Sycophancy Quotes

Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.

There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

Critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.

I can’t afford to have my Vice President who knows every reporter in town, go around saying we’re all screwed up, so we’re going to keep him happy. You are dealing with a very insecure, sensitive man with a huge ego. I want you to literally kiss his ass from one end of Washington to the other.

Flattery and deceit are the darlings of great men, and so with these men spread the butter on thick, if you want to get something out of them, otherwise you'll come home to me with a full belly and an empty purse.

Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.

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

There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless.

Many kiss the hand they wish cut off.

All flatterers are mercenary, and all low-minded men are flatterers.

It may do good; pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.

Nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling, position by cringing.

The more powerful you become, the less likely it is that people will tell you the truth. It must be why the 'Harry Potter' books become so bloated as the series progresses; think of the beautiful, precise editing of books 1-3 drowned in a mire of sycophancy and yea-saying.

Flattery was one of Kissinger's principal tools in winning over Nixon, and a tool he employed shamelessly.

People in power, they're so used to people kind of playing up to them.

Men despise one another and flatter one another; and men wish to raise themselves above one another, and crouch before one another.

Whenever he met a great man he groveled before him, and my-lorded him as only a freeborn Briton can do.

I don't think anybody can reasonably say I am a sycophant for Trump, because I'm not.

Obsequiousness begets friends, truth hatred.

SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

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

Flattery'll get you anywhere.

The trouble is that you get fans who tell you you're great no matter how big an idiot you are.

Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.