FLATTERY.
No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue;
Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest
Save he who courts the flattery.
Daniel. H. MORE.
O, that men's ears should be
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!
Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin.
Pericles, Act i. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poisoned flattery?
Henry V., Act iv. Sc 1. SHAKESPEARE.
But flattery never seems absurd;
The flattered always take your word:
Impossibilities seem just;
They take the strongest praise on trust.
Hyperboles, though ne'er so great,
Will still come short of self-conceit.
The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody. J. GAY.
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
Cadenus and Vanessa. J. SWIFT.
He loves to hear
That unicorns may be betrayed with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers.
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Ne'er
Was flattery lost on Poet's ear:
A simple race! they waste their toil
For the vain tribute of a smile.
Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto IV. SIR W. SCOTT.
Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for 's power to thunder.
Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.