Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

Harvard has enough panegyrists without me.

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.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise, and nothing is more lame than a cookie-cutter compliment.

There are too many fawning entertainment shows out there and not one of them is making fun of it all.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.

It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.

Praising an honest person who doesn't deserve it, always wounds them.

A practitioner in panegyric, or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing.

Would you be in any way offended if I said that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection?

The only way to success in American public life lies in flattering and kowtowing to the mob

Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my contempt by the pretension they imply; for who is he that assumes to flatter me? To compliment often implies an assumption of superiority in the complimenter. It is, in fact, a subtle detraction.

I find [Donald Trump] to be a vile human being - one that lies so often, so casually, and with such confidence, that fact-checkers actually cannot keep up.

The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side.

I would rather speak the truth to ten men than blandishments and lying to a million. Try it, ye who think there is nothing in it! Try what it is to speak with God behind you, to speak so as to be only the arrow in the bow which the Almighty draws.

He was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way.

The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in some subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely.

A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skilful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness.

By repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other lies are constructed.

The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.

The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality.

Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts. It is a way of illuminating the facts.

Truth is better for humanity than ignorance, lies, or spin. And it's more interesting.

The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.