By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.
Flattery in courtship is the highest insolence, for whilst it pretends to bestow on you more than you deserve, it is watching an opportunity to take from you what you really have.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.
Flattery is like friendship in show, but not in fruit.
I believe that love--not imitation--is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't.
Were there no fools, there would be no flatterers.
Beware of flattery, 'tis a weed Which oft offends the very idol--vice, Whose shrine it would perfume.