"Sycophancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and Jennies, the Corydons and Jemmy Jesamies, all round were throwing up hands and eyes in a sort of rapture, how she would look, with what equal surprise and contempt, doubting her own ears, and sickening at the stuff and the strange sycophancy which induced it. And should good old Singalongohnay, with a natural and patronizing visage, approach, and venture to talk to her about poetry, with that assured smile of self-excellence which such a venerable authority naturally employs, how she would turn ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
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... servility; slavery &c. (subjection) 749; obsequiousness &c. adj.; subserviency; abasement; prostration, prosternation|; genuflection &c. (worship) 990; fawning &c. v.; tuft- hunting, timeserving[obs3], flunkeyism[obs3]; sycophancy &c. (flattery) 933; humility &c. 879. sycophant, parasite; toad, toady, toad-eater; tufthunter[obs3]; snob, flunky, flunkey, yes-man, lapdog, spaniel, lickspittle, smell-feast, Graeculus esuriens[Lat], hanger on, cavaliere servente[It], led captain, carpet knight; timeserver, fortune ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
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... eyes—in which a slightly sarcastic expression was to be seen—at the multitude of brilliantly adorned and distinguished gentlemen who tried to get as far as possible from him. Napoleon smiled. He himself despised sycophancy sufficiently to be pleased with this rebuke. But his severe look returned, and he gazed with some indignation upon the tall form of the King of Prussia. He noticed that, while himself appeared ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
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... lesser bourgeoisie. Though all success, especially if won from distant sources, seems to presuppose some genuine merit, Minard was really an inflated balloon. Expressing himself in empty phrases, mistaking sycophancy for politeness, and wordiness for wit, he uttered his commonplaces with a brisk assurance that passed for eloquence. Certain words which said nothing but answered all things,—progress, steam, bitumen, National ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
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... circular telegram dispatched to the provinces three days later, the analysis of Japan's relationship to the Entente Powers being particularly revealing. The obsequious note which pervades this document is also particularly noticeable and shows how deeply the canker of sycophancy ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
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... be accomplished by the Expunging resolution? Is it to appease the wrath and to heal the wounded pride of the Chief Magistrate? If he be really the hero that his friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, all grovelling sycophancy, all self-degradation and self-abasement. He would reject, with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your black scratches and your baby lines in the fair records of his country. Black lines! Black lines! Sir, I hope the Secretary of the Senate will preserve the pen ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
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... that a free, Protestant people, happy under the government of the best of princes, can be so infatuated as, without the utmost contempt and indignation, to hear of any terms from a Popish bigoted Pretender." But was it loyalty or sycophancy that could thus transmute even George I. into "the best ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
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... "Second Sage" of China (372-289 B.C.), is far more outspoken than Confucius in his denunciation of bad rulers. There was no sycophancy in the words which he uttered during an interview with King Hsuan of the State of Ch'i. "When the prince treats his ministers with respect, as though they were his own hands and feet, they in their turn look up to him as the source from which they derive nourishment; when he treats them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
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... behind her sufficient to give her an eminent rank in the literature of her country, thought it necessary to prefix as a motto to her boldest work, "Un homme peut braver l'opinion; une femme doit s'y soumettre."[1] The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to men. In the case of unmarried women, much of it seems only intended to increase their chance of a husband. Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark, and inculcate a servility beyond what is desired or relished ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
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... municipal body, and speech by Bierlyn, Prairial 25, year II.) " How can the insipid arrogance of these (Strasbourg) people be represented to you, their senseless attachment to the patrician families in their midst, the absurd feuil1antism of some and the vile sycophancy of others? How is it, they say, that moneyless interlopers, scarcely ever heard of before, dare assume to have credit in a town of sensible inhabitants and honest families, from father to son, accustomed to governing and renowned for centuries?"—Ibid., 113. (Speech of the mayor ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
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... of these people was universally lofty and honorable. A fawning sycophancy or little meannesses were unknown; social intercourse was unrestrained because all were honorable, and that reserve which so plainly speaks suspicion of your company was never seen. There was no habit of canvassing the demerits ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
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... mission to Valentinois. Florence, fearing and hating Valentinois as she does, would doubtless take pleasure in detractory advices. Other ambassadors—particularly those of Venice—pander to their Governments' wishes in this respect, conscious that there is a sycophancy in slander contrasted with which the ordinary sycophancy of flattery is as water to wine; they diligently send home every scrap of indecent or scandalous rumour they can pick up in the Roman ante-chambers, however unlikely, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
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