Flattery Quotes

Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself. (Dale Carnegie)
The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves. View quote
Edith Sitwell
Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. View quote
Charles Caleb Colton
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver. View quote
Edmund Burke
We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Knavery and flattery are blood relations. View quote
Abraham Lincoln
PATRON One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. (Joyce Brothers)
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not. View quote
Baruch Spinoza
'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Ne'er Was flattery lost on poet's ear A simple race they waste their toil For the vain tribute of a smile. View quote
Walter Scott
Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel. View quote
Benjamin Disraeli
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing. View quote
Jorge Luis Borges
The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs. View quote
Chantal Kreviazuk
Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. View quote
Jack Paar
Ausonius must be read to be believed! As poet, no subject is too trivial for him; as courtier, no flattery too excessive. View quote
Ausonius
The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse - it will not submit to the mold of flattery. View quote
Ludwig van Beethoven
If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us. (François de La Rochefoucauld)
Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery. View quote
Richard Steele
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy. View quote
David Hume
It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride. View quote
Bernard Mandeville
To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills. View quote
George Steiner