"Flattery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... together and danced with nimble feet; and saw the lithe young forms grow fairer and more womanly and more manly. With the frank outpourings of friendship and confidence; with the lavishness of mutual praise in youth, we enjoyed and joined in merry badinage, in miffs and flattery. The starry nights echoed our young voices singing in the clear air. There was a burden of care taken from us, for was not the Association our god-father? Had it not also taken from our parents the dread anxieties that fall to most of common lot? And while we were there we would be ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... to the material enjoyments; they were still occupied in absorbing the spiritual. The brilliant and select company that filled the hall was still for some time condemned to be silent, and to shut up within them their laughter and gossip, their backbiting and slander, their flattery ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... makes me her tool, her plaything. As for my salon, as you call it, it has become hers. I am a mere courtesy-figurehead—her chaperon, in fact. I provide the house, the footmen, the champagne; the guests are hers. And she has done this by constant intrigue and deception—by flattery—by lying!" ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... her heart's most precious secrets, even a middle-aged "mummy duster," whose interest in the female sex has, until very recently, centered upon specimens of that sex who have been embalmed several thousand years—even such a one cannot help being gratified by the subtle flattery. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... learnt by rote, As once we learnt your poison-gas, Your pupils now are shocked to note How Teuton wits, a little crass, Mistake for rude assault and battery Our imitation's feeble flattery. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... some aristocratic Mesalina, and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her majestic allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task were becoming burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of modesty, have become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that constitute ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... noble Scot, if speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have, As not a soldier of this season's stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter; I defy The tongues of soothers; but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... upon his superiority to those country greenhorns who lived up here; she always knew he had city blood in him. Job was acting sillier than anybody would have dreamed Job Malden could act, in his evident pride at her flattery and the strange feelings which drew him to her. She laughed at his attempts to compliment her, and, on his departure, followed him to the door and said how heart-broken she was to ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... exaggerated importance. Woman became accustomed to think that she could be neither faithful nor faithless without turning the world topsy-turvy. She shared the fate of all objects of excessive adulation: flattery corrupted her. Thus it came about that love of woman overshadowed every other social force and every form of family affection, and so spent its power. The Jews were the only ones sane enough to subordinate sexual love to reverence for motherhood. Alexander ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... a little inclination of the head. He spoke as little as possible, because he was puzzled. He had become conscious of a puzzled look in the Rangar's eyes—of a subtle wonderment that might be intentional flattery (for Art and the East are one). Whenever the East is doubtful, and recognizes doubt, it is as dangerous as a hillside in the rains, and it only added to his problem if the Rangar found in him something inexplicable. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... did not pass in the town unnoticed, for Bishop Ames, of St. Margaret's, on the following Sunday preached from the text: "And a little child shall lead them," telling the story from the pulpit; while the Sentinel of the next week spoke of Nancy with flattery and tenderness. The publicity given to the affair alarmed me in no small degree, and I reasoned with myself that a child who had such fearlessness and such disrespect for established ways was a ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... her out of his sight, and Cinderella, who was getting a little spoiled by all the flattery she heard, began to think more of herself and less of the Fairy; so the time stole on, till glancing up at the clock, she saw it wanted ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... was feeling extremely uncomfortable. He could not bring himself to believe that his father's extraordinary behavior was genuine. Politeness was one thing, but flattery was another. All that "attention" seemed so out of place with His Lordship, who was notoriously vain of his name and antecedents. Claude himself was a little sick of family pride. He had even on one occasion intimated to his mother that he ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... By skilful flattery, not unmixed with truth, she persuaded him that he was the man destined to free England once more; and so one morning he set out alone, accompanied only by Martin Lightfoot and a dozen house-carles, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... doubt that she would glad his ears with the same loving speeches which her sisters had uttered, or rather that her expressions would be so much stronger than theirs, as she had always been his darling, and favored by him above either of them. But Cordelia, disgusted with the flattery of her sisters, whose hearts she knew were far from their lips, and seeing that all their coaxing speeches were only intended to wheedle the old king out of his dominions, that they and their husbands might reign in his lifetime, made no other reply but this—that she loved his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... childhood. Sheila wondered just as any debutante in a city ballroom wonders, whether she would have partners, whether she would have "a good time." Color came into her face. She forgot everything except the immediate prospect of flattery and rhythmic motion. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... from every one of its members, active and strenuous exertions. I have, therefore, obeyed your call; and I now present myself before you for the purpose of offering to you, not, what I am sure you would reject with disdain, flattery, degrading alike to a candidate, and to a constituent body; but such reasonable, candid, and manly explanations as become the mouth of a free man ambitious of the confidence ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... died—while Thompson, about the same time, became insane. This was an excellent opportunity for the opposition papers, which immediately attacked the Governor for what they called his illegal interference and his brutality. The Gazette filled its columns with the most fulsome flattery in his defence, and Darling himself was so imprudent as to mingle in the dispute, and to do what he could to annoy the editors of the two hostile papers. Very soon the whole colony was divided into two great classes—the one needlessly extolling the Governor, the other denouncing ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... reply should have been, "Oh, would you stop if I asked you to?" But Helen Kendall was a most disconcerting girl. Instead of purring a pleased recognition of the implied flattery, she laughed merrily. The Speranza ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... your subtle flattery. No one knows better than I do, Leoni, that I am not a clever man. What I lay and thought was that you had studied your two crafts so well that one eye was the window from which the clever doctor's brain looked out, the ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... nor for long at any one time; in fact, one or other of them was always in the house. Mrs. Corey had grown into the habit of confidence with Lemuel concerning her husband's whims and foibles; and this motherly frankness from a lady so stately and distant at first was a flattery more poisonous to his soul than any other circumstance of ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... him above all others. And while he gave offence to the woman by the wrongs he committed, he was not of a mind to win her by flattery or by kindness in any way, but he openly set himself in opposition to her and kept slandering her to the emperor, neither blushing before her high station nor feeling shame because of the extraordinary love which the emperor felt for her. When ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... inspiration. This happy youth, just out of the schoolroom, and now to be enrolled as an armed ephebus, will be the model soon for some immortal bronze or marble. Fortunate is he, if his humility is not ruined by all the admiration and flattery; if he can remember the injunctions touching "modesty," which master and father have repeated so long; if he can remember the precept that true beauty of body can go only with true beauty of soul. Now at least is his day of hidden or conscious pride. All Athens is commending ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... jug, executed a wild dance round the room and inadvertently knocked two plates from the dresser. This accident made his wife wrathful, but only for a moment; presently she was laughing as unrestrainedly as ever, and bestowing upon the repentant young man her familiar flattery. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... in our day, one unhappy effect, only for a time fortunately, and this is disappearing. I refer to the rise of Hibernianism. The English ruling faction having, for their own political designs, corrupted the Orangemen with power and flattery, enabled them to establish an ascendancy not only over Ulster, but indirectly by their vote over the South. This becoming intolerable, some sincere but misguided Catholics in the North joined the organisation known as THE ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS. This ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), was not to be seethed, i.e. slain, by the Jews, "in the milk of its dam," i.e. during His infancy. Or else it signifies that the kid, i.e. the sinner, should not be boiled in the milk of its dam, i.e. should not be cajoled by flattery. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... who would play the woman. Turning to me her face, with cheeks fallen in, long sharp nose, hard bright glittering eyes of a bird of prey, the snowy hair piled high around the temples, it was that of one keenly searching out the tenderest spot into which to drive the knife. Her first words were all flattery. "Much has been heard, and little seen, of O'Shimo Dono since her entrance into the yashiki. What has been heard is all to her advantage. Her devotion to the service of his lordship has been carried to the utmost—even, some ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... his friend, though the undertaking was very contrary to his habits, he agreed to set out without loss of time, and endeavour to carry on the negotiation. He had very little to plead for Stephen and Andrew, except that they were young men carried away with the flattery bestowed on them by the Duke, but their father would undertake for their good behaviour in future, and would send them out of the country. Farmer Stubbs, saying that he had a relative not far off, ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... had called over and over again on Carl Perousse, hoping to obtain a few minutes' conversation with him, but had been denied an interview. Cogitating upon these changes,—which imported much,—and wishing over and over again that he had been born an Englishman, so that by the insidious flattery of Royalty he might obtain a peerage,—as a certain Jew associate of his concerned in the same business in London, had recently succeeded in doing,—he decided that the wisest course to follow was to continue to 'butter' ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... their bed, and cast with the weeds of the garden to taint in their decay the breezes they would sweeten if left on their stem. They longed for the pleasures that pleased in the day of prosperity; the dance, the banquet, and those visits that won the momentary gratification of flattery and admiration were sighed for. So irksome was the monotony and so uncongenial the role forced upon them by disguise, they hailed with joy the least circumstance that might be the harbinger ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... through the eyes of sixteen. When men, fearing to measure themselves, seek the judgment of their fellows, adulation or affection may lead astray. In the year's retrospect of science, touching the solar eclipse it is said: "Cape Flattery is our northwestern cape, and there occurred the largest obscuration of the sun in the United States." "Cape Flattery," I fear, is the locus of largest obscuration for the United States every year, and was particularly so in the past twelvemonth of jubilee and gratulation; and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Mr. Winkle soothingly—'poor fellow—good old horse.' The 'poor fellow' was proof against flattery; the more Mr. Winkle tried to get nearer him, the more he sidled away; and, notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling, there were Mr. Winkle and the horse going round and round each other for ten minutes, at the end of which time each was at precisely the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... woman of sweet, natural, God-bestowed impulses is the devil's worst practical joke in this world. Come, little girl, it's late. Think over the scheme; try it as you have a chance; use your power to incite men to make the most and best of themselves. This is better than levying your little tribute of flattery and attention, like other belles,—a phase of life as common as cobble-stones and as old as vanity. For instance, you have an artist among your friends. Possibly you can make him a better artist and a better ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... loved not the rule. We do know, however, that at Paris there certainly was no provision for him. In quest of Greek, in quest of the proper equipment for his life's work, he went back to the old precarious existence, pupils and starvation, the dependence and the flattery that he loathed. It is this last, indeed, that puts the sting into his correspondence with Batt. That loyal friend, ever coaxing money out of his complacent and generous patroness for dispatch to Paris, would now and then ask for a letter to her, to make the claims of the absent ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic, Falsification, theft, and simony, Panders, and barrators, and ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Would I might live to see no Jewes hang there In steed of jewels—sycophants, I meane, Who use Truth like the Devill, his true foe, Cast by the angell to the pit of feares, 10 And bound in chaines; Truth seldome decks kings eares. Slave flattery (like a rippiers legs rowl'd up In boots of hay-ropes) with kings soothed guts Swadled and strappl'd, now lives onely free. O, tis a subtle knave; how like the plague 15 Unfelt he strikes into the braine of man, And rageth in his entrailes when he can, Worse ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... and will find yourself better without it,' replied Fascination, in greatly improved spirits. 'To ask you if you'll have another rasher would be unmeaning flattery, for it would make you thirsty all day. Will you have some more bread ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... plumes. She has confidences with herself in the mirror, from which it is made evident that she had discovered all is not gold that glitters, and has found greater temptations than those a girlish love of pleasure, luxury, and flattery bring her. She is sought by a rich lover; but her honest heart resists the allurements he offers, and in its innocent perplexity wishes 'mother' was ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... ready to hold forth. He liked the position of instructor and was not insensible to the flattery of Lettice's intentness on his answers. But he was a little dismayed by one of her questions, which showed the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... person is playing on a harp! Consider the deafening hurricane of sound. Consider, further, it is a praise service—a service of compliment, flattery, adulation. Do you ask who it is that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane compliment, and who not only endures it but likes it, enjoys it, requires it, commands it? Hold your breath: It is God! This race's God I ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I am by nature incapable of repaying kindness by aspersion, I feel that I am no less above the meanness of attempting a return in that base coin—flattery; that which I saw I say, and as I saw it. I blame none of my predecessors for their general views, but claim the right of differing from them wherever I think fit; and if my account of things most on the surface ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... especially the last part of it, was sufficiently ridiculous to have moved Hyacinth to a smile. But it did no such thing. On the contrary, its rhetoric excited and touched him. The flattery of the final sentences elated him. The absurdity of the idea that Ireland needed him, a fifth-rate office clerk, an out-of-work commercial traveller who had failed to sell blankets and flannels, did not strike him at all. The figure of Augusta Goold rose to his mind. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... than average wages, and so he would often borrow a few shillings from me, which he never remembered to pay back again. But he managed to get these loans very dexterously, always mixing up a little flattery when he came ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... master; but I loved her truly, and meant well by her, only desiring her to wait till I should be free to please myself. But Richard stepped in between me and my happiness. He stole this girl's heart from me; gained her love as he has endeavored to obtain yours, by flattery and dissimulation you see I am not wily and smooth enough to please women—but also he destroyed her peace under promise of marriage; leaving her soon after and going abroad without acquainting her with ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... Sowerby, if I am to have flattery, I cannot take it as a milliner's dumb figure wears the beautiful dress; I must point out my view of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the four humours, choler, melancholy, phlegm, and the red globules, or the sanguine portion, which was supposed not to be in our own power, but, to be dependent on the influences of the heavenly bodies,—and the countenances which are in our power really, though from flattery we bring them into a no less apparent dependence on the sovereign, than the former are in ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... laugh at the mixture of gallantry and fun and flattery in the doctor's manner, though his meaning was, to her, doubtful. Other answer she ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... ignorance or malice Honours and success are followed by envy Hopes they (enemies) should hereafter become our friends I should praise you more had you praised me less It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery Lovers are not criminal in the estimation of one another Mistrust is the sure forerunner of hatred Much is forgiven to a king Necessity is said to be the mother of invention Never approached any other man near enough to know a difference ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... autobiographical sketches are the result of mere vanity—not excepting those of St. Augustine and Rousseau—falsehood in the mask and mantle of truth. Half ashamed and half conscious of his own mendacious self-flattery, the historian of his own deeds or geographer of his own mind breaks out now and then indignantly, and revenges himself on his own weakness by telling some very disagreeable truth of some other person; and then, re-established in his own good opinion, marches on cheerfully in the smooth ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... sentiment of respect for the ordinary Grecian. The Romans viewed him as essentially framed for ministerial offices. Am I sick? Come, Greek, and cure me. Am I weary? Amuse me. Am I diffident of power to succeed? Cheer me with flattery. Am I issuing from a bath? ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the boyards and the old Russian party, was overthrown, and a Russian, as distinct from a German, policy was welcomed with surprise and tumultuous delight. "Despotism," he declared, "is the principle of my government; my people desires no other." Yet he endeavoured to win young Russia by flattery, as he had conquered old Russia by reaction. He encouraged the movement in poetry against the tasteless imitation of Western models, and in society against the dominance of the French language. In the first years of his reign French ceases to be a medium of literary expression, ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... and all the wealth that nature has bestowed upon southern Italy, were a help to such a resolution. The infinite lavish fulness of the present quite laughed at the idea of barrenness or want anywhere in time to come. Dolly knew that was nature's subtle flattery, not to be trusted, and yet she willingly admitted the flattery. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... this young man to his companion as Heinrich Heine; but in general the young poet had not to endure the inconveniences of being a lion. His poems were devoured, but he was not asked to devour flattery in return. Whether because the fair Hamburgers acted in the spirit of Johnson's advice to Hannah More—to "consider what her flattery was worth before she choked him with it"—or for some other reason, Heine, according to the testimony of August Lewald, to whom we owe these ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... Latin historian of the 1st century, author of an epitome, especially of Roman history, rather disfigured by undue flattery of Tiberius his patron, as well as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was then quite unused to the species, had to stand and receive a flood of the most fulsome flattery, delivered in a strident voice, and to bear the critical and prolonged stare of the spectacled eyes. Nor would the harpy easily release her prey. She kept him much against his will, and I saw him looking wistfully now and then ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... retreat Aurore was consigned and there spent more than two years, an untroubled time she has spoken of as in many respects the happiest of her life. There is certainly nothing more delightful in her memoirs than the vivid picture there drawn of the convent-school interior, drawn without flattery or malice, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... man has to choose between Christ and Barabbas, and every Christian between God and some old prophet. Better be a silly donkey in the estimation of an old prophet than listen to his soft talk and flattery, and afterwards become a wreck. "This is My beloved Son, hear HIM." No! not even Moses, nor Elijah, nor both. "HEAR HIM." "You have an anointing from God, and you have no need that any man teach you." You say ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... the sunset a color on lily leaves throws, The words and the glances of Roger Montrose O'er the listener's cheeks sent a pink tinted wave; While Maurice seemed disturbed, and his sister grew grave. The false chink of flattery's coin smites the ear With an unpleasant ring when the heart is sincere. Yet the man whose mind pockets are filled with this ore, Though empty his brain cells, is never a bore To the ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... But it certainly must have been otherwise esteemed by those who raised it: for it is not credible, however blind idolatry may have been, that people should enshrine persons as immortal, where they had the plainest evidences of their mortality. An inscription Viro Immortali was in a style of flattery too refined for the simplicity of those ages. If divine honours were conferred, they were the effects of time, and paid at some distance; not upon the spot, at the vestibule of the charnel-house. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... Court House with my L20 deposit after the nomination, I was way-laid by Sergeant Murray, of the police, who in oily sentences of congratulation suggested that I should give half of the money towards the erection of a Roman Catholic church, then about to be built. I succumbed to his flattery, although my own clergyman was daily expected, and my name was coupled with Father Plormel, the resident priest, on a piece of paper, and inserted in a hole in one of the blocks underneath the building. The church has been enlarged since, and I ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... 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 a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... feature of the train of miscellaneous people who came to a halt within earshot of a balcony in the main street. Henderson was carried upstairs on some enthusiasts' shoulders, and when landed there followed the usual "gassating" and flattery—the re-elected member being presented with a gorgeous bouquet of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... not know that Jim almost invariably went over to Burke's shanty—even when he walked home with Miss Clayton. Rivers did not impress Estelle favorably. She was not one to be moved by flattery, nor by dimples in male cheeks. She accepted his company pleasantly, but there were well-defined bounds to her friendship, as Rivers discovered one evening as they were walking over ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... if really so intended, aided to make him great. His morals were corrupted, his health was impaired, and his heart hardened by the excesses of his youth, but his removal from the palace atmosphere of flattery and effeminacy tended to make him self-reliant, while his free life in the country and the activity which it encouraged helped to develop the native energy of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... compositions, to colour-schemes of this sort and that; such a tremendous outlay for models, for costumes, for multifarious accessories! But as Daffingdon gradually pulled himself together, a comforting little sense of flattery came to soothe his bruises and to clear his eyes. Yes, she believed in him. This brilliant and learned young woman had impetuously placed her boundless stores of erudition at his disposal; she had loaded the work of twenty men on his shoulders ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... that saturnalia were not only painting the town red; they thought that they were painting the map red—that they were painting the world red. But, indeed, this Imperial debauch has in it something worse than the mere larkiness which is my present topic; it has an element of real self-flattery and of sin. The Jingo who wants to admire himself is worse than the blackguard who only wants to enjoy himself. In a very old ninth-century illumination which I have seen, depicting the war of the rebel angels in heaven, Satan is ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... and applause of his fellow-students, and especially the wild flattery of the Dozen, who were almost insanely joyful over his success in captaining the scrub football team and wiping the earth up with the varsity, until he was as sick as a boy that has overfed on candy. Finally he had slunk away, rather like a guilty man than a hero, and started for his room. Once ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... thee! thou evil flatterer!" cried Zarathustra mischievously, "why dost thou spoil me with such praise and flattery-honey? ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the latter theory to an absurdity, by demonstrating that if Mary was innocent she was a fool. In his defence of Elizabeth Froude stops short of many admirers. He was disgusted by her feminine weakness for masculine flattery; he dwells with almost tedious minuteness upon her smallest intrigues; he exposes her parsimonious ingratitude to her dauntless and unrivalled seamen. Yet for all that he brings out the vital difference between her and Mary Tudor, between the Protestant and Catholic systems of government. ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... perhaps they'd like a file o' men to escort a picnic in the hills,—then it's 'Oh, hello, good morning, Mr. Tripe. How's the dog this morning? And oh, by the way—' Then I know what's coming an' what I can do for 'em I do, for I confess, lady, that I hanker for a little bit o' flattery and a few words o' praise I'm not entitled to. I don't covet any man's money—or at least not enough to damn me into hell on that account. Finding's keeping, and a bet's a bet, but I don't covet money more than that dog o' mine covets fleas. He likes to scratch 'em when he has ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... chairs. "I am sure that we have all enjoyed your joke vastly. You must pardon me if, just at first, I seemed to miss the humour of it. I can assure you that I am now quite—quite sympathique. We are told that imitation is the sincerest flattery, and I accept the compliment in the spirit in which you have tendered ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... often annoyed at these superstitions, because, as I did not know the secret, I would upon occasions of affability or flattery, or necessity or obligation, inquire of the son for his father; and, as he gave me no answer, I remained confused and abashed. But, with the aid of Divine grace, this and other bad customs and errors were banished and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... What with Hamish's flattery and the luck I had to-day, I begin to believe I could bag a brace of tigers if they were coming at me fifty ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... a bit spoiled by all this flattery and homage. He worked all the harder; resolved to achieve yet greater triumphs in science than he had yet done. An opportunity soon arose to turn his knowledge and inventive powers to account in a very important way. For a long time the English public had every now and then ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... samples of the ravings which sounded incessantly in the ears of the governor-general. Was it strange that a man, so thirsty for power, so gluttonous of flattery, should be influenced by such passionate appeals? Addressed in strains of fulsome adulation, convinced that arbitrary power was within his reach, and assured that he had but to wink his eye to see his enemies scattered before him, he became impatient of all restraint; and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... amongst the English Missionary section of Methodists, by strong appeals to their well-known loyalty—their respect and love for the old mother-church, which John Wesley so venerated. Even condescension and flattery were employed. The Church and other newspapers made appeals with tact and ability[98] (see page 236); the Lieutenant Governor himself took the trouble to address a letter on the subject direct to the Missionary Committee in London, and Archdeacon Strachan never failed to single out ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Master Frank! But, don't get angry—" she continued, as I slightly withdrew from her side, in momentary pique at hearing the curate's part taken.—"I like to hear you talk of such things, Frank, far better than if you only spoke to me of commonplace matters, as most gentlemen do, or dosed me with flattery, which I detest!" ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... either class, the effect was the same. The noble man was much enamored, and Jane unconsciously gratified. It is true, love had never entered her thoughts in its direct and unequivocal form; but admiration is so consoling to those laboring under self-condemnation, and flattery of a certain kind so very soothing to all, it is not to be wondered that she listened with increasing pleasure to the interesting conversation of Harland on all occasions, and more particularly, as often happened, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... would do just as well—in fact, better, but for one thing, and that is, you would be swindled twice as much. The expression "and very wealthy," attached to the name of an Englishman, is only a delicate piece of flattery, for the majority of the present race of traveling English are by no means lavish in their expenditures or very wealthy. In taking you to see all these pretty women, I have undoubtedly given you pleasure, at the same time I have gratified ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... in 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, arranged ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... had done to such a doctrine, but if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. He never wrote to them—that may have been selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I carried out the spirit of the pledge given not to appeal to him when I let my ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not fond; everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they are the flower of commodities, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... that pride is incompatible 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 too late; and he learned, like so ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... dressed and crossed the village, and went up past the packing plant and the storage barns to the two small cement gate posts and the length of rusty chain that marked the entrance to Red Creek "Park." Then there would be tea, poetry, talk, and the flattery that Pauline quite deliberately applied to Cherry, and the flattery that Cherry all unconsciously lavished on ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... absolute truth of generic human form, and if this ethical force had remained, would have advanced into healthy portraiture. But at the moment of change the national life ended in Greece; and portraiture, there, meant insult to her religion, and flattery to her tyrants. And her skill perished, not because she became true in sight, but because she became vile ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... 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 parasites, and brought to themselves ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... want strong arguments and strong temptations; but with such fellows as Parley, in whom vanity and sensuality are the leading qualities—as, let me tell you, is the case with far the greater part—flattery, and a promise of ease and pleasure, will do more than your whole battle array. If you will let me manage, I will get you all into the castle ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... painters' art hovered on the borders of a brilliant epoch. For Lawrence, with his courtly brush, which preferred flattery to truth and cloying suavity to noble simplicity, was not worthy to be named in the same breath with Reynolds. Raeburn came nearer, but his reputation was Scotch. Blake in his inspiration was regarded, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... which she had been sneering at to your mother, don't you remember? It was one of her honey-cups with venom below— only happily, Lady Rosamond saw through the flattery. I'm ashamed whenever I ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deliberately that you have met people—men and women—who can talk to you or anyone else for a quarter of an hour quite honestly, and say nothing at all which they don't mean—nothing for the sake of flattery, or effect, for instance?" ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... head and laughed at this guileless flattery, and at that moment, to his relief, Dr. Ross came ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... it?" cried Elizabeth, with a smile that was a flash, possibly of annoyance, rather than a gleam of pleasure. "As the saying goes, what axe have you to grind, Master Edmonson? All this flattery must be for some object. Can I do anything for you? If only I had influence with the Grand Mogul, or any other high official, I would speak to him for you with pleasure. You see your cause is already won, so don't waste any more powder." And ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... from any worldly gain for Christ's sake, and the gospel's, that they are still striving, by hook and by crook, as we say, by swearing, lying, cozening, stealing, covetousness, extortion, oppression, forgery, bribery, flattery, or any other way to get more, thou they get together with these, death, wrath, damnation, hell, the devil, and all the plagues that God can pour upon them. And if any do not run with them to the same excess of riot, but rather for all their threats will be so bold and careless, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it: And my pretext to strike at him, admits A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd Mine Honor for his truth: who being so heighten'd, He watered his new Plants with dewes of Flattery, Seducing so my Friends: and to this end, He bow'd his Nature, neuer knowne before, But to be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... his boat, and returned to the shore, and we saw no more of him until we arrived at Spithead, when his lordship came on board, accompanied by a person whom we soon discovered was a half pay purser in the navy: a man who, by dint of the grossest flattery and numerous little attentions, had so completely ingratiated himself with his patron, that he had become as necessary an appendage to the travelling equipage, as the portmanteau or the valet-de-chambre. This despicable toady was his lordship's double; he was a living type ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... industrial system which make it appear that the game really pays. Foremen are only human. It is natural that they should be flattered by being made to believe that they hold the weal or woe of workmen in their hands. It is natural, also, that being open to flattery, their self-seeking subordinates should flatter them still more to obtain and profit by their favor. That is why I want as little as possible ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... consented, but not he himself"; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority of the compliant, he obtained even a certain political importance. They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... "No flattery, Pitts," returned Mr. Kinnison. "My memory 's bad enough, and as for taking such a bold part in that tea-party, it's all nonsense. If there was a leader, you was the man. But I'll tell these ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... rabbits, and squirrels, which sprang up before him as he struck into the woods as the shortest route to Mr. Allen's farm house—talked to them and to himself of Jerrie, and how delightful it was to have her home again, unspoiled by flattery, sweet and gracious as ever, and how he longed to tell her of his love, but dared not yet until he was surer of her and of what she felt for him. He had no faith now in her fancies with regard to herself. Of the ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... of wealth becomes the ruling passion of the whole body, and there is no passion so demoralizing. The other is, that where the people, or, more properly speaking, the mob govern, they must be conciliated by flattery and servility on the part of those who would become their idols. Now flattery is lying, and a habit equally demoralizing to the party who gives and to the party who receives it. Depend upon it, there is no government ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... advantage given them by the Revolution. The second madness would, in all probability, like the first, have ended in their proscription, dispersion, decimation, but for the magnanimity and wisdom of that great prince, who, bent on fulfilling his mission, and insensible alike to flattery and to outrage, coldly and inflexibly saved ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the Mind, there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the Love of Flattery. For as where the Juices of the Body are prepared to receive a malignant Influence, there the Disease rages with most Violence; so in this Distemper of the Mind, where there is ever a Propensity and Inclination to suck in the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... flattery did not appeal to Merrihew. "Bosh! There's something you haven't told me about that makes you ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... their country, and ornaments of human nature. Their attainments of different kinds bore the same general stamp, and it was sterling: what they did, had the mark of their age and country upon it. Perhaps the genius of Great Britain (if I may so speak without offence or flattery), never shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more like itself, than at this period. Our writers and great men had something in them that savoured of the soil from which they grew: they were not French, they were not Dutch, or German, or Greek, or Latin; they were truly ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... hardened my conscience and softened my heart. But I had identified his doggerel verse at last. I am ashamed to say that it was part of a set of my very own writing in the school magazine of my time. So Raffles knew the stuff better than I did myself, and yet scorned to press his flattery to win me over! He had won me: in a second my rounded shoulders were a pedestal for those dangling feet. And before many more I heard the old metallic snap, followed by the raising of a sash so slowly and gently as to be almost inaudible to ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... Sabbath-school kept her affections warm, and rendered her knowledge practical and thorough. But at length the things of the world began insensibly to win upon her regard. She was the child of wealth, and fashion spoke of her taste and elegance. She was very lovely, and the voice of flattery mingled with the accents of honest praise. She was agreeable in manners, sprightly in conversation, and was courted and caressed. She heard with more complacency, reports from the gay circles she ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... some flattery on the personality of his art, Thompson said, "It is strange, for I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament—temperament is ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... invitingly raised. The first delight was broken. One more sensitive might have found it hard to recapture; but Alf stepped quickly to her side in the shadow, and they kissed again. He was surprised at her passion. He had not expected it, and the flattery was welcome. He grinned a little in the safe darkness, consciously and even sheepishly, but with eagerness. They were both clumsy and a little trembling, not very practised lovers, but curious and excited. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... a man who is not open to flattery: he is a hard, morose, distrustful, cynical being, doubting the honesty of his friends and the worth of his own self. I leant an ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... I saw that under its influence the slight suspicions which I had imparted to poor honest-hearted, straightforward Mr Austin were melting like snowflakes under a summer sun. Still, under all the plausibility, the delicate flattery, and the elaborate politeness of the man, there was a vague indefinable something to which I found it quite impossible to reconcile myself; and I watched him as a cat does a mouse, anxious to note whatever suspicious circumstances ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... me a story of duplicity and treachery—it was about this poor old gentleman, Baron—and then I knew what sort of person it was who betrayed his friend and master for thirty pieces of silver, and listened to the hypocrisy, and flattery, and lying of the miserable group of parasites who crowded round him because he was a traitor, and ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... risk of repeating myself, I maintain that Prague can well afford to be original and forgo any imitation of other cities by insisting on standing on seven hills; a truly great city should not descend to servile flattery. Paris, for example, undoubtedly a great city, is quite content to stand on two hills, Montmartre and Montparnasse, the latter quite worn flat by the levelling ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... I," said Jack, from which we may gather that our friend was much accomplished in the gentle art of flattery. However, to do him justice, he meant it, and even the most confirmed old bachelor, looking at Lucile, must have admitted that he had just and sufficient cause. In fact, there were not many who did not look at Lucile, who, with flushed cheeks and shining ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... every one who is not in power, he is mean and slavish before rank or a full purse. He sows flattery by handfuls; he will give you his house, his children, his soul, to get rid of a difficulty, and if he does any body a service, it is sure to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... in defeat, He leaped not into danger without cause, Nor shrunk he from it though a gulf of fire, When duty bade him face it. All his aim— To win the victory; applause and praise He almost hated; grimly he endured The fulsome flattery of his comrades nerved By his calm courage up to ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... example of humility, self-denial, and sensibility to the imperfection of her conduct, is the more to be valued, as it is so difficult to be followed. Flattery is too commonly practised; and there is no sufficient guard against its dangerous consequences, except a constant and humbling recognition of the spirituality of the law of God, and our lamentable deficiency in fulfilling it. Pride was not made ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... function of a poet who invents that which is not true, and a license like this they think to be a pest of our world, for the reason that it puts a premium upon virtue and often assigns it to unworthy persons, either from fear of flattery, or ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... 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, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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, wholly emotional, like the effect ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... but smells of dogs or hawks, and his ambition flies justice-height. He loves to be commended; and he will go into the kitchen but he'll have it. He loves glory, but is so lazy as he is content with flattery. He speaks most of the precedency of age, and protests fortune the greatest virtue. He summoneth the old servants, and tells what strange acts he will do when he reigns. He verily believes housekeepers the best commonwealths-men, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... unheeded glides away 'Mid mirth and music, flattery's whispered tone, Her dreary penance—ever to be gay, Yet longing, oh! how oft—to be alone; But when all other hearts seek needful rest, And heavy sleep the saddest eyelids close, Her dreams are those the wretched only know, As memory o'er her soul ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... was not a wildflower, however. She was a product of city life, and was perfectly aware of her unusual and exotic beauty. Admiring eyes had followed her even from childhood, and no one better than she knew her power. Her head had been quite turned by flattery, but there was a saving clause in her nature—her heart. She was a belle, but not a cold-blooded coquette. Admiration was like sunshine—a matter of course. She had always been accustomed to it, as she had ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... he was bound to use every effort to induce the king not to break it, and to allow the rebels to proceed to Toulon. Unfortunately he had imbibed the vengeful spirit of the Neapolitan court. Blinded by the blandishments of his mistress and the flattery of the court, he forgot the conduct which became a British admiral and the representative of his own sovereign, and pandered to the cruel desires of the Bourbon king and queen for vengeance on those who had ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... his predecessors, and said that no man before him had done anything to advance the science of medicine. Besides having an endowment of natural shrewdness and ability, he was equipped with great powers of self-advertisement, and could cajole the rich and influential. He was an adept in the art of flattery. Galen often refers to him, and always with contempt. Thessalus was able, so he said, to teach the medical art in six months, and he surrounded himself with a retinue of artisans, weavers, cooks, butchers, and so on, who were allowed to kill or cure his patients. Sprengel states that, after the ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... picture of the bonnie leddie, its mamma, and then, with all the low cunning of her kind, she would launch forth into panegyrics of its beauty, and prophecies of the great dignities and honours that would one day be showered upon it; until, by her fawning and flattery, she succeeded in exciting a degree of interest, which nature had not secured for ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... to me of my people," she answered hastily; "these slaves are no people of mine, they are but dogs to do my bidding till the day of my deliverance comes; and, as for their customs, naught have I to do with them. Also, call me not Queen—I am weary of flattery and titles—call me Ayesha, the name hath a sweet sound in mine ears, it is an echo from the past. As for this Ustane, I know not. I wonder if it be she against whom I was warned, and whom I in turn did warn? Hath ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Scipio must have seen with displeasure the intimacy between Jugurtha and certain young ambitious Romans of an equivocal character. [54] 'In his own mode of acting,' must be understood here of his honourable mode of acting; though there are also malae artes, such as faithlessness, cunning, flattery, ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... in jest or flattery; you could take it as spite, fear, or homage, according to the manner in which it was pronounced, naturally always behind the General's back, for it went very hard indeed with the man who ventured to pick a quarrel with him, and still harder, if possible, with anybody ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... and, as she asked me to read it to her, I did so. She enjoyed it very much and proposed an exchange. She said the rooms were all so nearly alike that, with a little alteration, she could use it. Being very susceptible to flattery, her praise of my production won a ready assent; but when I read her platitudes I was sorry I had changed, and still more so ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... bells to the wholesome, fresh wind! Would they revive now, think you, for your great Prince de Majano if he told them they were fair? So with your life and heart, little one—pass them through the scorching fire of flattery, and their purity must wither even as these fragile blossoms. And as for beauty—are you ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; [48] and the son of Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. [49] So unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt: his military character ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Menoux went off, La Couteau had lavished such flattery and such promises upon her that she felt quite light and gay; no longer regretting her money, but dreaming of the day when little Pierre would come back to her with plump cheeks and all the vigor of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... "and not only sense, but a sound, sweet nature. Patty is growing up a coquette, but it is only because she is beset by flattery; and, too, she IS full of mischief. She can't help teasing her ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... running downstairs to inquire what the matter was, nothing forsooth, only her maid had stuck a pin wrong in her gown; she turned away one servant for putting too much oil in her salad, and another for putting too little salt in her water-gruel; but such as by flattery had procured her esteem, she would indulge in the greatest crime. Her father had two coachmen; when one was in the coach-box, if the coach swung but the least to one side, she used to shriek so loud, that all the street concluded she was overturned; but ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... a forkful of provender halfway to his mouth. The S.S. Lion, eh? Why, that was one of Cappy Ricks' vessels! He remembered passing her off Cape Flattery once and seeing the Blue Star house flag fluttering at ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... reprimanded them severely, and took occasion to lecture them, telling them that if they were good Christians they were bad politicians. Indeed, he relied upon the fair Imperia to reclaim the emperor, and with this idea he syringed her well with flattery. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... got a stunning figure. Her feet aren't pretty, but they would look better if she didn't wear such clumsy shoes. Well, I'd see that she didn't. She seems to be sweet and gentle and sympathetic, and the sort of woman that would be absorbed in her husband and his interests. She's overfond of flattery, moral, mental and physical. Gets that from Frenchy, I suppose, for you can start him strutting like a rooster any time with a dozen words. But that isn't much of a fault in a wife, after all, for if a fellow can only remember ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... But the case is different with that more subtle hypocrite in Dombey and Son—I mean Major Bagstock. Dickens does mean it as a deliberate light on Mr. Dombey's character that he basks with a fatuous calm in the blazing sun of Major Bagstock's tropical and offensive flattery. Here, then, is the essence of the change. He not only wishes to write a novel; this he did as early as Nicholas Nickleby. He wishes to have as little as possible in the novel that does not really assist ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... to the first night of the piece, and when it seemed to be finding favor with the public, he leaned forward out of his line to nod and smile at the author; when they, had the author up, it was the sweetest flattery of the applause which abused his fondness that Longfellow ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... true. It does not matter whether the flattery is coarse or fine. If a woman only notices that one means to flatter her, she is satisfied. It is just as when boys stroke a kitten. Whether they pet it gently or roughly, whether it likes it or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... no more than that she could not sing because of what was in her heart toward him; but such a physical revelation was a divine love-confession, coming involuntarily from one whose lips had not formed the name of love; and Wilfrid felt it so deeply, that the exquisite flattery was almost lost, in a certain awed sense of his being in the presence of an absolute fact: a thing real, though it was much talked about, and visible, though it did not wear a hat ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... birth was small enough) to render it jealous of him under that aspect. There is an instinct in Toryism which renders pure intellect intolerable to it, except in some inferior or mechanical shape, or in the flattery of voluntary servitude. But, by a like instinct, it is not so jealous of military renown. It is glad of the doubtful amount of intellect in military genius, and knows it to be a good ally in the preservation of power, and in the substitution of noise and ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... experience of the present war proves their success is inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side of the scale. Will you give our enemies such military advantages as insure success, and then depend on coaxing, flattery, and concession to get them back into the Union? Abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black men; take two hundred thousand men from our side and put them in the battle-field or cornfield against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks. We have to hold territory in inclement ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... flattery, sir," cried the man indignantly; "that's plain honest truth, sir, and it was because I felt ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... Wrecker, by Messrs. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON and LLOYD OSBOURNE. The Baron hit on a plan, he must isolate himself as if he were a telephone-wire. "Good," quoth he, "Isolation is the sincerest flattery,—towards authors." The friend in need, not in the sense of being out at elbows, appeared at the right moment, as did the Slave of the Lamp to Aladdin. "Come to my house in the mountains," said this Genius, heartily; "come to the wold where the foxes dwell, not a hundred miles from a cab-stand, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... VIII. and his children there was no persecution, no fluctuation of religion: their Ministers shifted their faith four times, and were sincere honest men! There was no servility, no flattery, no contempt of the nation abroad, under James I. No tyranny under Charles I. and Laud; no factions, no civil war! Charles II., however, brought back all the virtues and morality, which, somehow or other, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... amused to watch his arrangements. Thoroughly idle people—and there is not much question that Miss Fenimer was idle—learn a variety of methods for keeping other people at work, and probably the most effective of these is flattery. Christine may have been ignorant of the feminine arts of cooking and fire-making; but of the super-feminine art of flattery ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... storm is quickly over. Men of this choleric temper are always beloved, for good humour inevitably underlies the ebullitions of so light a rage. They never nurse hatreds nor brood over trifles. Also they are healthily impervious to the wiles of flattery or the snare of favouritism. There is nothing of the jealous and erratic genius about French. To read his dispatches is to find praise lavishly given to subordinates but no mention of self. For he looks after his assistants and leaves his own record to fate. He has, indeed, ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... tells us of this cardinal, born of the royal house of Portugal, adds the virtue of sincerity to Rossellino's work, proving there is no flattery of the dead man in his sculpture.[103] "Among his other admirable virtues," says the biographer, "Messer Jacopo di Portogallo determined to preserve his virginity, though he was beautiful above all others of his age. Consequently he avoided all things that ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... possessed by few, his progress to distinction and power ought to have been easy and rapid, but it turned out quite otherwise. The road to eminence lay by the "backstairs," the atmosphere of which he could not endure. The ways of courtiers—falsehood, flattery, and fawning—he detested, and worse, he said so, wherefore his learning, wit and eloquence found but small reward. To his freedom of speech, his unsparing exposure and denunciation of corruption and vice in the Court and the Church, as well as among the people generally, must undoubtedly ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... girl, not-withstanding her previous aversion, felt something like gratification at what he said, not on account ol the prospects held out to her, but because of the singular charm and affectionate spirit which breathed in his voice; or, might it not have been that delicate influence of successful flattery which so gently pervades the heart of woman, and soothes that vanity which unconsciously lurks in the very purest and most innocent of the sex? So far from being flattered by his predictions, she experienced ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... to affirm that if refused he will die, if his assurances merely elicit a recommendation to diet himself, and take plenty of outdoor exercise? Women are responsible for such lies, because they believe them. Their amazing vanity makes them swallow flattery so gross that it is an insult, and men will always be ready to tell the precise number of lies that a woman is ready to listen to. Who indulges more recklessly in glowing exaggerations than the lover who hopes, and has not yet obtained? He will, like the ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... old maxim in the schools, That flattery's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... this exquisitely intelligent hearing, but he was accepted on his own terms, as a poet who saw so much beauty in simple and common life that he could not help painting it. He painted it in pieces of matchless fidelity to the fact, with nothing of flattery, but everything of charm in the likeness. His work is the enduring witness of persons, circumstances, customs, experiences utterly passed from the actual world, but recognizably true with every sincere reader. These tales of village life in England a hundred years ago are of an absolute ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... cease to insult the teacher's calling with empty flattery? When will men who would never for a moment encourage their own sons to enter the work of the public schools, cease to tell us that education is the greatest and noblest of all human callings? Education does not need these compliments. The ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... 'good likenesses,' so far as outline and detail were concerned; but to me they always seemed to lack one great essential of a true portrait,—the informing spirit of the man within. This I find in Marshall's portrait. The old harsh lines and unmistakable mouth are there, without flattery or compromise; but over all and through all the pathetic sadness, the wise simplicity and tender humanity of the man are visible. It is the face of the speaker at Gettysburg, and the writer of ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... about all this. I never was more interested in anything in my life," she said, looking up at him with a glance that carried the subtlest flattery, and, while her query was vague, he understood and made no attempt to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... has learned how to pay fine compliments." And this is partly true. I have been very agreeable lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. I have, moreover, a deal of wit: and the ladies say that no one understands flattery better, or falsehoods you will add; since the one accomplishment invariably accompanies the other. But I must tell you of Miss B—. She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep blue eyes. Her rank ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... involved in such editing must be great from the absence of trained assistance, and because the materials must be furnished by incompetent hands. Local news must be forwarded by local people, perhaps by a village tailor with literary tastes. Such correspondents often indulge in insinuations, or fulsome flattery, which must be carefully eliminated. From another village an account of some event comes from the schoolmaster—quite an important person nowadays!—who writes in a fair, round hand and uses the finest language and the longest words. He invariably puts 'hebdomadal' for 'weekly.' A lawyer's clerk ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... thou idol ceremony? Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose: I am a king that find thee; and I know, 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... do we find A relish in the human mind For friendship pure and real; How few its approbation seek, How oft we count its censures weak, Disguising what we feel. Adulation lives to please, Truth dies the victim of disease, Forgotten by the world: The flattery of the fool delights The wise, rebuke our pride affrights, And virtue's banner's furl'd. Wherefore do we censure fate, When she withholds the perfect state Of friendship from our grasp, If we ourselves ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... she's dangerous: Her eyes have power beyond Thessalian charms, To draw the moon from heaven; for eloquence, The sea-green Syrens taught her voice their flattery; And, while she speaks, night steals upon the day, Unmarked of those that hear: Then she's so charming Age buds at sight of her, and swells to youth: The holy priests gaze on her when she smiles; And with heaved hands, forgetting gravity, They bless her wanton eyes: even I, who hate her, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden |
