Quotes & Sayings About Flatterers

There would be no sunshine in society if the born flatterers, I mean the so-called amiable people, did not bring it in with them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes there were two great groups of dogs wrangling for the bitching-goddess: the group of the flatterers, those who offered her amusement, stories, films, plays: and the other, much less showy, much more savage breed, those who gave her meat, the real substance of money. The well-groomed showy dogs of amusement wrangled and snarled among themselves for the favors of the bitch-goddess. But it was nothing to the silent fight-to-the-death that went on among the indispensables, the bone-bringers. — D.H. Lawrence

The skilful class of flatterers praise the discourse of an ignorant friend and the face of a deformed one. — Juvenal

great men are urged on to the abuse of power (when they need urging, which is not often), by their flatterers and dependents, — Charles Dickens

Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind. — Epictetus

If he be so resolved, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, Lions with toils, and men with flatterers — William Shakespeare

Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them. — Jean De La Fontaine

By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne'er obliged. — Alexander Pope

'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give, No hollow aid; alone - man with God must strive. — Lord Byron

The ears of our generation have been made so delicate by the senseless multitude of flatterers that, as soon as we perceive that anything of ours is not approved of, we cry out that we are being bitterly assailed; and when we can repel the truth by no other pretence, we escape by attributing bitterness, impatience, intemperance, to our adversaries. — Martin Luther

The people we invite on the train are those with whom we are prepared to be vulnerable and real, with whom there is no room for masks and games. They strengthen us when we falter and remind us of the journey's purpose when we become distracted by the scenery. And we do the same for them. Never let life's Iagos - flatterers, dissemblers - onto your train. We always get warnings from our heart and our intuition when they appear, but we are often too busy to notice. When you realize they've made it on board, make sure you usher them off the train; and as soon as you can, forgive them and forget them. There is nothing more draining than holding grudges. — Arianna Huffington

Thus I come, most blessed Father, and in all abasement beseech you to put to your hand, if it is possible, and impose a curb to those flatterers who are enemies of peace, while they pretend peace. — Martin Luther

We seek our happiness outside ourselves, and in the opinion of men we know to be flatterers, insincere, unjust, full of envy, caprice and prejudice. — Jean De La Bruyere

Excellent flatterers welcome attentive audiences; mighty potentates enjoy public praise. In the most pleasing situation, a flatterer would genuinely admire the flatteree, please that person, please other present company, be pleased to stagger rivals, and get something out of it: applause, promotion, a favor, reciprocal praise. Flattery is as social as a banquet. — Willis Regier

Go your way, seducers, flatterers, idlers, those glib of tongue and charlatans; I am not a seed that you can force to grow; my goal differs so from yours that I would be wasting my time in trying to explain where my inclination drives me. — Dominique Fernandez

People who plead with you for favours
May eventually prove to be great flatterers.
Your friends are only those
Who all the time cheerfully support
Your heart's aspiration-flames. — Sri Chinmoy

It has well been said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self. — Francis Bacon

Abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them. If you admit as friends men who seek your favor for the lowest ends, your life will be lacking in friends who will risk your displeasure for the highest good. — Isocrates

The megalopsychos cannot let anyone else, except a friend, determine his life. For that would be slavish; and this is why all flatterers are servile and inferior people are flatterers. — Aristotle.

Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The besetting sin of able men is impatience of contradiction and of criticism. Even those who do their best to resist the temptation, yield to it almost unconsciously and become the tools of toadies and flatterers. "Authorities," "disciples," and "schools" are the curse of science and do more to interfere with the work of the scientific spirit than all its enemies. — Thomas Huxley

Not kings alone
the people, too, have their flatterers. — Victor De Riqueti, Marquis De Mirabeau

We are a nation of fence-sitters, face-flatterers and back-biters. — Khushwant Singh

Flatterers are always to blame for the vices which prevail among mankind — Moliere

To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers. — Thomas Hobbes

Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game he must prevail at the cost of his self-respect. Not many superior men make the attempt. The average great captain of the rabble, when he is not simply a weeper over irremediable wrongs, is a hypocrite so far gone that he is unconscious of his own hypocrisy.. a slimy fellow, offensive to the nose. — H.L. Mencken

From top to bottom we have: the seducers whipped by demons ... the flatterers adrift in human excrement ... the clerical profiteers half buried upside down with their legs in the air ... the sorcerers with their heads twisted backward ... the corrupt politicians in boiling pitch ... the hypocrites wearing heavy leaden cloaks ... the thieves bitten by snakes ... the fraudulent counselors consumed by fire ... the sowers of discord hacked apart by demons ... and finally, the liars, who are diseased beyond recognition. — Dan Brown

Flatterers should be mistrusted, especially when they praise the dead. To seek a place in society is self-serving, but to seek one in history affects everyone. — Bauvard

There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers. — Michel De Montaigne

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. — Edmund Burke

Cats, like men, are flatterers. — Walter Savage Landor

Believe flatterers and you're lost; believe your enemies and you despair. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

A flatterers throat is an open Sepulcher. — George Herbert

He realized ... that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious. — Isabel Allende

Heroes, notwithstanding the high ideas which, by the means of flatterers, they may entertain of themselves, or the world may conceive of them, have certainly more of mortal than divine about them. — Henry Fielding

This is in thee a nature but infected;
A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
From change of fortune. Why this spade? this place?
This slave-like habit? and these looks of care?
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft;
Hug their diseased perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods,
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,
And let his very breath, whom thou'lt observe,
Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent: thou wast told thus;
Thou gavest thine ears like tapsters that bid welcome
To knaves and all approachers: 'tis most just
That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again,
Rascals should have 't. Do not assume my likeness. — William Shakespeare

All flatterers are mercenary, and all low-minded men are flatterers. — Aristotle.

Never fear that: if he be so resolved,
I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses,elephants with holes,
Lions with toils and men with flatterers;
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work;
For I can give his humour the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol. — William Shakespeare

Mediocrities can tolerate being surrounded only by flatterers who conceal their mediocrity. — Maurice Druon

Thus, towards the end of the eighteenth century a change came about which, if I were rewriting history, I should describe more fully and think of greater importance than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses. The middle-class woman began to write. For if Pride and Prejudice matters, and Middlemarch and Villette and Wuthering Heights matter, then it matters far more than I can prove in an hour's discourse that women generally, and not merely the lonely aristocrat shut up in her country house among her folios and her flatterers, took to writing. — Virginia Woolf

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever surrounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice are utterly erased from his mind. — Edmund Burke

Beware of flatterers, especially when they come preaching hatred. — Albert Einstein

Yet in the midst of all their prosperity, princes in this respect seem to me most unfortunate, because, having no one to tell them truth, they are forced to receive flatterers for friends. — Erasmus

Were there no fools, there would be no flatterers. — Norm MacDonald

The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy. — Moliere

It is better to fall in with crows than with flatterers; for in the one case you are devoured when dead , in the other case while alive . — Antisthenes

Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise. — William Penn

It is for the wise people who delight in humanity, praise justice, despise their flatterers, and respect the truth. — Madame Roland

Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs. — George Chapman

Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth. — Stendhal

Flatterers and men of learning do not accord well with each other. — Napoleon Bonaparte

In the name of respecting the reality, keep the flatterers out of your life! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere. — Marcus Aurelius

Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors, for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint thy follies and vices as thou shalt never, by their will, discover good from evil, or vice from virtue. — Walter Raleigh

I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. It can drive a man to madness,.. Half of them don't dare tell me the truth, and the other half can't find it. — George R R Martin

Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies.
[Lat., Pessimum genus inimicorum laudantes.] — Tacitus

It is better to fall among crows than flatterers; for those devour only the dead - these the living. — Antisthenes

The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers. — Tacitus

Nothing can be more reasonable, than that slaves and flatterers should exact the same taxes on all below them, which they themselves pay to all above them — Henry Fielding

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed. — Edmund Burke

If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism. — Roger Sherman

When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door. — Plutarch

Prophet just means intellectual. They were people giving geopolitical analysis, moral lessons, that sort of thing. We call them intellectuals today. There were the people we honor as prophets, there were the people we condemn as false prophets. But if you look at the biblical record, at the time, it was the other way around. The flatterers of the Court of King Ahab were the ones who were honored. The ones we call prophets were driven into the desert and imprisoned. — Noam Chomsky