Antisthenes Quotes

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

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

Flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity.

No visor does become black villainy so well as soft and tender flattery.

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.

A flatterers throat is an open Sepulcher.

It is nasty. You can think that you know someone in this business and you really don't. You can be stabbed in the back very easily. You can be praised very easily. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do.

I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him.

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

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

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

You know when someone's over-flattering you in a way. You smile but you can't believe it.

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

Many kiss the hand they wish cut off.

All flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.

It was better to fall among crows than among flatterers; for that crows only devour the dead, but the flatterers devour the living.

FLATTERY is nothing, but false friendship, fawning hypocrisy, dishonest civility, base merchandise of words…

The days and weeks of screwed-up smiles and laboured courtesy, the mock geniality, the hearty shake of the filthy hand, the chuckling reply that must be made to the coarse joke, the loathsome, choking compliment that must be paid to the grimy wife and sluttish daughter, the indispensable flattery of the vilest religious prejudices, the wholesale deglutition of hypocritical pledges.

A politician normally flatters you in your face and criticises you behind your back.

People generally despise where they flatter, and cringe to those they would gladly overtop; so that truth and ceremony are two things.

Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise.

The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers.