall we flatter ourselves that we know the first principle of gravity, by virtue of which a stone falls? What do we know of the mechanism that produces the attraction of some substances, and the repulsion of others? But surely the incomprehensibility ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... pays debts unless they be shrewd turns, And those he will confess that he doth owe. Last, for this brother there, the cardinal, They that do flatter him most say oracles Hang at his lips; and verily I believe them, For the devil speaks in them. But for their sister, the right noble duchess, You never fix'd your eye on three fair medals Cast in one figure, of so different temper. For her discourse, ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... the bishop. "I think she is happy in these matters. I do flatter myself that she is so. Of course, Miss Dunstable, you are accustomed to things on a ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... apes, sometimes snakes, that hissed me into madness. 'Twas like Saint Anthony's temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his favorite children, men, mouths to speak with, to discourse rationally, to promise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, and to kiss with, and that they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... you are a prodigal, and self-willed fool. Nay, never look at me, it's I that speak, Take't as you will, I'll not flatter you. What? have you not means enow to waste That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money on a Buzzard, And know not how to keep it when you have done? Oh, it's brave, this will make you a gentleman, ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... of 1914 when Edward was sixty-one and Miss Crewe was ninety-three. Edward, after paying her money to Miss Crewe, might flatter himself on the possibility of having some fifty pounds a year for himself, that is to say, if his picture sales did not decline. A single man can, however, get along, more or less, on fifty ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... old Copper Basin suddenly Rattled and tumbled from the shelf, Bumping and crying: 'I can fall by myself; Without a woman's hand To patronize and coax and flatter me, I understand The lean and poise of gravitable land.' It gave a raucous and tumultuous shout, Twisted itself convulsively about, Rested upon the floor, and, while I stare, It stares and grins ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... priesthood of authors is exaggerated and dangerous. Neither has it, you see, prevented him from writing "The Wonderful Visit." Artists should feel, and if necessary be told, that they are on their honour to do their best. That will do. If they flatter themselves that they are messengers from the Father of Light whenever they put pen to paper, they are apt to take any emotional hubble-bubble in themselves as a sign that the Spirit has been brooding upon the waters, and pour out; though a short ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... he had done for them, went out of the dungeon; but when they were come into the court, how was the prince surprised to see among the prisoners those he was in search of, and almost without hopes to find! "Princes," cried he, "is it you whom I behold? May I flatter myself that it is in my power to restore you to the sultan your father, who is inconsolable for the loss of you? Are you all here alive? Alas! the death of one of you will suffice to damp the joy I feel ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... space in the "Fields" between the jail and the Almshouse, to see me on the gallows. If such thoughts do not assail the brave—if restless nights, wakeful dawns, dull days are not their portion—I must own that all these were mine, not often, perhaps, but too frequent to flatter self-esteem. And, fight them as I might, it was useless; for such moments came without warning—often when I had been merry with friends, at times when, lulled by long-continued security, I had nigh forgotten through eventless months that there was a war and that I had become ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... married in the same year as his brother of Kent, and to him also a little daughter was born, who, had she lived, would have finally succeeded to the throne instead of Victoria. But the poor little Princess stayed but a little while to flatter or disappoint royal hopes. She looked timidly out upon life, with all its regal possibilities, and went away untempted. Still the Duchess of Clarence (afterwards Queen Adelaide) might yet be the happy mother of a Prince, or Princess Royal, and there were so many ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... answer to his overtures, Ali became a prey to terrible anxiety. As he one day opened the Koran to consult it as to his future, his divining rod stopped at verse 82, chap. xix., which says, "He doth flatter himself in vain. He shall appear before our tribunal naked and bare." Ali closed the book and spat three times into his bosom. He was yielding to the most dire presentiments, when a courier, arriving from the capital, informed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of course, curiously enough, but not as spoken. I likewise have difficulty in making out its meaning when I read it; but in other regards I flatter myself that my knowledge of the language is quite adequate. Certainly, as I have just stated, I managed to create a pleasant sensation among my French hearers when I employed it ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... "Flatter not thyself so far, ma mie," said Mary. "Were mine innocence clearer than the sun they would blacken it. All that can come of this same trial is that I may speak to posterity, if they stifle my voice ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had seen Horatia Cunningham's photograph, so that she was prepared for a girl with a homely face; but most photographs flatter, and Mrs Clay had not expected to see any one quite so ordinary in appearance, 'an' that plainly dressed,' as she confided to her husband. However, she came forward with a hearty welcome, and as soon as Horatia smiled at her she forgot the slight ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself. It is harder to remember that about the beliefs upon which we are now acting, but in respect to other peoples and other ages we flatter ourselves that it is easy to see when they were in deadly earnest about ludicrous pictures of the world. We insist, because of our superior hindsight, that the world as they needed to know it, and the world as they did know it, were often ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... "I flatter myself on my ability to repair my broken collection," began Mr. Clemcy, when a loud exclamation from the girls in front startled every one. Miss Anstice, on the first shock, had been unable to find that composure that was always "sister's" envied possession; so despite the environment ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... 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 ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... smooth it over; but you can't fool me any more. But I don't want you to flatter me and lie to me the way Judge Stearns did," she added, with a sudden change of manner. "I like ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Pocket Looking-Glass, we recommend it for the instruction of every youth, whether miss or master; it is a mirror that will not flatter them, nor lead them into error; it displays the follies and improper pursuits of youthful breasts, points out the dangerous paths they sometimes tread, and clears the way to the Temple ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... must know that there is in Paris a man of the greatest merit, whose fortune is not proportionate to his talents and character. I may serve as eyes to the blind goddess, and repair in some measure the injustice, and I beg you to offer on that account. I flatter myself that he will accept this pension because of the pleasure I shall feel in obliging a man who joins beauty of character to the most sublime intellectual talents." The King here stopped, on seeing MM. d'Ayen and de Gontaut enter, and then recommenced reading the letter ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... terrible, tier after tier, gorge after gorge, one twisted range after the other, across a breathlessly immeasurable distance. The prospect was full of shadows thrown by the tumult of lava. In those shadows one imagined stranger abysses. Far down to the right a long narrow lake inaugurated a flatter, alkali-whitened country of low cliffs in long straight lines. Across the distances proper to a dozen horizons the tumbled chaos heaved and fell. The eye sought rest at the bounds usual to its accustomed ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Mr. Tarleton. Make him assistant secretary. That'll flatter him—then ask anything you like of him and he'll do it. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... oblige me to refrain from abusing it, now that it is happily dead; but, as another proverb puts it, "The law knows no necessity," and I therefore can do as I choose. Here, then, is its corpse, exhumed as a warning to those who may be about to witness any other of Mr. PHILLIPS'S dramas. I flatter myself that the disinterested public will agree with me, that if all the Huguenots were as tedious as Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS'S private Huguenot, the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW was a pleasing manifestation of a very natural and commendable indignation on the part of their much-suffering fellow-citizens ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... however bitterly, from a passionate faith in art, and even—(one may say)—from an uncompromising love for his fame and intolerance of anything mediocre in his work,—and another thing, as Lucien Levy-Coeur did, only to use such criticism to flatter the baseness of the public, and to make the gallery laugh, by an exhibition of wit at the expense of a great man. Again, free though Christophe was in his judgments, there had always been a certain sort of music which he had tacitly left alone and shielded: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... "Oh, you needn't flatter yourself," she answered Him. "There's precious little danger of my self-sacrifice or love for others. That's not going to be my attitude to life at all. You'd better not waste your ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... "Don't flatter yourself," replied Craig. "He wanted me, too. There wasn't any light in the laboratory last night. There was a light in our apartment. What more natural than to think that we were both there? You were caught in the trap intended ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... has a trick of cooling towards the end of a Bill. Maxwell has carried his main point, they will say; this is a question of machinery. Besides, many of those Liberals who will be with us on the main point don't love the landlords. No! don't flatter yourself that, if we lose the main engagement, there will be any Prussians to bring up. The ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and Importance; and this is plainly the Case of all Praemiums, where they are faithfully distributed. Now, all these Considerations accompany every Subscription to my enlarged Plan, and thence I was apt to flatter myself I should be successful, if I had liv'd to ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... let mee feele the force of thy lead pyle, What should I doo with love when I am old? I know not how to flatter, fawne, or smyle; Then stay thy hand, O cruell bowman, hold! For if thou strik'st me with thy dart of gold, I sweare to thee by Joves immortall curse, I have more in my hart ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... heard the young lady say; "you are too old to flatter. As for that hare-brained youth of the dust-brush, he looked as if he might have the failing of poor Pat, and not always be ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... so little faith in me as to call that a sacrifice? I did flatter myself that you believed what I ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... needs to complete it is a portrait of yourself as good as your portrait of Wilde. Oscar was not combative, though he was supercilious in his early pose. When his snobbery was not in action, he liked to make people devoted to him and to flatter them exquisitely with that end. Mrs. Calvert, whose great final period as a stage old woman began with her appearance in my Arms and the Man, told me one day, when apologizing for being, as she thought, a bad rehearser, that no author had ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... bravest and best By keeping it give of their wisdom a test. And the hotter it gets in dispute, yet the most Courageous is he who wont let it be crossed. On the whole, though 't is often a subject of strife, More people it joins than it parts in this life. My whole is a place I forbear now to flatter; It thrives upon those whose dearest and best Severely it tries, yet makes light of the matter, And thinks the more wicked their end, the ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... to flatter her with soft words, the tyrant hoped to reduce her to obedience through fear; therefore he threatened ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... wit saith that a hero is none to his valet-de-chambre, and it required less quick eyes than my lady's little page was naturally endowed with, to see that she had many qualities by no means heroic, however much Mrs. Tusher might flatter and coax her. When Father Holt was not by, who exercised an entire authority over the pair, my lord and my lady quarrelled and abused each other so as to make the servants laugh, and to frighten the little page on duty. The poor boy trembled before his mistress, who called him by a hundred ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... that I cared about the loss of the fees, badly as I needed them. It was mainly that I had allowed the summer flies who buzzed about me for the Baron's sake to flatter me into the notion that I was an artist, when I was really nobody ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Princess Hippodamia; and it is customary, on these occasions, to make the bride a present of some far-fetched and elegant curiosity. I have been a little perplexed, I must honestly confess, where to obtain anything likely to please a princess of her exquisite taste. But, this morning, I flatter myself, I have thought ...
— The Gorgon's Head - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... selling?" said Carew, sharply. "Don't flatter your chances so, Master Alleyn. I wouldn't sell the boy for a world full of Jem Bristows. Why, his mouth is a mint where common words are coined into gold! Sell him? I think I see myself in Bedlam for a fool! Nay, Master Alleyn, what I am coming at is this: ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... genius starving in a garret. Lais, in Paris, must first and foremost find a rich man mad enough to pay her price. She must keep up a very elegant style, for this is her shop-sign; she must be sufficiently well bred to flatter the vanity of her lovers; she must have the brilliant wit of a Sophie Arnould, which diverts the apathy of rich men; finally, she must arouse the passions of libertines by appearing to be mistress to one man only who is envied by ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... our grievances, which we have thus laid before his Majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their Chief Magistrate. Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will, therefore, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... whatever political persuasion he may be, flatter himself for a moment that such a government could ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... distresses; in our personal distresses, and our national distresses. Are we not like the children of Israel, of whom it is said, "When He slew them, then they sought Him, and they returned and inquired early after God. Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth. For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant." Are we not like little children that, while they are being whipped, will promise any thing; but, when the whipping is over, will perform nothing? Or like unto iron that is ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... is called Le Loup, about two or three pounds in weight; white, firm, and well-flavoured. Another, no-way inferior to it, is the Moustel, about the same size; of a dark-grey colour, and short, blunt snout; growing thinner and flatter from the shoulders downwards, so as to resemble a soal at the tail. This cannot be the mustela of the antients, which is supposed to be the sea lamprey. Here too are found the vyvre, or, as we call it, weaver; remarkable for its long, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... his own brutal self 'us the People.' And who are the friends of the People? Not those who would wish to elevate each of them, or at least, the child who is to take his place in the flux of life and death, into something worthy of esteem, and capable of freedom, but those who flatter and infuriate them as they do. A contradiction in the very thought. For if really they are good and wise, virtuous and well-informed, how weak must be the motives of discontent to a truly moral being!—but if the contrary, and the motives for discontent proportionally ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... intentions, while I am still more grateful than I could have been with the literal fulfilment. Delightful it is to hear from you—do always write when you can. And though this second letter speaks of your having been unwell, still I shall continue to flatter myself that upon the whole 'the better part prevails,' and that if the rains don't wash you away this winter, I may have leave to think of you as strengthening and to strengthen still. Meanwhile you certainly, as you say, have roots ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... possession of him, as it were, entirely; leaving no art unexhausted in order to flatter, to amuse, to please, and to interest him. He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with his children, touched with the grandeur of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was, she preserved a provoking reticence, declining to enlighten me any further. "No, Frank," she said in her cheery way, "it is of no use your trying to coax me with your 'dear Miss Pimpernell,' or think to flatter me into divulging my news by false compliments paid to my shabby old bonnet! No, you shall hear it all in good time, so don't be impatient. I won't tell you another word now, my boy, there!" she added finally, trotting off on her parochial ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... told before that Mrs. Herd was so very ill. It was foolish to wonder—these people do not speak of suffering till it is late. To speak, when it means what this meant loss of wife and mother—was to flatter reality too much. To be healthy, or—die! That is their creed. To go on till they drop—then very soon pass away! What room for states between—on their poor wage, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Municipal Department of Medicine and to the City Architect. Thereafter he sat thoughtfully in his britchka—plunged in meditation on the subject of whom else it might be well to visit. However, not a single magnate had been neglected, and in conversation with his hosts he had contrived to flatter each separate one. For instance to the Governor he had hinted that a stranger, on arriving in his, the Governor's province, would conceive that he had reached Paradise, so velvety were the roads. "Governors who appoint capable subordinates," had said Chichikov, "are deserving of the most ample meed ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol |
