"Sycophancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the state. It is agreed on all hands that, if his enemies did not originate this proposal, they at least craftily urged it on, in order to make him odious, and exasperate the people against him. To the same end, they had for some time been plying the arts of extreme sycophancy, heaping upon him all possible honors, human and divine, hoping thereby to kindle such a fire of envy as would ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... Sage" of China (372-289 B.C.), is far more outspoken than Confucius in his denunciation of bad rulers. There was no sycophancy in the words which he uttered during an interview with King Hsuan of the State of Ch'i. "When the prince treats his ministers with respect, as though they were his own hands and feet, they in their turn look up to him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... headquarters. Punishments were numerous, if not very severe, and were sometimes administered by his Highness in person. The duke wished his proteges to regard him as their father, but his system tended to the encouragement not so much of honest gratitude as of rank sycophancy. On occasion he could be very gracious and condescending,—would take the youngsters into his carriage, give them fatherly counsel, box their ears, suggest subjects for essays, offer himself as opponent at their disputations, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... — N. servility; slavery &c. (subjection) 749; obsequiousness &c. adj.; subserviency; abasement; prostration, prosternation|; genuflection &c. (worship) 990; fawning &c. v.; tuft- hunting, timeserving[obs3], flunkeyism[obs3]; sycophancy &c. (flattery) 933; humility &c. 879. sycophant, parasite; toad, toady, toad-eater; tufthunter[obs3]; snob, flunky, flunkey, yes-man, lapdog, spaniel, lickspittle, smell-feast, Graeculus esuriens[Lat], hanger on, cavaliere servente[It], led captain, carpet knight; timeserver, fortune hunter, Vicar ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... sycophancy is due to the poverty of the educated classes. Salaries paid to officials are ridiculously small. The German workingmen both in wages and living are on a lower scale than those of other western nations with the possible exception of Russia, Italy and the Balkan States. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... which he seeks to win the attention and admiration of the crowd, what visions of graver puppetry have passed before our eyes!... Our ears have rung with the noisy frothiness of those who have bought their fellow-men as beasts in the market-place, and found their reward in the sycophancy of a degraded constituency, or the patronage of a venal ministry—no matter of what creed, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... dispatched to the provinces three days later, the analysis of Japan's relationship to the Entente Powers being particularly revealing. The obsequious note which pervades this document is also particularly noticeable and shows how deeply the canker of sycophancy had ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... ruins effected by the siege; that he wrote at Rome, far removed from the criticism of those survivors who could have exposed, or had a motive for exposing, his malicious frauds; and, finally, that he wrote under the patronage of the Flavian family: by his sycophancy he had won their protection, which would have overawed any Christian whatever from coming forward to unmask him, in the very improbable case of a work so large, costly, and, by its title, merely archaeological, finding its way, at such a period, into the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Valentinois. Florence, fearing and hating Valentinois as she does, would doubtless take pleasure in detractory advices. Other ambassadors—particularly those of Venice—pander to their Governments' wishes in this respect, conscious that there is a sycophancy in slander contrasted with which the ordinary sycophancy of flattery is as water to wine; they diligently send home every scrap of indecent or scandalous rumour they can pick up in the Roman ante-chambers, however unlikely, uncorroborated, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... schoolboyish debauchery, but no surprise at the apparent absence of any conception of manly honor and virtue, of personal courage and self-respect, in the front rank of our chivalry. In civil affairs we had assumed that the sycophancy and idolatry which encouraged Charles I. to undervalue the Puritan revolt of the XVII century had been long outgrown; but it has needed nothing but favorable circumstances to revive, with added abjectness ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... his bronze inkstand at the insolent ecclesiastic; his temper was naturally choleric, though years of sycophancy and State service had taught him to ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... that I would take my departure at once, and not be made responsible for the comfort of a person whom I had no power to influence. And this behavior on my part it was that won Kant's confidence; for there was nothing which disgusted him so much as any approach to fawning or sycophancy. As his imbecility increased, he became daily more liable to mental delusions; and, in particular, he fell into many fantastic notions about the conduct of his servants, and, in consequence, into a peevish mode of treating them. Upon these occasions I generally observed ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... clear, calm eyes—in which a slightly sarcastic expression was to be seen—at the multitude of brilliantly adorned and distinguished gentlemen who tried to get as far as possible from him. Napoleon smiled. He himself despised sycophancy sufficiently to be pleased with this rebuke. But his severe look returned, and he gazed with some indignation upon the tall form of the King of Prussia. He noticed that, while himself appeared in silk stockings ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... alarming to many; and to conservative habits of political thinking, the dread of innovation and of theory. The returned Tories had indeed all become Federalists, which fact, with many others, lent to this attitude the appearance of deficient patriotism, of sycophancy toward our old ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... shows how ignorant Cotton Mather was of human nature. However innocent, upright, or benevolent might be its exercise, he would have been assailed by animosities of the deepest, and approaches of the basest, kind. A hatred and a sycophancy, such as no Priest, Pope, or despot before, had encountered, would have been brought against him. He would have been assailed by the temptation, and aspersed by the imputation, of "Hush money," from all quarters; and, ultimately, the whole country would have ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... that the Protector will ultimately be satisfied that no blame rests on me. At all events, I have the gratification of a mind unconscious of wrong, and gladdened by the cheering conviction that, however facts may be distorted by sycophancy, men who view things in their proper colours will do ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Zola sketches a living character. Take the picture of old Mere Fetu. One really feels her disagreeable presence, and is annoyed with her whining, leering, fawning, sycophancy. One almost resents her introduction into the pages of the book. There is something palpably odious about her personality. A pleasing contrast is formed by the pendant portraits of the awkward little ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... make a liar of himself, other than the most sordid of reasons, the little gain, the jingling reward of gold. For no man would ever be insincere in his art, except for pay, except to cater to some other taste than his own, and to win approval and favor by sycophancy. If he were assured of his competency in the world, and placed beyond the reach of necessitous want, how would it ever occur to him to create an insincere art? Art is so simple, so spontaneous, so dependent on the disingenuous emotion, that it can never be insincere, unless violence is ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... both contrived to prove him guilty. The instance is one of a hundred. So long as Coke could find payment for unclean work, he betrayed no uneasy desire to wash his fingers. It was not until all hope of turning sycophancy to further account was gone that he took ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... and no majority could bear the strain which the Old Man is putting on his followers—it is simply impossible. The worth and birth of the country are sick of this veiled communism that they call justice to Ireland—sick of democratic sycophancy—deadly sick of the Old Man. You mark my words, dear boy: there will be a great revolt against him before many months have passed. I see it working. I find it in the House, in the clubs, in the drawing-rooms; and I don't speak merely as my wishes ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sectional, an unmitigated curse even to its section, not so much as named in the Constitution, beginning with apology from all, by the zeal and unscrupulousness of advocates, the consolidation of political power at the South, and apathy, sycophancy, divided counsels, and commercial greed in the North, gradually amassed might, till, at the middle of Mr. Buchanan's term, every branch of the national Government was its tool, the Supreme Court included, enabling it authoritatively ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... III.58: Pregnant hinges of the knee,] i.e., bowed or bent: ready to kneel where thrift, that is, thriving, or emolument may follow sycophancy.] ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... Princess had loaded him, had not entirely fallen to the ground. He was no longer in the humour in which the morning had found him, disposed to outrage the feelings of the Emperor, and to insult his dignity; but, flattered by the adroit sycophancy which the old philosopher had learned from the schools, and the beautiful Princess had been gifted with by nature, he assented to the Empress's proposal; the more readily, perhaps, that the darkness did not permit him to see that there was distinctly a shade of displeasure on the brow of Brenhilda. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Eclogue au Roi he addresses Francis under the name of Pan, while in the Pastoureau chrestien he applies the same name to the Deity; yet in either case there is a justness of sentiment underlying the convention which saves the verse from degenerating into mere sycophancy or blasphemy. His chief claim to notice as a pastoral writer is his authorship of an eclogue on the death of Loyse de Savoye, the mother of Francis; a poem through which, more than any other, he influenced his greater English disciple, and thereby acquired the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the stakes for which these gamesters play are not those which they imagine, not those which are in sight. For example, this man plays for a petty office, and gains it; but the real stake he gains is sycophancy, uncharitableness, slander, and deceit. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike |
