"Flattery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 out for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... political changes introduced by him, as well as of the moral and social changes that had taken place in the people from various causes, became apparent in the raising to power of men from the lower walks of life, whose popularity was achieved and maintained mainly by intrigue and flattery. Chief among these rose Cle'on, a tanner, who has been characterized as "the violent demagogue whose arrogant presumption so unworthily succeeded the enlightened magnanimity of Pericles." In the year 428 Mityle'ne, the capital of the Island ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... well, 'tis over now, my dear Clara—you will be wiser another time. Come, Mr. Hope, give us a little flattery, to put us in ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... going on his rounds of mendicancy at the proper time to the huts of forest recluses when these become smokeless and the sound of the husking rod is hushed, a person succeeds in attaining to Brahma.[992] Abstaining from flattery and from bowing thy heads to others, and avoiding both good and evil, live thou in the forest by thyself, appeasing hunger by any means ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to frown at Eugene's apology for his brother, could not resist this filial flattery. She gave him her hand, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... humblest position, blending a manly independence of demeanor with the regard justly due to those placed by Providence farther up the social scale. Yet doubtless there are persons to whom the sneakiest manner is agreeable,—who enjoy the flattery and the humiliation of the wretched toady who is always ready to tell them that they are the most beautiful, graceful, witty, well-informed, aristocratic-looking, and generally-beloved of the human race. You must remember that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... house on a rock when you rested your fame on that poem. I can scarce bring myself to believe that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all the license of friendship, with a man who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, indirect flattery. Go on with your "Maid of Orleans," and be content to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... well-directed artillery, do much execution. With what becoming severity does the bold Caricature lay open to public censure the intrigues of subtle Politicians, the 243chicanery of corrupted Courts, and the flattery of cringing Parasites! Hence satirical books and prints, under temperate regulations, check the dissoluteness of the great. Hogarth's Harlot's and Rake's Progress have contributed to reform the different classes ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... By its aid artists 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 grace 1354; and although he took up the art of painting somewhat ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... good thing there seems to be something in its form and semblance that is spurious and bad. The principle brought to view in this chapter has its counterfeit in the indiscriminate praise and flattery of children by their parents, which only makes them self-conceited and vain, without at all promoting any good end. The distinction between the two might be easily pointed out, if time and space permitted; ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the action of air, frost, and water. While members of learned societies discuss such questions with upturned noses, a rock above them will sometimes be unable to keep its own countenance, but, simulating without flattery one of the human visages below, will wear an expression of humour fiendish enough to startle ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... lessons, gone upon his errand: fewer still, who would thus, at the crisis of a love, risk the whole fortune of the soul—love, gratitude, even respect. Yet more than that! For conceive how I respect you, if I, whose lifelong trade has been flattery, stand before you and make the plain confession of a truth that must not only lower ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... There's such a thing as receiving that sort of flattery first, only to be ignored in the sequel. I speak as your ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... who had been at the front—detached themselves and came towards the group of likely youths. These wavered a little, were silent, sniggered, stood their ground—the khaki-clad figures passed among them. Hackneyed words, jests, the touch of flattery, changing swiftly to chaff—all the customary performance, hollow and pathetic; and then the two figures re-emerged, their hands clenched, their eyes shifting here and there, their lips drawn back in fixed smiles. ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... rise from the armchair as she uttered those words, then she entwined her arms about her waist to draw her away and kissed her. Ah, if ever a caress merited being compared to the hideous flattery of Iscariot, it was that, and the young girl might have replied with the sublime words: "Friend, why hast thou betrayed me by a kiss?" Alas! She believed in it, in the sincerity of that proof of affection, and she returned her ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... revenge, and grief such as visit but rarely our orderly, workaday modern world. He renders for us the 'form and express feature' of his time, and though the draughtsmanship may be rude, it is free from suspicion of either flattery or bias. It is not enlisted in the cause of any moral theory or literary ideal. It is, so far as it goes, truth naked and ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... "Flattery, Bessie," he said, not ill pleased. "Yes, she is much better, and more like herself; but I dread all this being overthrown. If she herself wishes to go, it may be a good beginning, but she must not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indeed suffer undeservedly from one cause to which I must allude. His imitators have so much familiarised the ear of Italy and of Europe to the favourite topics of amorous flattery and lamentation, that we can scarcely think them original when we find them in the first author; and, even when our understandings have convinced us that they were new to him, they are still old to us. This has been ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "It is flattery only," she replied with her old directness. "This thing you are regarding with a morbid satisfaction is not ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... this time forgotten the promise he had made to Captain Sedley—forgotten the good resolution he had made to himself. Tim's flattery had produced its desired effect, and all the ground which the Bunker ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... are a lady, I translate for you, 'go now and say, that angels cannot die.' But you must not read this to her, for she will absurdly say 'tis flattery, as if I could have any motive ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... insidious flattery, the insinuation that Bobby must be thoroughly aware of "the business methods of ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... certain village, not far distant, of which the people, he assured me, were extremely wicked and averse to Christians. I readily consented, and he took his staff and walked beside me, pouring out his soul in fulsome flattery. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Guest, perhaps. She loves flattery. But she's made her market now, and all through Monny's charity. She couldn't want ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... their sovereign—they conspire also in their own palaces, by the glare of tapers as busily as in the shade. Even to the measure of soft music they can adapt their treasonable practices; and amid the murmurs of flattery can breathe the whispers of disaffection as glibly as when closeted together secure from all intrusion. So be it then; exclude from your glittering salons all those who are the known adherents of the sovereign and his mother; they ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... substitutes for definite judgments. The girl, in the meanwhile, stood looking into his face with an air of frank curiosity. It was not his opinion of her work, however, which puzzled her. She had never been accustomed to flattery, and had no idea of claiming a merit which she was well aware did not belong to her. She seemed rather to be wondering what manner of man her critic might be, and whether it would be safe to appeal to him for information on some subjects which lay ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... restaurants and the night-clubs, a war London full and alive, not dead as in Augusts of far-off tradition, all ready to give him talk and gaiety and the things that matter to the man who escapes for a brief season from the never-ending hell of the battlefield; ready, too, to pour flattery into his ear, to touch his scars with the softest of its lingers. Yet he chose to stay, a recluse, in our dull little town, avoiding even the kindly folk round about, in order to devote himself to one dear but entirely ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Frank; many thanks. And now, as you are under my commands, I forbid any more flattery and nonsense, sir. I am not in ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... upon the subject, for this reason: There are, I regret to say, in our country, a class of men lecturing upon Phrenology, who have never mastered even the rudiments of the science; who have merely learned the location and nomenclature of the organs of the brain, and who, by flattery and cheap wit, degrade this noble science to the level of mere "bumpology," until the average good citizen who has never investigated the subject has come to look upon the term Phrenologist as signifying one who goes about over ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... lean back lazily in the chariot of the rich, dreamily watching the ever-shifting picture, soaking in the sunshine. It was good, too—but in no-wise alarming—to have beside him this pretty girl who knew when not to talk and in whose occasional smile was a new subtle flattery. It was even good to be with that odd fish Jonathan Radbourne, for whose company, in a more fortunate case, he would have had no desire. He was glad Radbourne had ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... the compliments which fell so readily from those graceful lips had brought with them an unsatisfying pain. Until a woman really loves, flattery and compliment are often like her native air; but when that deeper feeling has once awakened in her, her instincts become marvellously acute to detect the false from the true. Madame de Frontignac longed for one strong, unguarded, real, earnest word from the man who had stolen from her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... grew more solid. No breath was ever whispered against him, and with a little prudence he might have kept up his state and died in the odor of sanctity. But the taste of grandeur was too sweet, the incense of his little world's flattery too precious to run the smallest risk of losing it. His display exceeded his means, but for nothing in the world would he have ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... girl looked at her mother and smiled, and blushed a little in a charming acknowledgment of feminine power to sway the minds of the sterner half of humanity. Then she grew thoughtful again, not even flattery diverting her long ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... was the king of poesy and set the fashion of wit in his time; Marguerite had a generous and a lively sympathy with wit, talent, success, renown; the princess and the poet were mutually pleased with and flattered one another; and the liberties allowed to sympathy and flattery were great at that time, but far less significant than they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel. Meantime he ran on, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... winning way with him, there was no denying that, and 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 might transpire, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... permission to march against the chief of the Mongas, who was then in rebellion, and from thence to continue his march to the mines of Butua and Mancica. The first of these requests was a piece of flattery to obtain leave for the other, as the province of the Mongas lay between Sena and the mines, and it was necessary to march thither by force of arms. The king gave his consent to both requests, and even offered to send 100,000 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... there was the usual little demonstration of affection between this young couple; and Charlotte praised her husband as the most brilliant and admirable of men; after which pleasing flattery she favoured him with a little interesting information about the baby's last tooth, and the contumacious behaviour of the new housemaid, between whom and Mrs. Woolper there had been a species of disagreement, which the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... (it would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their favour in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at our persistent ignorance. I read in ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Tigris bank and the fourth in reserve. Casualties 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 ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... "Such flattery is overwhelming," murmured Grace. "I regret that I'm too busy to bow my thanks. But to get down to the business of the hour—tell me, Mabel, dear—did this Miss Brant legally adopt you when she took you from the orphanage, or are you bound ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... 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)
... law to all his subjects; not in a conquering sense, but because his will and pleasure is only that the laws of our country should be obeyed, which he came over on purpose to rescue, and counts it his great prerogative to maintain; and contemns therefore, I doubt not, such sordid flattery as would measure the extent of his supremacy from the Conqueror's claim."—Atterbury's Rights, Powers, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... in any large and original way. In the hands of their successors poetry languished for want of an inspiring theme. PHILIPPE DESPORTES (1546-1606) was copious and skilful in his reproduction and imitation of Italian models; as a courtier poet he reduced literary flattery to a fine art; but his mannered graces are cold, his pretence of passion is a laboured kind of esprit. A copy of his works annotated by the hand of Malherbe survives; the comments, severe and just, remained unpublished, probably because ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... 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 ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Steve's fortune multiplied with almost sinister speed. He learned that flattery and ridicule were the best weapons known to man. And while the Gorgeous Girl flew home at the first war cloud to bury herself in serious war activities Steve climbed the upward path and never once glanced backward lest ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Flattery.—The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Capuchin to look upon his visitor. Whether he knew me or not, then or before, he made no sign. "There's no flattery in that," he said, "but you could have done it. A manner's a manner, and there's an end; but I could swell any man's nose for him and say thank you. And what ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Soothed with the flattery, the Commandant replied, "Why, yes, they say military men are very successful with the fair sex.—I presume it is because they look up to us for protection, and where can they be better assured of it, than with a man who wears a sword at his thigh.—Come, signors, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... regarded the flower. One white rose. It was not there when she left. It had been brought from the hall below, from the great bunch on the Spanish table. Those white roses, this white rose, had come from one who, selfish as he was, knew how to flatter a woman's vanity. From that delicate tribute of flattery and knowledge Rudyard had taken this flowering stem and brought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... your hospitality for Mr. W. J. Wills, for whom I have a very high esteem and friendship. He makes me happy beyond flattery by permitting me to think that I add something to his life. You cannot fail to like him. He is a thorough Englishman, self-relying and self-contained; a well-bred gentleman without a jot of effeminacy. ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... to carry out a system in opposition to the world's prejudices, which system, when successful, must pervade the entire world. "And is nothing to be done with those beautiful buildings?" said the secretary, putting in the word beautiful by way of flattery to myself. "The chimneys and the furnaces may perhaps be used," I replied. "Cremation is no part of the Fixed Period. But as for the residences, the less we think about them the better." And so I determined ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... of virtues and charms depicted by courtiers and poets existed, if she did exist at all, entirely in their exuberant imaginations. She could be indecently coarse and intolerably mean; she could lie with unblushing effrontery; her vanity was inordinate. But voracious as she was of flattery it never misled her; she could appreciate in others the virtues she herself lacked; behind the screen of capriciousness, an intellect was ever at work as cool and calculating as her grandfather's, as hard and resolute as her father's. To understand her People was her ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... The Man in the Moon," first published in 1591; it is "one great and elaborate piece of flattery addressed to 'Elizabeth Cynthia'," that is, the Queen; she instructs her ladies in Morals and Pythagoras in Philosophy. "Her kiss breaks the spell" which put Endymion into his forty-years sleep, upon which, ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... after the "massacre" of March 5, 1770, was chosen chairman of the committee, to demand of the governor the immediate removal of the troops from the town of Boston. The stern and inflexible patriot clearly exposed the fallacy of Hutchinson's reply to the demand, and compelled the governor to yield. No flattery could lull his vigilance, no sophistry deceive his penetration. Difficulties did not discourage, nor danger appall him. Though poor, he possessed a lofty and incorruptible spirit, and though grave and ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... pedigree,—let alone any self-made reputation,—and he knew it; more than that, he knew that I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched. Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and distant acquaintance. As a member ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... me to my room, as I retired to bed, and smiling, almost laughing, at the half terror of my countenance expressed, for I fancied she had come to reprove the wild spirits I had indulged in throughout the day, she said, "Is not this little head half turned with the flattery it has received to-day?" ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... 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. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the black sky. I am sure I never knew till now whether the East or West or South were the quarter to pray for—But surely the weather was a little better last week, and you, were you not better? And do you know—but it's all self-flattery I believe,—still I cannot help fancying the East wind does my ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Government in which two wills only prevail—that of the ignorant, envious, ambitious, aggressive multitude, and that of the despot who, whatever be his natural disposition, is soon turned, by the intoxication of flattery and of universal power, into a capricious, fantastic, selfish participator in the worst passions of the worst portion of ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... delighted the young man's friends. He amused them and made himself their idol by dint of alternate flattery and blame. His smile went from one to the other, while, by the aid of a few drops of beer spilt on the table, his long nimble fingers began tracing complicated sketches. His art evidently came very easily to him; it seemed as if he could do anything ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... that he was not one of the sons of Gopher Prairie who, if they do not actually starve in the East, are invariably spoken of as "highly successful"; and she found behind his too incessant flattery a genuine affection for his mates. It was in the matter of the war that he most favored and thrilled them. Dropping his voice while they bent nearer (there was no one within two miles to overhear), he disclosed the fact that in both Boston and Washington he'd been getting a lot of inside ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... insinuating address secured him the high office of chamberlain to the pope. He accordingly was sent into his native country, with the dignity of legate, to remove the difficulties which De Vio had attempted. He tried persuasion and flattery, and treated the reformer with great civility. But Luther still persisted in refusing to retract, and the matter was referred to the elector archbishop ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... on this subject, let me whisper to Persephone what a wonderfully soothing effect a little judicious flattery has on the race of husbands, and how smoothly it makes the marital wheels go round. I don't mean false, blatant, absurd flattery, such as men often bestow on us when desirous to please, not realising that compliments laid on with a trowel are an insult to one's intelligence. Nothing of that ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Burke: "Men are qualified 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 of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... general purity of Justice, to watch that her arm is neither crippled by violence nor palsied by fear, that her hands are not polluted by bribery, nor her ears assailed by flattery, is all that human means can do; but wo {sic} to the society where this duty is neglected, for disgrace and ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... was generally allowed by candid Protestants to be an honest man and a good Englishman. All opposition, however, yielded to Tyrconnel's energy and cunning. He fawned, bullied, and bribed indefatigably. Petre's help was secured by flattery. Sunderland was plied at once with promises and menaces. An immense price was offered for his support, no less than an annuity of five thousand pounds a year from Ireland, redeemable by payment of fifty thousand pounds down. If this proposal were rejected, Tyrconnel threatened to let the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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
... flattery and her blandishments. Taking her hand, he said, "For you I will do anything, even ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... desire of glory or commendation is rooted in the very nature of man; and that those of the severest and most mortified lives, though they may become so humble as to banish self-flattery, and such weeds as naturally grow there; yet they have not been able to kill this desire of glory, but that like our radical heat, it will both live and die with us; and many think it should do so; and we want not sacred examples to justify the desire of having our ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... that steeled the adamant of your refusal? or was it only the memory of your mother's wrongs? Luxury and wealth! Could you command a dwelling more charming than this? Position and respect! Is not the awful admiration of these lawless men more fascinating than the perilous flattery of gentlemen like Col. Starbottle? is not the devotion of these outcasts more complimentary than the lip-service of perfumed gallantry? (Pause.) It's very odd he doesn't come. I wonder if that conceited old fool said anything to ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... were fond of liberty to distraction, idolaters of their country, selfish, and vain, and to an absurd excess scornful of every thing that was not their own. Their tragic poets laid the unction of flattery in unsparing measure upon this foible of theirs, representing kings abased as a contrast to their republican dignity; and with all their greatness, it is easy to detect through their writings, a lamentable propensity in their muse to play the parasite with the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... would turn away abruptly, as if highly indignant. If he was appealed to as authority upon any point, he would dart away, and perhaps quit the hall for the evening. This man of great genius and vast acquirements was incapable of understanding or enduring praise or flattery. He sought in every possible way to escape recognition or notice, listened attentively to conversation, but seldom asked questions; never spoke of himself, or of what he had accomplished in the world ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I, standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the blinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception inseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life felt a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not a fictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal habits, passions, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... exclaims the boy, "A lucky hit! this pretty toy To pass an hour, with vapours haunted, Is quite the thing I wish'd and wanted; I do not so far condescend As serious mischief to intend, But just to show my powers of pleasing In flattery, badinage, and teasing; But should she, for young girls, poor things! Are tender as yon insect's wings— Should she mistake me, and grow fond, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... Mac felt the unspoken flattery, and with an introductory cough, and a great show of indifference, said: "By the way! Perhaps I should have mentioned it, but the brown mare's down with the puffs since the showers," and looked around the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... reign this was not so,—the most beautiful were often the most discontented; they were more easily acted upon by evil spirits, who assumed the fairest and most seductive appearances to lure their victims; they were often the most susceptible to flattery, and easiest led astray; and when once drawn from the proper path, they were the most cruelly persecuted by a class of inferior persons, who, had their own secret conduct been known to man as it is to a superior order ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... people. "He is engrossed," said they, "with greater matters; and in all secular affairs he recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his inaptitude in current speech was construed by them into a delicate flattery. They greatly relished his didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was a religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the intellect. They agonized toward the truth, if not by intense thinking, yet by what many good people are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... husband, indulged lavishly in finery, and plunged into gaieties inconsistent with the household virtues. The optimates, in order to enrich themselves further, often resorted to extortion of various sorts. In order to curry favor with the people, and thereby to get their votes, they stooped to flattery, and to demagogical arts which the earlier Romans would have despised. They provided games, at great expense, for the entertainment of the populace. In the room of the invigorating and of the intellectual ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... keeping his spirit calm, and perhaps his morals all the more righteous, by spending over his microscope evenings which would too probably have gradually been wasted at the theatre. I have seen the young London beauty, amid all the excitement and temptation of luxury and flattery, with her heart pure and her mind occupied in a boudoir full of shells and fossils, flowers and sea-weeds; keeping herself unspotted from the world, by considering the lilies of the field, how they grow. And ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... great compositions in our nature is vanity, to which, all men, more or less, give way. Women have an intolerable share of it. So flattery, no adulation is too gross for them; those who flatter them most please them best, and they are most in love with him who pretends to be most in love with them; and the least slight or contempt of them is never forgotten. It is in some measure the same with men; they will sooner pardon ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... "Flattery!" exclaimed Ella, drawing up a chair close to her friend, and smiling at her brother, who was seated opposite; "I only wish you had heard him, Agnes, a little while ago, in what terms he spoke of our sex, for if you had, you ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... dainties. At the carnival of 1506 at Urbino, Castiglione and his friend Cesare Gonzaga, of the great Mantuan family, recited the former's "Tirsi," dialogues in verse. The two interpreters wore pastoral costumes. The dialogue was couched in the customary pastoral phrase, but it was made plain that fulsome flattery of living personages was intended.[32] The musical numbers of which we can be certain were one solo, sung by Iola, a chorus of shepherds and ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] scorned as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... and persistent? How could he credit it—remembering what he already stood for in the world, where he stood, how he had arrived by the rigid road of self-denial; how he had mounted, steadily, undismayed, unperturbed, undeterred by the clamour of envy, of hostility, unseduced by the honey of flattery? ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... in contemplation before that smiling dead man, who seemed to have burnished his last thought, to give his best friend, the man he had loved next to Raoul, a gracious welcome even beyond life. And for reply to that exalted flattery of hospitality, D'Artagnan went and kissed Athos fervently on the brow, and with his trembling fingers closed his eyes. Then he seated himself by the pillow without dread of that dead man, who had been so kind and affectionate to him for five and thirty years. He was feeding ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this Prince, This false perfidious Prince; And yet he knows not that he has abus'd me. When did I know a Man of so much Virtue, That would refuse so sweet and soft a Maid? —No, he is just and good, only too much misled By Youth and Flattery; And one to whom my Soul is ty'd by Friendship; —Yet what's a Friend, a name above a Sister? Is not her Honour mine? And shall not I revenge the loss of it? It is but common Justice. But first I'll try all gentle means I may, And let him know that Cloris is my Sister; And if he then persevere ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... ardour of his happiness. Lily Dale was very pretty, very nice, very refreshing in her innocence, her purity, and her quick intelligence. No amusement could be more deliciously amusing than that of making love to Lily Dale. Her way of flattering her lover without any intention of flattery on her part, had put Crosbie into a seventh heaven. In all his experience he had known nothing like it. "You may be sure of this," she had said,—"I shall love you with all my heart and all my strength." It was very nice;—but then what were they to live upon? Could it be that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... better for doing him favours? Doubtless the suave secretary had his own ends to serve; and what right had he to the superior position which made it possible for him to show favour? But since he had tuned his voice to flattery, Ser Ceccone would pitch his in the same key, and it remained to be seen who would win ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... firmly believe, that no single act appears in his whole public life proceeding from any other than public, and those the highest motives. But my persuasion is no less firm that there would be little flattery in applying the same terms of respect and commendation to the 'good old king.' I do not deny, indeed, that some degree of prejudice and pride may, though unconsciously, have mingled with his motives. I do not deny that at the outset ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... all united in giving me a reception in the ballroom of the hotel. There was a flood of eulogistic and prophetic oratory. I was overwhelmed with every form of flattery and applause, for distinguished service to the party. By midnight I had been nominated and elected Governor of the State, and an hour later I was already a United States senator. Before the morning hour the presidency of the United ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... only entitled to great part of the rents during the minority, but could require the ward, under heavy penalties, to marry any person of suitable rank. The chief bait which attracted a needy sycophant to the court was the hope of obtaining as the reward of servility and flattery, a royal letter to an heiress. These abuses had perished with the monarchy. That they should not revive with it was the wish of every landed gentleman in the kingdom. They were, therefore, solemnly abolished ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... be amusing, but I am not susceptible to the flattery of giggling. Endeavour not to treat serious ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... disappearance he told me quite a lot about him. He said he was n't a bit surprised at what had happened. That already half a dozen relatives were interfering with the way he wanted to bring the boy up, and that David was in a fair way to be spoiled, even then, with so much attention and flattery. The father had determined to make a wonderful artist of his son, and he was known to have said that he believed—as do so many others—that the first dozen years of a child's life are the making of the man, and that if he could have the boy to himself that long he would risk the rest. So ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... did all that we could to arrange a marriage. Without flattery I may say that no girl was ever approached in a more delicate and honourable way than she was by my son Ezra. I, for my part, brought all my influence to bear upon her in order to induce her to meet his advances in a proper spirit. In spite of our efforts, she rejected him in the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... perfection. They have the same quiet, intense observation, the same impeccable accuracy, the same preoccupation with the person before them and with nothing else—an individuality to be presented with all it contains, neither more nor less—to be rendered entirely, and without flattery as without caricature. There have been portrait-painters who were greater painters, in the more limited sense of the word, than these two, and there has been at least one painter whose imaginative sympathy gave an inner life ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... In their unconscious art, exhibited in many a fine and powerful short story, they are a contribution to the realistic writing of the Negro. Beneath all the surface contradictions and exaggerations, the fantasy and flattery, they possess an essential truth and humanity which surpasses as it ...
— Slave Narratives, Administrative Files (A Folk History of - Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves) • Works Projects Administration
... island, "alien but respected, beautiful but capable!" Sheila had seen a few of the Creole ladies present at their best-large-eyed, simple, not to say primitive in speech, and very unaffected in manner. She had learned also that the way to the Jamaican heart was by a full table and a little flattery. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 charges ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... Ammon. In this court Caesar was crown'd, accurst liberticide; And he who murdered Tully, that cold villain, Octavius, tho' the courtly minion's lyre Hath hymn'd his praise, tho' Maro sung to him, And when Death levelled to original clay The royal carcase, FLATTERY, fawning low, Fell at his feet, and worshipped the new God. Titus [3] was here, the Conqueror of the Jews, He the Delight of human-kind misnamed; Caesars and Soldans, Emperors and Kings, Here they were all, all who for glory fought, Here in the COURT OF GLORY, reaping now The meed they merited. ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... falsehood prate apace; Truth under bushel is fain to creep; Flattery is treble, pride sings the bass, The mean, the best ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... compliment about his time not being wasted, but it expired before the simple sincerity of her look. She stood there as gently serious as the angel of disinterestedness, and it seemed to him he should insult her by treating her words as a bait for flattery. "I shall start in a day or two," he answered, "but I won't promise ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... peculiarities, like most men who are put into the world to do something great. He was amusingly vain, while his dainty vanity so obscured his judgment that he could not see through the most fulsome flattery, especially that of women. At the same time he was professionally keen, with a clear-seeing intellect, dashing, flawless courage, and a mind that quickly grasped the weak points of the enemy's position or formation. He fought the old form of sea ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... defend his memory. You got the money!" cried Mrs. Batholommey, with asperity. "He liked flattery and you gave him what he wanted and you gave ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... theology can hardly fail to recognise, in the love of Nature and care for our fellow-men thus promoted, something far better, both from a religious and a moral point of view, than any efforts to win the Divine favour by flattery, or to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... may have believed it yourself. And I doubt that mere reading would have influenced your mind to attach itself so strongly to thoughtful subjects. I find you greatly interested philosophy. I think it quite probable, sir, without flattery, that at college your professor had an ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... she spent with Mrs. Cheviott, that, besides the misfortune of being blind, she had the still greater misfortune of being inordinately fond of flattery. Jessy took advantage of this foible, and imposed so far on the understanding of her patroness, that she persuaded Mrs. Cheviott into a high opinion of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... courage. That of the Frenchman is more dependent upon external circumstances. He must have confidence in his leader, he must have been encouraged by success, and he must be treated with severity tempered with judicious flattery. Give him a sword, and let him prance about on a horse like a circus rider, and, provided there are a sufficient number of spectators, he will do wonders, but he will not consent to perish obscurely for the sake of anything or anyone. Trochu has utterly failed ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... feared his host. He returned with him to Maltby, and there spent an hour in the Cockchafer. He was introduced to several of Mr Cripps's low friends, in whose society he found it easy enough to become low himself. Cripps, by a judicious mixture of flattery and sly threats, managed to keep the boy well in hand, and when at last he rose to go it was with a promise to return again before the holidays were over—"to prevent Cripps having the trouble of calling on him," as that virtuous gentleman significantly ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... by point with no attempt at alleviation: only with this comment at the end: "But the thing which David had done displeased the Lord." If the pen of the writer who tells the story of Absalom's rebellion had been guided by favour or flattery, the fact would have been suppressed or at least toned down, that the King's first word to the breathless messenger who brings tidings of the victory which has saved his crown is this, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" It is natural, it is human, it is fatherly, it is ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright
... well spare all speech as regards the hope of any effect on the mind of Sir Peregrine Orme. He did not easily believe a fellow-creature to be a liar, but a liar to him once was a liar always. And then he was amenable to flattery, and few that are so are proof against the leading-strings of their flatterers. All this was well understood of Sir Peregrine by those about him. His gardener, his groom, and his woodman all knew his foibles. They all loved ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... dan Russell, the fox, came into the poultry-yard, and told Master Chanticlere, he could not resist the pleasure of hearing him sing, for his voice was so divinely ravishing. The cock, pleased with this flattery, shut his eyes, and began to crow most lustily; whereupon dan Russell seized him by the throat, and ran off with him. When they got to the wood, the cock said to the fox, "I would recommend you to eat me at once, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Ben-Hur. "It is needful that I make the acquaintance of thy Arabs. I must know them by name, O sheik, that I may speak to them singly; nor less must I know their temper, for they are like men: if bold, the better of scolding; if timid, the better of praise and flattery. Let the servants bring me ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace |
