Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt.
Flattery is a form of hatred.
— Bible
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt, not swallowed.
A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.
Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces: for every woman who is not absolutely ugly, thinks herself handsome.
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
For lack of a better term, they've labeled me a sex symbol. It's flattering and it should happen to every bald, overweight guy.
Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught.
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Don't flatter the rich, or appear to willing before the great.
Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him.
Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.
The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.
— Moliere
Many lick before they bite.
— Proverb
If we did not flatter ourselves the flattery from others would not harm us.
— Proverb
He that flatters you more than you desire either has deceived you or wishes to deceive.
Flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies.
Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor.
But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.
To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is misunderstood or that he is different; none of this is necessarily complimentary, but it will flatter him infinitely more that merely telling him that he is brilliant, or noble, or wise, or good.
I will praise any man that will praise me.
He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer.
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.
Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him.
Flattery is all right if you don't inhale.
A flatterer is one who says things to your face that he wouldn't say behind your back.
The coin that is most current among mankind is flattery: the only benefit of which is that by hearing what we are not, we may be instructed on what to become.