Richard Steele Quotes

Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favor.

Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.

It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the flatterer.

Fools may our scorn, not envy raise, For envy is a kind of praise.

I know that there are people in the industry who praise me in person and then stab me in the back.

Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.

Envy is a kind of praise.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt.

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

Compliments are only lies in court clothes.

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity.

In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

The envier praises me unknowingly.

Patience is a flatterer, sir, and an ass, sir.

We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves And spend our flatteries to drink those men Upon whose age we void it up again With poisonous spite and envy.

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

A flatterers throat is an open Sepulcher.

The most common disguise of Envy is in praise of what is subordinate.

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

There never was a woman who did not prefer an oblique compliment to a straight truth - if the latter were unflattering.