Indirect Praise Quotes

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is "misunderstood" or that he is "different;" none of this is necessarily complimentary, but it will flatter him infinitely more than merely telling him that he is brilliant, or noble, or wise, or good.

Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

My name don't ever come up unless it's light, a joke, laughs behind it. I'm not saying it's all the way a bad thing, but it's not great.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise.

Praising people behind their back is monstrously unfair, because the one thing you can't defend yourself against is the good that people say about you.

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

I will admit he is unusual, but that is perhaps the closest I could come to complimenting him.

I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.

Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.