Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

If you can't love, learn how to flatter.

If you can't love, learn how to flatter.

Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read read more

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

I can spot empty flattery and know exactly where I stand. In the end it's really only my own approval read more

I can spot empty flattery and know exactly where I stand. In the end it's really only my own approval or disapproval that means anything.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
read more

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.

To be a man's own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's.

To be a man's own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's.

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

A woman's flattery may inflate a man's head a little; but her criticism goes straight to his heart, and contracts read more

A woman's flattery may inflate a man's head a little; but her criticism goes straight to his heart, and contracts it so that it can never again hold quite as much love for her