Flattery Quotes

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Sweet words are like honey, a little may refresh, but too much gluts the stomach.”
― Anne Bradstreet

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

“It does good to no woman to be flattered [by a man] who does not intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“An acquaintance merely enjoys your company, a fair-weather companion flatters when all is well, a true friend has your best interests at heart and the pluck to tell you what you need to hear.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Then, in the spirit of benevolence, "Your face is well balanced." She slapped him encouragingly on the back, "You have very long eyelashes. Like a cow.”
― S.U. Pacat, Captive Prince: Volume Two

“He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”
― Norman Vincent Peale

“Hatred is the sincerest form of flattery.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“I believe that love--not imitation--is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't.”
― Marilyn Vos Savant

“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“The public wants work which flatters its illusions.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

“Heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery.”
― Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

“Nice words and nice appearance doesn't conclude that someone is nice, i believe that the nicer you look, the more deceptive you appear.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“The Marquis believed himself to be hardened against flattery. He thought that he had experienced every variety, but he discovered that he was mistaken: the blatantly worshipful look in the eyes of a twelve-year-old, anxiously raised to his, was new to him, and it pierced his defences.”
― Georgette Heyer, Frederica

“To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.”
― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

“Gracious ignored him. "A farmer's daughter, she was, though back then every girl was a farmer's daughter. Or a farmer. She had long hair like rope, and a nose. All her eyes were blue and she had a smile like a radiant hole in the ground, with teeth. God, she was beautiful."

"She sounds terrifying," said Donegan.

"Hush, you. I will hear no bad word spoken of your sister.”
― Derek Landy, The Dying of the Light

“I do not know whether anyone has ever succeeded in not enjoying praise. And, if he enjoys it, he naturally wants to receive it. And if he wants to receive it, he cannot help but being distraught at losing it. Those who are in love with applause have their spirits starved not only when they are blamed off-hand, but even when they fail to be constantly praised.”
― John Chrysostom

“I cannot encourage any fabrication even for the sake of making people feel good. If I were to fabricate consciously and knowingly, I would not only be ordaining myself their enemy, but also ordaining myself God's enemy.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Flattery does not encourage the perfect flow of love in the vein of your relationship. Be genuine and speak out what you feel for each other without hiding the painful truth.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“As for those who spite you, and seemingly just because, it's only evident that they're learning from you. Maybe you taste bad - kind of like medicine, kind of like truth - and to them, you're thought unsafe. There is flattery in being chewed out and spit up. Humans have always had a hard time digesting foreign things.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
― Mark Twain

“Kindness without truth comes across as flattery.

Truth without kindness comes across as disrespect.

Those who manage to find the sweet spot are the most persuasive.”
― Vizi Andrei, Economy of Truth: Practical Maxims and Reflections

“There are three types of intelligent persons: the first so intelligent that being called very intelligent must seem natural and obvious; the second sufficiently intelligent to see that he is being flattered, not described; the third so little intelligent that he will believe anything. I knew I belonged to the second kind.”
― John Fowles, The Magus

“Moreover, I have heard that those who are fond of praising men to their faces are also fond of damning them behind their backs.”
― Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu