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.