Plutarch Quotes

He that praiseth publickly will slander privately.

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

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

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.

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

Take care how you listen to the voice of the flatterer, who, in return for his little stock, expects to derive from you considerable advantage. If one day you do not comply with his wishes, be imputes to you two hundred defects instead of perfections.

I don't care how unkind the things people say about me so long as they don't say them to my face.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

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

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

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

The same people who smile in my face would be the same ones to talk behind my back.

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

There is no belittling worse than to over praise a man.

Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're alive.

The world of this is a load of crap. You get all these bloody people, so incredibly sycophantic.

Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.

Hypocrisy needs to be called out in American politics, and the absurd has reached the point where it is just insufferable.

I tolerate lots of people I have no patience or respect for. Then, as soon as I can, I rat on them.

Donald Trump talks about everyone behind their backs.

Don't bad-mouth me and then try to be my friend.

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

In four ways ... should one who flatters be understood as a foe in the guise of a friend: He approves of his friend's evil deeds, he disapproves his friend's good deeds, he praises him in his presence, he speaks ill of him in his absence.