"Flattery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finally united themselves into one strong interest in her husband's favour, yet no sooner was the fear of his punishment removed, than the sense of his ungrateful behaviour began to revive. She became sensible also that a woman of her extraordinary attainments, who had been by a universal course of flattery disposed to entertain a very high opinion of her own consequence, made rather a poor figure when she had been the passive subject of a long series of intrigues, by which she was destined to be disposed of in one way or the other, according to the humour ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the laws of the country. A proclamation in those terms, those good set terms, which time and custom approve, forbids shooting on this and two neighbouring groups of islands. Is there not excuse in this flattery for ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... But we have already said that the incense of flattery was very pleasing to the king, and, provided he received it, he was not very particular ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... husband and wife a name had been used which she appeared to be less unwilling to impart than he. Knapp, consequently, turned his full attention towards her, using in his attack that oldest and subtlest weapon against the sex— flattery. ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... and sapping and mining began. Just as the Archbishop of Pisa some years before had tried to betray him with honeyed words to the Inquisition, so now Father Grassi tried it, and, after various attempts to draw him out by flattery, suddenly denounced his scientific ideas as "leading to a denial of the Real Presence in ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... semblance, stimulates my heart To find its dearest pleasures in the part Taken in other's joys; yielding to theirs Its own desires, each latent wish that bears The selfish stamp, O! let me shun the art Taught by smooth Flattery in her courtly mart, Where Simulation's studied smile ensnares! Scorn that exterior varnish for the Mind, Which, while it polishes the manners, veils In showy clouds the soul.—E'en thus we find Glass, o'er whose surface clear the pencil steals, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... honesty of those kind of people, the manner is now to enquire into their party, and to reject or encourage them accordingly; which proceeding hath made our people, in general, such able politicians, that all the artifice, flattery, dissimulation, diligence, and dexterity, in undermining each other, which the satirical wit of men hath charged upon courts; together with all the rage and violence, cruelty and injustice, which have been ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... admonished for the fraud by another of his ministers, the scholar Wang Tan, the Emperor resolved to put a golden gag in his mouth. So one day, having invited him to a banquet, he overwhelmed him with flattery and made him drunk with good wine. "I would like the members of your family also to taste this wine," he added, "so I am making you a present of a cask of it." When Wang Tan returned home, he found the cask filled with precious pearls. Out of ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... emissaries of perfidious Albion were seized. One general, it is. true, amused himself with reporting, that the English had thrown bales of Levant cotton on the coast of Normandy, to give France the plague; but these inventions of grave buffoonery were only regarded as pieces of flattery addressed to the first consul; and the chiefs of the conspiracy, as well as their agents, being in the power of the government, there was reason for believing that calm was restored in France; but Bonaparte had ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... the homely girl usually grows up free from the flattery and undue attention which are sure to be heaped upon the good-looking boy and the popular girl. Way back in the early days of five or six, and all the way up to the ages of twelve to twenty, children should be taught that it is altogether natural and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... make a true discrimination of Fenwick's moral fitness for the husband of Mary Lester. Indeed, she never attempted to analyze character, nor had she an idea of any thing beneath the surface. Personal appearance, an affable exterior, and a little flattery of herself, were the three things which, in her estimation, went to make up a perfect character—were enough to constitute the beau ideal of a husband for ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... pride and luxury in which he was educated had not allowed him to suspect that there existed on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the successor of Augustus. The acts of flattery concealed the impending danger till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when the sound of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of flying to arms with the spirit, or even the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to those timid counsellors who proposed to convey ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... rapidity. Christophe was struck by the number of dead and dying men he met among the artists: there was one young musician, full of life and genius, whom success had dulled, stupefied, and wiped out of existence: he thought of nothing but swallowing down the flattery in which he was smothered, enjoying himself, and sleeping. What he would be like twenty years later was shown in another corner of the room, in the person of an old pomaded maestro, who was rich, famous, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... 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 people have served ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quite an expert at flattery. Every girl he meets, if she is at all attractive, is considered the most charming lady that he ever knew. He is sure she isn't prudish enough to refuse him a kiss, and if she is, she wins not only his admiration, but that ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... beauty and grace, he exclaimed, "This is she who caused my heart to throb many a night!" Yet he discerned at once what the nature of woman was. She would, he knew, seek to carry her point with man either by entreaties and tears, or flattery and caresses. He said, therefore, "This ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... This constant flattery was very bad for the young man; and, as he was anxious to please everybody, it often led him to do foolish things. He gave costly banquets, drove fast horses, boasted a great deal, and even started out for his first battle in a magnificent ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... It's first reproach, and then flattery. But have you thought of the real nobility ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... silver laugh, "your nation spoils us for our own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to flattery." ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... said so for years and every one said the same thing about the Woodyards. They were very intimate friends, close comrades. She knew that Percy respected and admired her more than any woman in the world, and paid her the last flattery of conceding to her will, respecting her intelligence. But there was something that he had not done, could not do, and that was a something that Cairy seemed able to do,—give her a sensation partly physical, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... and may easily be seen through, ne boweth by any art; so a faithful counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain and open, ne yieldeth to any indiscreet affection, but giveth wholesome counsel, which the ill advised prince refuseth. The delightful gold filled with poison betokeneth flattery, which under fair seeming of pleasant words beareth deadly poison, which destroyeth the prince that receiveth it. As befel in the two brethren, Ferrex and Porrex, who, refusing the wholesome advice of grave counsellors, credited these young ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... doth she abuse me, Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; Both find each other, and I lose both twain, And both for my sake lay on me this cross: But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery! then ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... all the council. He next turned out several governors convicted of mal-administration, and put others in their room, with such wonderful and just discernment, as exalted the acclamations of every body, which were so much the more honourable, as flattery had no share in them. He at length left the council, accompanied by his father, and went to wait on his mother Queen Gulnare at her apartment. The queen no sooner saw him coming with his crown upon his head, than she ran to him and embraced him with tenderness, wishing ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... mentioning his concert. Quite simply, in a way he did not even attempt to explain to himself, he felt that the world of London would scent it from afar off. As to paid claques, presentation-tickets, patrons, advance agents, all the booming and flattery, the jam of the powder for an English audience, he had no idea of the existence of such things. Beethoven was wonderful, and he had found out wonderful things about him: ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... with its weaker congener. But pride, after all, is nothing more than a stiffened and congealed vanity, and melts back to its original ductility when exposed to the milder temperature of female partiality. Swift could not deny himself the flattery of Vanessa's passion, and not to forbid was to encourage. He could not bring himself to administer in time the only effectual remedy, by telling her that he was pledged to another woman. When at last he did tell her it was ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... And now to the king; I must see for myself if this young royal child can, like Hercules in his cradle, destroy serpents on the day of his birth; or, if he is a king, like all other kings, overcome by flattery, idle and vain, knowing or acknowledging no laws over himself, but those of his own conscience and his bon plaisir. But hark! that is the king's voice; ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to say in his sketch of Romney's life: "A lady in the character of a saint. This sort of flattery, once so prevalent with painters, is now nearly worn out: we have now no Lady Betty's enacting the part of Diana; no Lady Jane's tripping it barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary world, ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... with subtle flattery. The Emperor WILLIAM, though he had his failings, was a keen judge of the comparative ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... answered to nature infallibly, and by some hidden intuition of recognition the girl was subdued and dumb. This was nothing like Tom Caruthers, and anything she had received from him. Tom had been flattering, demonstrative, obsequious; there was no flattery here, and no demonstration, and nothing could be farther from obsequiousness. It was the delicate reverence which a man gives to only one woman of all the world; something that must be felt and cannot be feigned; the most subtle incense of worship one ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... and taciturn, and I, accustomed to gay society and the admiration of crowds, was left to mope alone in a strange country, with no companionship whatever. What wonder that I hungered for the old life, or that a casual admiring glance, or a few words even of flattery, were like cold water to one perishing with thirst! Then new hope came into my lonely life, and I spent months in dreamy, happy anticipations of the future love and companionship of my child. But ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... "That is flattery, flattery, young man," he said, "but it pleases me. Since I've drawn from you all you know, which is but little, you may fall back with your comrades. But keep near; I fancy I shall have much for you to do before long. Meanwhile, we march ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all down to your ladyship," said the Granny, with grave truthfulness—not a trace of flattery. "She can never tire of telling the good it does her to see you." This was the nearest she could go, without personality, to a hint at the effect the sheer beauty of her hearer had on the common object of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... be a good horseman; skill of government was but a "pedanteria" in comparison. Then would he add certain praises by telling what a peerless beast the horse was, the only serviceable courtier, without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much, at least, with his no few words, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... a hedge of sweet-peas, throwing out fluttering tendrils everywhere for something high and strong to climb by,—and when they find it, be it ever so rough in the bark, they catch upon it. And instances are not wanting of those who have turned away from the flattery of admirers to prostrate themselves at the feet of a genuine hero who never wooed them, except by heroic deeds and the rhetoric of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... wise old Gascon suggests that it is the part of wisdom to give your affection to one who is both plain and elderly—one who is not suffering from a surfeit of love, and one whose head has not been turned by flattery. "Young women," says the philosopher, "demand attention as their right and often flout the giver; whereas old ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... "true rhubarb" for healing the breach, especially among the common people. July 18 Garsia wrote to the Emperor: "If you are determined to bring Germany back to the fold, I know of no other or better means than by presents and flattery to persuade those who are most eminent in science or in the empire to return to our faith. Once that is done, you must, in dealing with the remaining common people, first of all publish your imperial edicts and Christian admonitions. If they will not ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... most refined application. She was a great lady, who knew the world and the worth of it. And she was absolute mistress both of that knowledge, and of herself—notwithstanding those outstretched hands, and outcry of childlike pleasure,—there, perhaps, lay the exquisite flattery of this last to her hearer! She was all this, and something more than all this. Something for which Dickie, his heart still virgin, had no name as yet. It was new to his experience. A something clear, simple, and natural, as the sunlight, and yet infinitely subtle. A something ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... tell a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I will venture to say, been endowed with that gift, I should have come to grief long ago; I should have stood no chance, a poor man like me. I tell you without flattery, I am sincerely delighted at the friendship I observe between you and my son. I have just seen him; he got up as he usually does—no doubt you are aware of it—very early, and went a ramble about the neighbourhood. Permit me to inquire—have you ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Taiko's arrangement. They grew jealous of Ieyasu, because, under the existing order of things, the governors were of very minor importance. Mitsunari had acquired his influence with the Taiko, not through military achievements, but by intrigue and flattery. He was cordially detested by such disinterested friends as Kato Kiyomasa ...
— Japan • David Murray
... vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... do not hold the gift of beauty As some rare treasure to be bought and sold. But guard it as a precious aid to duty - The outer framing of the inner gold; Women who, low above their cradles bending, Let flattery's voice go by, and give no heed, While their pure prayers like incense are ascending THESE are our country's ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there be within the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... than those we have been describing, and it is from these sections that the entities who have sometimes been reverenced under the name of wood-gods, or local village-gods, have been drawn. Such entities would be quite sensible of the flattery involved in the reverence shown to them, would enjoy it, and would no doubt be quite ready to do any small service they could in return. (The village-god is also often an artificial entity, but that variety will be considered in its appropriate place.) The Adept knows ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... and although I rely on the justice of the assembled sovereigns, and on their old friendship, still it is well to tell you that, in whatever circumstance it may please God to place me, my course will be what I have manifested on this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by force or by the flattery of others.' ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... at this artful flattery, although, in truth, it was well deserved, for at an age when many Egyptians are old, she ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... a foreign fool in the Flowers of Fashion who is doing his best to disgust the public by his filthy flattery. It is enough to make one sick. Why is the foreign beast not kicked out of the paper?"—The ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Robert returned from his abortive mission, she never afterwards let a disparaging word towards Langham escape her lips to Rose. She was tenderness and sympathy itself, and Rose, in her curious reaction against her old self, and against the noisy world of flattery and excitement in which she had been living, turned to Catherine as she had never done since she was a tiny child. She would spend hours in a corner of the Bedford Square drawing-room, pretending to read, or play with little Mary, in reality recovering, like some bruised and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pondering on what he has seen and heard, more especially on what he has overheard—that sweet soliloquy. Few men are insensible to flattery. And flattery from fair lips! He must be indeed near death whose ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... by the eternal light! But I am not a maker of sweet sayings, Nor fond of talk. Deliberate flattery I put behind me: The mouth that sucks the sweetness of the fruit Is mute. And this is chiefly autumn's trade. Yea, though the spring may breathe a sweeter odor, Old autumn laughs at him.—Nay, look not so Upon my hand. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... praise," said Don Quixote at this, "for I hate all flattery; and though this may not be so, still language of the kind is offensive to my chaste ears. I will only say, senora, that whether it has might or not, that which it may or may not have shall be devoted to your service even to death; and now, leaving this to its proper season, I would ask the senor ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... wish to hurt your feelings, but my strength is not great enough for unmeaning flattery. This marriage was so dear to my heart that I have put it before a very large interest about which I have no time to lose, and still am helpless upon this bed. I will trust you to do my errand. Go to that chest, Judge Custis, and you will ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... from him upon many other occasions, this appears to me to be the most reprehensible passage of his whole work. A spirit of adulation towards deceased princes, though in a good measure free from the imputation of interested meanness, which is justly attached to flattery when applied to living monarchs, yet, as it is less intelligible with respect to its motives than the other, so is it in its consequences still more pernicious to the general interests of mankind. Fear of censure from contemporaries ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... Prince, the moral fable, To youth ingenuous, profitable. Nobility, like beauty's youth, May seldom hear the voice of truth; Or mark and learn the fact betimes That flattery is the nurse of crimes. Friendship, which seldom nears a throne, Is by her voice of censure known. To one in your exalted station A courtier is a dedication; But I dare not to dedicate My verse e'en unto royal state. My muse is sacred, and must teach ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Caesar, had taken the Roman name of Licinius. This man gave himself up, during his administration, to a course of the most shameless extortion. The taxes were collected monthly; and so, taking advantage of the change of name which flattery had caused in the two months of July and August, sacred to Julius Caesar and Augustus respectively, he made his year consist of fourteen months, so that he might squeeze out fourteen contributions instead of twelve. "December," said he, "is surely, as its name indicates, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to please girls, etc., etc. In self-defence Alice was much more out-spoken about both Philip and Mr. Clinton than she had probably intended to be. That Philip began things hotly, and that his zeal cooled before they were accomplished—that his imperiousness laid him open to flattery, and the necessity of playing first-fiddle betrayed him into second-rate friendships, which were thrown after the discarded hobbies—that Mr. Clinton was ill-bred, and with that vulgarity of mind which would make him rather proud than ashamed of getting the best of a bargain with ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will not accept from the woman whom he believes loves him. He will perhaps doubt its influence in the colder judgment of mankind; but he will consider that this poor creature, at least, understands him, ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, the Confident or Decisive Customer (this one should be treated with subtle flattery and agreement with all her views), The Talkative or Friendly Customer, and the Silent or Indifferent one. All these have their little weaknesses, and the perfect salesperson will learn to know these and ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... for flattery, either on the one side or on the other. You had better take that as established. You have done me the honor of wishing, for certain reasons, that I should ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... pleased with his own speech on Nugent's Bill, and so angry with the Chancellor for opposing it, that he only wants a little flattery to make ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... the case in this long reign, that office has been filled with some consciousness of its responsibilities, the recognition of the fact is no flattery but simple duty. We cannot attribute to the personal initiative of the Queen the great and beneficent changes which have coincided with her reign. Thank God, no monarch can make or mar England now. But this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... would better talk with you, Mr. Yancy, and we were hoping to meet you as we came along," supplemented Miss Malroy, and her words of flattery were wafted to him with so sweet a smile ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... were very light and Captain Haldane did excellent work sniping and kept the enemy well in hand. The gunners were good enough to remark that a great change was noticeable since the line had been taken over by us; this was probably a little bit of flattery on the part of the Artillery men, but it was quite welcome. During these days the Commanding Officer was an unknown quantity as one never knew where he would next appear on the five-mile line. I think that he must have known every inch of it. We were relieved ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... engraved by Hole. This portrait would, to a person unapprised of any peculiarity in the original, present apparently little or nothing to justify the remark of Cornwallis. But making due allowance for the address, if not the flattery, of a skilful painter, it were hardly possible for the observer, aware of the blemish, not to detect in the short and close-curled fell of hair, the wild, staring eyes, the contour of the visage,—which, expanding from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the tired climbers, the horizon was ever dark, the mists were often cold, the Canaan was always dim and far away. If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no resting-place, little but flattery and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Charley," exclaimed the little darky, the bald flattery tickling his great racial vanity, "I jus' reckon nothin' goin' to get past dis nigger, though I sure 'spects I'd ought to go along so as to watch ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was almost like writing history! But the aide-de-camp discreetly kept up the illusion, outdid the others in flattery, and related unheard-of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... in her madness, and she was distributing her flowers according to the characters and moods of the recipients. Fennel, for instance, emblemised flattery, and columbine ingratitude. Rue emblemised either remorse or repentance—either sorrow or grace—so 'you may wear your ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... safe-conduct, was immediately sent to the alchymist, with a command from the King that he should forthwith present himself at Versailles, and make public trial of his oil and powder. But this did not suit the plans of Delisle: in the provinces he was regarded as a man of no small importance; the servile flattery that awaited him wherever he went was so grateful to his mind that he could not willingly relinquish it and run upon certain detection at the court of the Monarch. Upon one pretext or another he delayed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... She is not altogether black,—about mahogany color. I mention her modesty, because, so far as I saw, the good-looking ones among the black women have an air of assumption, and almost of impudence,—probably the result of flattery. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... hand with wringing. Let us part, And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat: Remove your siege from my unyielding heart; To love's alarms it will not ope the gate: 424 Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery; For where a heart is hard they ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... been so petted at the convent, in the capacity of only daughter of a grand seigneur and millionnaire; she had been surrounded by so much adulation, that all her good qualities had been blighted in the bud by the poisonous breath of flattery. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... the flattery of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand; My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead, (Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think) And ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... was brief. A phrase or two of flattery and acknowledgment to those on the platform supporting him dismissed that. Then he passed on to the objects in view. In five minutes he had dismissed also the ultimate destiny of the mills, and the manner in which the Workers ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... you are mistaken. I despise a flatterer as much as you do. But I am sure that I saw nothing like flattery about ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... not have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech, nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... his companion was susceptible to such flattery he was greatly mistaken. His words disgusted Lois, and yet she must remember that he was Mrs. Dingle's guest and that she must be agreeable as ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... was something lacking in general tone. Gideon felt it himself, and was certain that a "misery," that embracing indisposition of his race, was creeping upon him. He had been fed well, too well; he was growing rich, too rich; he had all the praise, all the flattery that his enormous appetite for approval desired, and too much of it. White men sought him out and made much of him; white women talked to him about his career; and wherever he went, women of color—black girls, brown girls, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... lived. Under these circumstances he was not impatient, for a time at least, to leave the Netherlands. His administration had not been very successful. He had been led away by his own vanity, and by the flattery of artful demagogues, but the immense obstacles with which he had to contend in the Queen's wavering policy, and in the rivalry of both English and Dutch politicians have been amply exhibited. That he had been generous, courageous, and zealous, could not be denied; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... business to know what is going on, Mr Cargrim,' replied the lady, much gratified, 'in order to stem the torrent of infidelity, debauchery, lying and flattery which rolls through ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... won't," said the old soldier, gruffly. "I won't give you a bit more than's good for you, boy. When I say you have done well it means you have done well. You won't get any flattery out of me. All this trouble that we are going through is no more than you must expect. Look what we are doing, and ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... wit we be deceived our faults may be excused, Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refused, But of all accursed are they that ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... bracing and spicy; the light golden and glowing, and yet softened to the dreamiest, richest, most bounteous aureole of hope, by a slight impalpable haze; too slight to veil anything, but giving its tender flattery to the landscape nevertheless. And through that to the mind. Who can help but receive it? Suggestions of waveless peace, of endless delight, of a world-full glory that must fill one's life with riches, come through such a light and under such a sky. Diana's ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... its paths, singling out this or that for notice. She suggests, she even criticizes, tenderly, as one who tells you an "even more becoming way" to arrange your little daughter's hair. She offers you roots and seeds and seedlings from her garden, and—last touch of flattery—she begs ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... commonly used as a means of getting money by flattery. I. D'Israeli in his Calamities of Authors, i. 64, says:—'Fuller's Church History is disgraced by twelve particular dedications. It was an expedient to procure dedication fees; for publishing books by subscription was an art not yet discovered.' The price of the dedication ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the triumph of the Jackson forces. Adams, foreseeing the end, found solace in harsh and sometimes picturesque entries in his diary. A group of opposition Congressmen he pronounced "skunks of party slander." Calhoun he described as "stimulated to frenzy by success, flattery, and premature advancement; governed by no steady principle, but sagacious to seize upon every prevailing popular breeze to swell his own sails." Clay, likewise, became petulant and gloomy. In the last two months of the canvass Jackson ordered a general onslaught upon ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... 14, he joined us about noon. On leaving the Whitebear camp he passed at a short distance a little creek or run coming in on the left. This had been already examined and called Flattery run; it contains back water only, with very extensive low grounds, which rising into large plains reach the mountains on the east; then passed a willow island on the left within one mile and a half, and reached two miles further a cliff of rocks in a bend on the same side. In the course ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... his way by flattery, replied: "Sad indeed is it in Asgard, now that Mioelnir has vanished. Clever was that one who spirited it away from the very side of Thor. Methinks none but you could have ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... still smiling. "Delicate flattery," he said, "adapted to an invalid. You should never let an invalid think you pity him—at least not a man-invalid who got knocked out while playing a vigorous game for ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the French life: the dread of flattery, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... discovers a great difference between this account and that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (post, under July 16, 1754). There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility' belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He had been impertinent before dinner, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... little enough," the other answered. "He ran after women and sought the society of inferior persons for the sake of their flattery. It always astonished me anew when he managed to produce something of approximately solid worth. For neither his character nor his intelligence ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side. She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. Julia winced at her own ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... about like she was taking stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at the knees. How do I look, anyway—honest, I don't want any flattery? If you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I can whisk ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... quality was this devoted friendship, and so superior was it to the little weaknesses of flattery or ill-nature, that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly informed Kate Nickleby, next day, that she saw she would never do for the business, but that she need not give herself the slightest uneasiness on this account, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... nameless statesmen who sought to teach him his duty; clergymen in large numbers, generally with the same purpose; deputations from churches, societies, political organizations, commissions, trades unions, with every sort of message from flattery to denunciation; and best of all, simple, confiding people who wanted only to say, "We trust you—God ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... self-love than to be founded on reason and justice. I am fearful that, like Themistocles, I should appear to admire their eloquence the most who are most forward to praise me. It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery. I blame this in other women, and should wish not to be chargeable with it myself. Yet I confess that I take a pride in being painted by the hand of so able a master, however flattering the likeness may be. ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... which the flattery of Mansart placed him as the sun, Louis XIV. emerged every morning to visit the occupiers of the twelve smaller pavilions, Les Pavilions des Seigneurs, the constellations, his courtiers, who came out to meet him and swelled his train. These pavilions, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... one day—a day of days in the chronicles of Dawson—from the Home Secretary himself. To me it seemed that all these astute potentates knew their Dawson very thoroughly, and lubricated, as it were, with judicious flattery the machinery of his energies. I could not but admire Dawson's truly royal faculty for absorbing butter. The stomachs of most men, really good at their business, would have revolted at the diet which ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... forfeit with your life's blood." The poor merchant threw himself on his knees before the Beast, saying: "Forgive me, my Lord, I did not know I should offend you by plucking a rose for one of my daughters, in compliance with her wishes." "I am not a lord, but a beast," answered the monster; "I hate flattery, and you will not come over me with any fine speeches; but, as you say you have daughters, I will forgive you, provided one of them comes willingly to die in your stead, but swear that, should they refuse, you will return in three months." The merchant had not the most distant intention of ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... something almost approaching to resistance in what he had said and done already. Therefore Aunt Polly flew to her weapons, and summoned Julia also to take up arms. He must be bound at once with chains, but the chains were made as soft as love and flattery could make them. Aunt Polly was almost angry,—was prepared to be very angry;—but not the less did she go on ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... me with mock applause for my pluck in facing the night, but for all their sham flattery I was pleased I had come, proud, I must admit, that I had been able to plough my heavy way through the drifts to reach them. I saw at a glance that my friends were all there, and I saw too that there was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... Theocritus, on whose lips a word of flattery or applause was always ready, looked down in his dismay; but Caracalla, in his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... intended departure, she saw the whole truth. She had a strong mind, capable of looking steadily at truth. Surrounded as she had been from her childhood by every means of self-indulgence which wealth and flattery could bestow, she had discovered early what few persons in her situation discover till late in life, that selfish gratifications may render us incapable of other happiness, but can never, of themselves, make us happy. Despising flatterers, she had determined to make ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... develop their ideas, caprices and fancies, and are able to display more variety, for all those who work at these honourable professions always seek after a laudable diversity, and possess the power of delicate flattery and of tactful criticism. Lippo, then, painter of Florence, who was as varied and choice in his inventions as his works were really unfortunate and his life short, was born at Florence about the year of ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... time's swift flow As part of still eternity. Her life, all honour, observed, with awe Which cross experience could not mar, The fiction of the Christian law That all men honourable are; And so her smile at once conferr'd High flattery and benign reproof; And I, a rude boy, strangely stirr'd, Grew courtly in my own behoof. The years, so far from doing her wrong, Anointed her with gracious balm, And made her brows more and more young With wreaths of amaranth ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... of LONDON, "must be his own Columbus and find the continent of truth." This is the first time that we had heard America called the continent of truth, and one wonders where the present fashion of flattery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... harrowing thought's bewild'ring maze, Touching the ling'ring chords of childlike feeling, With sweet harmonies of happier days: So curse I all, around the soul that windeth Its magic and alluring spell, And with delusive flattery bindeth Its victim to this dreary cell! Curs'd before all things be the high opinion, Wherewith the spirit girds itself around! Of shows delusive curs'd be the dominion, Within whose mocking sphere our sense is ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... not all fustian for the flattery of women; it is the deliberate conviction of our best and wisest minds. And yet a great majority of these same minds can not get rid of the idea ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... astounded Mr. Prohack—and relieved him. With an admirable ease she went on to congratulate their host upon his engagement, covering him with petals of flattery and good wishes. Mr. Prohack could scarcely recognise his wife, and he was not sure that he liked her new worldiness quite as much as her old ingenuous and sometimes inarticulate simplicity. At any rate she was a changed woman. He steadied himself, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... at the flattery and determined to help the monkey. He thought for a little while and ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... cream. "How sweet." "How refreshing." "How altogether nice!" Many behave in her company as though she was a loaded gun, and liable to do mischief, while a very few act as though she was above the wiles of flattery, and not to be bought for the price of a new bonnet. Hasten the day, good Lord, when she shall be regarded as something wiser and nobler than an automaton, less perishable than a confection, more comforting and peace-producing than a fire-arm, ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... sort now pipe and sing, And make them merrie with their fooleries; 320 They cherelie chaunt, and rymes at randon fling, The fruitfull spawne of their ranke fantasies; They feede the eares of fooles with flattery, And good men blame, and losels* ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... authors of the critique on the Cid; the abbe Amable de Bourzeis (1606-1671); Francois Charpentier (1620-1702), an antiquary of high repute among his contemporaries; and the abbe Jacques de Cassagnes (1636-1679), who owed his appointment more to the fulsome flattery of his odes than to his really learned translations of Cicero and Sallust. This company used to meet in Colbert's library in the winter, at his country-house at Sceaux in the summer, generally on Wednesdays, to serve the convenience of the minister, who was always present. Their meetings ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... beginning of his life in Madrid he imagined he had recovered. New surroundings; continuous and petty satisfactions to vanity; the kow-towing of doorkeepers in Congress; the flattery of visitors from here, there and everywhere who came with requests for passes to admit them to the galleries; the sense of being treated as a comrade by celebrities, whose names his father had always mentioned with bated breath; ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... whom he should deem worthy to present for election. The great man purred out these sentences, Joseph's remark having reminded him of his exalted position. But thinking his remark had nettled Hanan, Joseph said: you see I have only just come to Jerusalem; and this remark continued the flattery, and with an impulsive movement Hanan took Joseph's hands and spoke to him about his father in terms that made Joseph feel very proud of Dan, and also of being in Jerusalem, which had already begun to seem to him more wonderful than he had ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Havannah is especially celebrated, but his partner smiled graciously, and assured him that he performed it to perfection. When, however, he contrasted his own performance with that of the active-toed Spaniards, he could not help feeling that he was receiving undue flattery. As to his companions they soon had to give it up as a bad job, though they did their best to make themselves agreeable by tucking their partners' arms under theirs, and chattering away in execrable Spanish. Tom noticed that their host and his spouse kept a ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... just described. But it is to be observed that in attending at the palace, these men of genius made sure at least of outward unanimity among their ranks, by coming equally prepared with one accomplishment, and equally animated by one hope: they waited to employ a common agent—flattery; to ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... But Squire Faggus had seen the world, and kept company with great people; and the taste he had first displayed in the shoeing of farmers' horses (which led almost to his ruin, by bringing him into jealousy, and flattery, and dashing ways) had now been cultivated in London, and by moonlight, so that none ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... I remember, that of the manchineel fruit, as suiting equally well with too many subjects; in which however it yielded the palm at once to the example of Alexander and Clytus, which was equally good and apt, whatever might be the theme. Was it ambition? Alexander and Clytus!-Flattery? Alexander and Clytus!—anger—drunkenness—pride—friendship—ingratitude—late repentance? Still, still Alexander and Clytus! At length, the praises of agriculture having been exemplified in ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with bitterness, "I begin to doubt it. I have been praised for my good looks until I grow weary of the iteration; but I believed the lying flattery once,—as what woman would not, when it is repeated every day ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... she, "it is easily to be seen that you have been to court; you have learned so thoroughly the art of flattery." ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... man, was made one of the chief rulers under him, one of the three presidents over the hundred and twenty satraps or princes over the provinces of the great Persian empire. The envy of the Medes caused them to persuade Darius by foolish flattery to say that whoever for a month should make request of god or man, save of the king, should be cast into a den of lions, and Daniel, who was not likely in his old age to cease from prayer to his God for any terror of man, endured the penalty, much against the king's will; but only that again ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... general conduct with these maxims. I am persuaded that he deludes himself by some process of extraordinary false reasoning, and that the habits of intense volition, jumbled up with party prejudices, old associations, and exposure to never-ceasing flattery, have produced the remarkable result we see in his conduct; notwithstanding the enormous blunders he has committed, and his numerous and flagrant inconsistencies, he has never lost his confidence in himself, and what is more curious, has contrived to retain that of a host of followers. In each ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... the Bible with the humble desire to know what it says, and not to interpret it into their own baseless fancies,—that it is the exquisite celebration of a pure love in humble life; of a love which no splendor can dazzle and no flattery seduce." ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took also the surname of Rex, or King. But there is a third set of writers who say that these pedigrees are but a piece of flattery used by writers, who, to gain favor with these great families, made them fictitious genealogies from the lineage of Numa; and that Pompilia was not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife whom ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... judge the assertions of boys, although lacking the power of speech, and are favourably disposed towards them. O Janaka, thou hearest my words as if thou hast been stupefied in consequence of having eaten the fruit of the Sleshmataki tree. Or flattery hath robbed thee of thy sense, and for this it is that although pierced by my words as an elephant (by the hook), ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... place. It is work apart from human passion, and is felt as a moral relaxation, though it is not one in any other sense.... This is a curious experience to me, of jaded body and mind refreshed. I propose for Latin theme a little sentence of Burke's which runs to this effect, 'Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.' April 2nd.—The statistics become excessively interesting. Henry Hallam gained, and now stands second [the brother of his ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Bean had a shrewd understanding which no grace of flattery could dazzle, and felt truly that nowadays her principal claim to masculine admiration lay in her fine starching specialty of housewifery; and of that she gave no show, bundled up against the cold in her shapeless wools. So she put aside the young ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... politics, cannot be done without such things, I suppose they are useful in their way; but let nobody ever imagine that they are a form of pleasure. People smearing each other over with stupid flattery, and most of the company being in dread of receiving some compliment which should oblige ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have, side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the full-length looking-glass, in front of which they happened to be standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world, and incapable of flattery. No sooner did the images, therein reflected, meet Polly's eye, than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's side, gazed at him for a moment, in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor. Feathertop, likewise, had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld, not the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various |
