"Curry favour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his friends to partake of all the fruits of the earth with him in their season, seemed really to have brought back the golden age. If any scurrilous tongues hinted that it was merely to gain popularity and to curry favour with the people that he did these things, their slanders were silenced at once by Kimon's personal tastes and habits, which were entirely aristocratic and Spartan. He joined Aristeides in opposing Themistokles when ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Eustace to curry favour with him and his father. He has sunk much lower. Then he lived like a decent clergyman. He has thrown all that off in New Zealand, and fallen entirely under the dominion of that son. I could wish I had quite throttled that Dick when I so nearly did ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... customs of the various domains are all different from one another, each having its own peculiarities. To divulge the secrets of one's own domain is a sure indication of an intent to curry favour." ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... for Galba, and indeed some of them, as happens in such outbreaks, headed the rebellion. However, nobody made any kind of set speech or mounted the platform, for there was no one as yet with whom to curry favour. ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... doing everything possible to curry favour with its people. It has now commandeered ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... opinion by taking his place beside her, he had not done so; it was too late now, no advance on his part could undo that which had been done, and he could not therefore think that in taking this step she was trying to curry favour with him in order to further her own interest. After debating the question for some time, she resolved to write a letter, which Larkspur could carry to ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... one born of a slave. As soon as the sovereign had made known his will, the custom of primogeniture was set aside, and his word became law. We can well imagine the secret intrigues formed both by mothers and sons to curry favour with the father and bias his choice; we can picture the jealousy with which they mutually watched each other, and the bitter hatred which any preference shown to one would arouse in the breasts of all the others. Often brothers who had been disappointed in their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... In an audience thus susceptible to innuendo Lyly saw his opportunity. He was a courtier writing for the Court, he was also, let us add, anxious to obtain a certain coveted post at the Revels' Office. He was an artist not entirely without ideals, yet ever ready to curry favour and to aim at material advantages by his literary facility. The idea therefore of writing dramas which should be, from beginning to end, nothing but an ingenious compliment to his royal mistress would not be in the least distasteful ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... of Saul. He rages at his servants as leagued with David in words which have a most dreary sound of utter loneliness sighing through all their fierce folly: "All of you have conspired against me; there is none of you that is sorry for me" (1 Sam. xxii. 8.) Doeg is forward to curry favour by telling his tale, and so tells it as to suppress the priest's ignorance of David's flight, and to represent him as aiding and comforting the rebel knowingly. Then fierce wrath flames out from the darkened spirit, and the whole ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... you be so fast, youngster," cried the latter, with the wisdom of a sage in his stern look. "Just remember whom you are talking to, if you please." Then, to curry favour with the master, "I beg your pardon, Mr Morris, would this be an ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Belgium and that this person was a man who wrote popular ditties). Would to Heaven we had got rid of the slave as well as the master—but unfortunately The Fighting Sheeney couldn't afford to follow his lord's example. So he went on making a nuisance of himself, trying hard to curry favour with B. and me, getting into ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... look out for Hunter or Rushton while the others knocked off for a few minutes to snatch a mouthful of grub; but it was not safe always to do this, for there was often some crawling sneak with an ambition to become a 'coddy' who would not scruple to curry favour with ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... i. 418) combats the theory advanced by Hobhouse (see note x.), that Lionardo Salviati, in order to curry favour with Alphonso, was responsible for "the opposition which the Jerusalem encountered from the Cruscan Academy." He assigns their unfavourable criticism to literary sentiment or prejudice, and not to personal animosity or intrigue. The Gerusalemme Liberata was dedicated to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... come to light sooner or later. Three years after this poor young woman ran away there was a drunken groom dismissed from Lord Durnsville's stable; and what must he needs do but come straight off to James Halliday, to vent his spite against his master, and perhaps to curry favour at Newhall. 'You shouldn't have gone to London to look for the young lady, Muster Halliday,' he said; 'you should have gone the other way. I know a man as drove Mr. Kingdon and your wife's sister across country to Hull with two of my lord's own horses, stopping to bait on the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... put out of action for many months. In one respect Rumania was less fortunate than the other little nations: in his fanatical hatred of Russia, Carp rejoiced in her ally's defeat—albeit that country was his own—and Marghiloman remained in Bukarest to curry favour with its conquerors, and ultimately to become for a brief and discreditable period the Premier whom the Germans imposed on Rumania after the Treaty of Bukarest. Meanwhile the patriotic parties rallied round the ministry at Jassy and formed ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... myself how coldly and disdainfully that "scoundrel" Zverkov would meet me; with what dull-witted, invincible contempt the blockhead Trudolyubov would look at me; with what impudent rudeness the insect Ferfitchkin would snigger at me in order to curry favour with Zverkov; how completely Simonov would take it all in, and how he would despise me for the abjectness of my vanity and lack of spirit—and, worst of all, how paltry, UNLITERARY, commonplace it would all be. Of course, the best thing would be not to go at all. But that was most impossible ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky |
