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

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

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

Nay, do not think I flatter.
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue read more

Nay, do not think I flatter.
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue like absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.

Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem

Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem

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.

Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.

Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.

Flattery is like friendship in show, but not in fruit

Flattery is like friendship in show, but not in fruit

No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue;
Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest
Save he read more

No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue;
Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest
Save he who courts the flattery.