"Flatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one," replied Kate, with an arch smile. "How you did flatter that poor little Miss Bell, Loftie. Her cheeks were like peonies while you talked to her. You certainly had an air of great tenderness, and I expect you have turned ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... indignity! What horror! Can the wife of a sovereign be capable of such infamous conduct? After this, let no prince boast of being perfectly happy. Alas! my brother," continued he, embracing the king of Tartery, "let us both renounce the world, honour is banished out of it; if it flatter us one day, it betrays us the next. Let us abandon our dominions, and go into foreign countries, where we may lead an obscure life, and conceal our misfortunes." Shaw-zummaun did not at all approve of this plan, but ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... I asked Marlow why he wished to cultivate this chance acquaintance. He confessed apologetically that it was the commonest sort of curiosity. I flatter myself that I understand all sorts of curiosity. Curiosity about daily facts, about daily things, about daily men. It is the most respectable faculty of the human mind—in fact I cannot conceive the uses of an incurious mind. It would ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... skilled hand has reared this palace, which art and nature deck with the rarest gifts that the eye could ever admire. Everything smiles, shines, sparkles in this garden, in these apartments, whose pompous furniture presents nothing that does not charm and flatter the beholder; and whithersoever my fears lead me, I see under my feet naught but gold or flowers. Can heaven have formed this world of wonders for the abode of a serpent? And when, by this sight, it amuses and stays the unequalled rigour of my jealous fate, does it wish to show that ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... only goes to prove you are a mere man; a dear one to be sure—but then! Don't you flatter yourself for one moment that you, or any other man, really know any creature of the feminine gender from a woman to a cow. You simply can't, Tavy, because you aren't feminine. Can you comprehend that? Can you say on your honor as a man that you have ever been able to tell for ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... her very name away as a faded flower, she will be praying, hoping, fearing for you; though all men deny you, yet will not she. Yes, Mr. Burr, if ever your popularity and prosperity should leave you and those who now flatter should despise and curse you, she will always be interceding with her own heart and with God for you, and making a thousand excuses where she cannot deny; and if you die, as I fear you have lived, unreconciled to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... had been her lover, he had never told her how beautiful she was. She might have understood his meaning. Those whom we flatter we no ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... The country now becomes flatter, particularly on the left bank, where extend the immense plains of Wallachia, and the eye finds no object on which it can rest. On the right hand rise terrace-like rows of hills and mountains, and the background is bounded by the sharply-defined lines of the ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... in the approaching battle. The measure that he had referred to was one to which the Romans were not accustomed to resort except in emergencies of the most extreme and dangerous character, and Pyrrhus ought not to flatter himself with the idea that the Romans regarded his invasion as of sufficient consequence to require them to have recourse to any unusual means of defense. They were fully convinced of their ability to meet and conquer him by ordinary modes of warfare. To prove that they ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... essential. Few artists, not barring some of the greatest, play with perfect intonation. Its control depends first of all on the ear. And a sensitive ear finds differences and shading; it bids the violinist play a trifle sharper, a trifle flatter, according to the general harmonic color of the accompaniment; it leads him to observe a difference, when the harmonic atmosphere demands it, between a C sharp in the key of E major and a D flat in the ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... Sophy," said he, addressing himself to her companion, "give me leave to implore your intercession with your cousin. I am sure you have humanity enough to espouse my cause, did you but know the justice of it; and I flatter myself that by your kind interposition I may be able to rectify that fatal misunderstanding which hath made me wretched."—"Sir," said Sophy, "you appear like a gentleman, and I doubt not but your behaviour has been always ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... green and red jasper, and quartz-crystal flakes, arrowheads, cores, and saw-blades. Chert and limestone rough hoe-blades (easily mistaken for palaeolithic implements; they are, however, much flatter); polished serpentine or jasper celts; lentoid (lentil-shaped), amygdaloid (almond-shaped), and discoid beads of cornelian, crystal, obsidian, &c., unpolished; nails of translucent quartz and obsidian (obviously imitations of metal ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... said. "Flatter me. Make me get swelled head. Don't think of the consequences. Ladle it out. Tell me I look ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... liquidating the claims for indemnity for slaves carried away after the close of the war has been sitting, with doubtful prospects of success. Propositions of compromise have, however, passed between the two Governments, the result of which we flatter ourselves may yet prove unsatisfactory. Our own dispositions and purposes toward Great Britain are all friendly and conciliatory; nor can we abandon but with strong reluctance the belief that they ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... with an assumption of ignorance, Luna's broad hints of guilty complicity; but his sagacity failed utterly to comprehend Pierre's more cunning silence. Pierre was actively acquainted with Morrison's weak points, and while he ceased not to flatter them he never neglected to gather rewards for his labour. If the fabled crow had had the wit to swallow his cheese before he began to sing he would at least have had a full stomach to console himself for being duped. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... am at all a joodge of pheesogs, and a flatter meself a am," said a raw-boned Scotch Captain of Grenadiers, measuring six feet two in his stockings, "yon geerl has a bit of the deevil in her ee, therefor, me lads, tak heed that nane o' ye lose yer ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... censures, and even of annihilation; but no real punishment seemed to fall upon him. It may be doubted whether, when the whole arrangement was settled for him, and when he heard that Camilla had yielded to the decrees of Fate, he did not rather flatter himself on being a successful man of intrigue,—whether he did not take some glory to himself for his good fortune with women, and pride himself amidst his self-reproaches for the devotion which had been displayed for him by the fair sex in general. It is quite ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Richard replied. "I have been shaping out in my mind a little speech which I flatter myself will cover the points. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we are about to have the clearest of understandings. I ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... came home, and the empress sat down near him, and began to coax and flatter him into a good humour, and at last ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... me at the coast yonder but would go with you very, very gladly, for they love France, these brave gentlemen, and they think that I can serve her better than most other men. That is very flattering, is it not? But all the world conspires to flatter me, mademoiselle. Your good brother, by example, prizes my company so highly that he would infallibly hang the gentleman who rode back with you. So, you conceive, I cannot avail myself of their services. But with me it is different, hein? ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... presence of her injured friends. She was not studying how to conceal or palliate her offence, but how she could best tell the whole truth. She gave herself no credit for any good deed she had done during her absence; she did not flatter herself that she had been benevolent and kind in using the stolen money as she had used it; she did not believe that her tender vigil at the bedside of the dying ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... Canada, he would have laid low till he'd made his investments. So my theory is that he's got all the money he took with him except his living expenses. I believe I can find Northwick, and I am not going to come home without trying hard. I am going to have a detective's legal outfit, and I flatter myself I can get Northwick over the frontier somehow, and restore him to the arms of his anxious friends of the Ponkwasset Company. I don't know yet just how I shall do it, but I guess I shall do it. I shall have Mrs. Pinney's advice and counsel, and she's a team; but I shall have to leave her ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of great design as ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... done, he refused to give me one dollar for, and it was with great difficulty that I got my money back. I had to put it into another man's hands, as his property, to recover it. This man, probably, had two objects in view when he went to Waterbury to flatter me away. He did not want me to be there with my name on the movements and cases, and therefore he made me a first-rate offer. I had been broken up in all my business, and felt very anxious to be doing something again. I was a little afraid when he made the ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... "You flatter yourself," he retorted. "You'd not be known. Old Jumel will give you the pick of the larder for a kiss," he roared in my sullen face, and added, relenting: "Well, then, I will send one of the lackeys up with a salver. The lazy beggars have ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... but one. I do the cooking'; and the Countess, ever disposed to flatter and be suave, even when stung by a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of wealth, &c., always produce the same effect, although already somewhat worn by use. But the candidate who hits on a new formula as devoid as possible of precise meaning, and apt in consequence to flatter the most varied aspirations, infallibly obtains a success. The sanguinary Spanish revolution of 1873 was brought about by one of these magical phrases of complex meaning on which everybody can put his own interpretation. A contemporary writer has described the launching ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... faith in general are attacked by the servants of Satan, and the one concerning the Trinity is in particular beginning to be derided confidently by some skeptics and Epicureans. These are ably assisted not only by those Italian grammarians [Humanists] and orators, which they flatter themselves to be, but also by some Italico-German vipers and others, or, as you are accustomed to call them, viper-aspides, who sow their seed here and there in their discourses and writings, and, as Paul says [2 Tim. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... give me but a sorry proof of your love; this, 'Ah! have you returned so soon?' is scarcely the language a heart really inflamed with love would use on such an occasion as this. I dared to flatter myself I had remained away from you too long. The expectation of an ardently longed for return makes each moment seem of great length; the absence of what we love, however brief it may be, is always ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... of that. The bachelors here they'd see their sweethearts carry the roof into next parish on their backs, like a snail, and never put out a hand; 't is not the custom hereaway. But, as I was saying, Paul and our Mercy kept company, after a manner: he never had the wit to flatter her as should he, nor the stomach to bid her name the day and he'd buy the ring; but he talked to her about his sick beasts more than he did to any other girl in the parish, and she'd have ended by going to Church with him; only you came and put ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... life in trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinion of their own importance and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life."—"Some turn the wheel of electricity, some suspend rings to a loadstone, and find ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... thou canst do all things. But behold, I will go with thee to the land of Middoni; for the king of the land of Middoni, whose name is Antiomno, is a friend unto me; therefore I go to the land of Middoni, that I may flatter the king of the land, and he will cast thy brethren out of prison. Now Lamoni said unto him: Who told thee that thy brethren ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... and most comfortable appearance. The veranda may appear more ornamental than the plain character of the house requires; but any superfluous work upon it may be omitted, and the style of finish conformed to the other. The veranda roof is flatter than that of the house, but it may be made perfectly tight by closer shingling, and paint; while the deck or platform in the centre may be roofed with zinc, or tin, and a coat of sanded paint laid upon it. The front chimney is plain, yet in keeping with the general style of the house, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... of the earth is free? My youth is still like a blue and cloudless sky. If I set myself to obtain wealth or power, does it mean that I must make up my mind to lie, and fawn, and cringe, and swagger, and flatter, and dissemble? To consent to be the servant of others who have likewise fawned, and lied, and flattered? Must I cringe to them before I can hope to be their accomplice? Well, then, I decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... show that the question is one requiring calm consideration; though I must, at the same time, admit that they prove a strong necessity of some settlement for the preservation of that good understanding which, I trust, we may flatter ourselves that our joint labors have now ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Circumstances induced me to flatter myself, that a Work of this Kind would be agreeable to Your MAJESTY; and should this Attempt towards pointing out the Means of alleviating those Miseries, which necessarily attend a Military Life in the Time of Service, be ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... Steve. "I'll lie a little flatter, because the sun and the wetting has made my head ache. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Isabella; but failing hopelessly in both instances. You have seen him, when he realized the failure of an attempt which had made Rome too dangerous for him and compelled him to remain in exile, suddenly veering round to fawn and flatter and win the friendship of one whom his ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... be damned," said the stranger, "as I flatter myself he will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to those of his neighbors. Look yonder, and see ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... among them, people in this country now attach a rational importance only to their quarrels, which formerly attracted universal attention. The revolution has been so great an event; it has overthrown such great interests; that no one here can any longer flatter himself with exciting a personal interest, except by performing ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... that white-veiled witch stares at me with her golden eyes?" said Nick. "Wish I could flatter myself she ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... vast, the unknown; any presentiment, any extravagance of faith, the Spiritualist adopts it as most in nature. The Oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says, 'Do not flatter your benefactors,' but who in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... In truth, it simply told him of the completion of the cattle-shed, of her father's health, and of the milk which the little cow gave; but she signed herself his affectionate cousin, and the letter was very gratifying to him. There were two lines of a postscript, which could not but flatter him: 'Papa is so anxious for Christmas, that you may be here again and so, indeed, am I also.' Of course it will be understood that this was written before Clara's visit to Perivale, and before Mrs Winterfield's death. Indeed, much happened in Clara's history ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... 1635, in which he tells him she died almost without pain, and with a deep sense of religion. "My wife and I, says he, bear this misfortune like people accustomed to adversity: besides, why should we call her death a misfortune? has not God a right to take back what he gave? and ought not we to flatter ourselves that she is arrived at that happy state, which the young ought to long after as much as the old? We are delivered from the care of procuring a husband for her: perhaps we should have had much difficulty to find one that would have been agreeable to her and to all her family: ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... female dog, that mass of carneying affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her rough posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her master and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bliss With one fraternal kiss." The Cock replied, "Upon my word, A better thing I never heard; And doubly I rejoice To hear it from your voice; There really must be something in it, For yonder come two greyhounds, which I flatter Myself are couriers on this very matter. They come so fast, they'll be here in a minute. I'll down, and all of us will seal the blessing With general kissing and caressing." "Adieu," said Fox; "my errand's pressing; I'll hurry on my way, And we'll rejoice some ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... from every prince, zealous co-operation from every stadtholder; not merely a description of the present posture of affairs, or conjectures as to what might take place were events suffered to hold on their course without interruption. To contemplate a mighty evil, to flatter oneself with hope, to trust to time, to strike a blow, like the clown in a play, so as to make a noise and appear to do something, when in fact one would fain do nothing; is not such conduct calculated to awaken a suspicion that those who act thus ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... limousine and consequently employs a chauffeur. To meet and make this chauffeur mine took me just two days. I don't know how I did it. I never know how I do it," he added with a sheepish smile as Mr. Gryce gave utterance to his old-fashioned "Umph!" "I don't flatter and I don't bring out my pocketbook or offer drinks or even cigars, but I get 'em, as you know, and get 'em strong, perhaps because I don't ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... maintained against desperate odds; of lives dearly sold when resistance could be maintained no more; of signal deliverance, and of unsparing revenge. Whatever gave a stronger air of reality to a narrative so well calculated to inflame the passions and to flatter national pride, was ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... queer accent of politeness in the voice of the speaker. He did not seem to have uttered these words in order to flatter his listener, but to express his real sentiment. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... is a part of our being; therefore when you are behaving yourself like a true man, do not flatter yourself that you are doing any superhuman feat. And do not, as some do, have a sort of stupid contempt for people who respect truth, honesty, and purity, people who work hard at school, never insult their masters, and try to get on in the world without soiling their fingers and draggling their ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... to me. Money for writing verses! One dollar would be as ridiculous as a thousand. I should as soon have thought of being paid for thinking! My mother, fortunately, was sensible enough never to flatter me or let me be flattered about my scribbling. It never was allowed to hinder any work I had to do. I crept away into a corner to write what came into my head, just as I ran away to play; and I looked upon it only as my most ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... him. I was much agitated, and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell where I came from." "From Scotland," cried Davies, roguishly. "Mr. Johnson" (said I), "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I can not help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech was somewhat unlucky; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... stayed. The mere presence of a young man had altered her disposition curiously, and filled her with a desire for a scene which should end in an emotional forgiveness. She would have given much to clasp both nephew and niece in her arms. But she could not flatter herself that any hope ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the strongest and the one most to be feared," continued Alvarez musingly, "I am not saying it to flatter you, but because it is a matter that I have weighed well for reasons pertaining to statecraft. There sentiment or personal liking cannot count. I have plans, large plans, in regard to this country. I suppose that every ambitious man ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Roger, with whom by and by I discoursed largely, and in short he gives me good counsel, but tells me plainly that it is my best way to study a composition with my uncle Thomas, for that law will not help us, and that it is but a folly to flatter ourselves, with which, though much to my trouble, yet I was well satisfied, because it told me what I am to trust to, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... mixture of novelty and vanity is the usual prop, no wonder if it fall with the slender stay. The fop in the play paid a greater compliment than he was aware of when he said to a person, whom he meant to flatter, "I like you almost as well as a new acquaintance." Why am I talking of friendship, after which I have had such a wild-goose chase. I thought only of telling you that the crows, as well as wild-geese, are here ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... pledge. It did not appear that evening that she succeeded; but as he was rising to take his leave she passed suddenly, as she was very apt to do, from the tone of unsparing persiflage to that of almost tremulous sympathy. "Speaking seriously," she said, "I believe in you, Mr. Newman. You flatter my patriotism." ...
— The American • Henry James
... sole throne of Italy? Do you expect to govern at Rome when I cease to reign at Milan? No, Holy Father! the pontiff who placed the crown on my head, should it be shaken, will fall to rise no more." If what Cardinal Caprara said can be depended upon, Bonaparte frequently used to intimidate or flatter the Pope in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... other person's words for the sake of small criticism and fault-finding. Mr. Mann replied that Webster was wrong in his Latin, and the words Captatores Verborum meant toad- eaters, or men who hang on the words of great men to praise and flatter them, of which he found some conspicuous modern examples among Webster's supporters. Professor Felton, the Greek professor, who was a staunch friend of Webster, attacked Mann and charged him with ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Hardy make, when, by this wicked woman's contrivances, he thinks himself disinherited of his whole fortune, ill-treated, and neglected by a father, he never had in thought offended! He could give an opportunity to a sincere friend, who would not flatter him, ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... go, Madame, to engage, to-morrow morning, his Majesty's ship, Drake, of twenty guns, now lying at Carrickfergus. I should meet the enemy with more than wonted resolution, could I flatter myself that, through this unhandsome conduct on the part of my officers, I lie not under the disesteem of the sweet lady of the Isle of St. Mary's. But unconquerable as Mars should I be, could but dare to dream, that in some green retreat of her charming domain, the ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... is just another way of beginning a flirtation. It made me very angry when I heard that; but now that I have asked you, I am quite satisfied, for it seems impossible to mix the two things together. You can't flatter a person when you have agreed to tell him his faults; you can't feign a sentiment which is real. I knew I was right, though I could not argue it out; but for the future I sha'n't mind a bit when you say nasty things to me, for I shall feel they are a proof of friendship; and I shall ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... against him). Say, shall I give an answer? If so, I'll do 't to flatter thee. If not, 'Twill be to show thee that my happiness Requireth ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... the veteran with the eyes of affection; and she had determined within herself to remove certain delicate objections which had long embarrassed her peculiar situation, as respected the corps, by making the sergeant the successor of her late husband. For some time past the trooper had seemed to flatter this preference; and Betty, conceiving that her violence might have mortified her suitor, was determined to make him all the amends in her power. Besides, rough and uncouth as she was, the washerwoman had still enough of her sex to know that the moments of reconciliation were the moments ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... I cannot flatter you with any change in your designation. If your respected parent had survived he might have become the Honourable Charles, but only by special grant from Her Majesty. It was so in the case of the ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pleasure. The talents and accomplishments, which charmed a far different circle, are here out of place. I am rude in the arts of palaces, and can ill bear comparison with those whose calling, from their youth up, has been to flatter and to sue. Have I, then, two lives, that, after I have wasted one in the service of others, there may yet remain to me a second, which I may live ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... envy, nor strike any onesoever in any manner, because it is needful to be as strong as an oak, which kills the plants at its feet, to crush envious heads, and even then would one succumb, since human oaks are especially rare and that no Tournebouche should flatter himself that he is one, granting that he be a Tournebouche. Thirdly, never to spend more than one quarter of one's income, conceal one's wealth, hide one's goods and chattels, to undertake no office, to go to church like other people, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... feelings, so far as it bears witness to the impression which my son's amiableness and steadiness have made on you. He is indeed a most exemplary lad: fathers are partial, and their word about their children is commonly not to be taken; but I flatter myself that the present case is an exception to the rule; for, if ever there was a well-conducted youth, it is my dear son. He is certainly very clever; and a closer student, and, for his age, of more extensive reading and sounder judgment, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... allegiance, and sailed to Britain with numberless ships. But the king of that island, perceiving that he was unequal in force (for the ships seemed to cover the sea), went to Frode, affecting to surrender, and not only began to flatter his greatness, but also promised to the Danes, the conquerors of nations, the submission of himself and of his country; proffering taxes, assessment, tribute, what they would. Finally, he gave them a hospitable ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... all right,' said her aunt, rushing up to her with warm congratulations, ready to flatter her, prone to admire her. It would be something to have a niece married to Adrian Urmand, the successful young merchant of Basle. Marie Bromar was already in her aunt's eyes something ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... Long live the Queen! The prologue was written in honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and kiss'd ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... or say anything about them that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I do believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my mind) the system they have introduced among us is the Greatest Humbug in the universe. In the meantime poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they flatter themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands (and very little else) in his pockets, regarding his clever offspring, and wondering what he shall do with him. He remembers to have read about a man on his deathbed, who calls his children about him and thanks God, though ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... her countenance with guileless simplicity, but earnest affection; "How could I be sorry that a ray of the sun came across the gloom of a cheerless day—that light has broken in upon darkness, though it remained so short a time? I do not flatter myself with being able to march quite so light-hearted as I once used to could, or to sleep as sound, for some time to come; but I shall always remember how near I was to being undeservedly happy, I shall. So far from blaming you, Mabel, I only blame myself for being so vain as to think it ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... conservative. "I don't want him to flatter himself over having run the whole fiesta, no! Let me speak! ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Bonds resolved upon a plan to flatter George Acton, beg his pardon for their seeming disrespect, and invite him to a celebration in honor of his return. As they were still devising how best to carry out the plot, George Acton entered. They jumped to their feet, hastened to greet him and assure him that his return gave them the ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... of prolongation of life or name Restoring what has been lent us, wit usury and accession Revenge more wounds our children than it heals us Revenge, which afterwards produces a series of new cruelties Reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble Richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow Ridiculous desire of riches when we have lost the use of them Right of command appertains to the beautiful-Aristotle ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... to tell "the author" of the instruction I received from every chapter of his work, and of the delight with which I rose from the perusal of the whole, I might seem to flatter rather than to speak the language of sober criticism; but I should only give utterance to my honest sentiments. His work has already taken, and will long maintain a distinguished place in the philosophic literature of ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... establishment, but I am not addicted to hunting or shooting. I hate all field sports, though a few years since I was a tolerable adept in the polite arts of Foxhunting, Hawking, Boxing, etc., etc. My Library is rather extensive, (and as you perhaps know) I am a mighty Scribbler; I flatter myself I have made some improvements in Newstead, and, as I am independent, I am happy, as far as any person unfortunate enough to be born into this world, can be ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Cavendish gave me some tea, and her few quiet remarks heightened my first impression of her as a thoroughly fascinating woman. An appreciative listener is always stimulating, and I described, in a humorous manner, certain incidents of my Convalescent Home, in a way which, I flatter myself, greatly amused my hostess. John, of course, good fellow though he is, could hardly ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... semivir amens, is the expression of Sidonius, (Panegyr. Avit. 359.) The poet knew the world, and was not inclined to flatter a minister who had injured or disgraced Avitus and Majorian, the successive heroes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... discovered an inclination to have the like presented to himself. But now the Jewish nation is by their law a stranger to all such things, and accustomed to prefer righteousness to glory; for which reason that nation was not agreeable to him, because it was out of their power to flatter the king's ambition with statues or temples, or any other such performances; And this seems to me to have been at once the occasion of Herod's crimes as to his own courtiers and counselors, and of his benefactions as to foreigners and those that had ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of that," said the Dog, overhearing the lament. "There's a difference, certainly, between your whelps and mine, but I venture to flatter myself that it is not due altogether to the mothers. You and I ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... several sides and angles, technically termed facets, of a well-polished diamond. It is now intended to be fashioned into a brilliant; that is, to have the form of two flattened pyramids joined at the base, the upper pyramid much flatter than the lower one. In England, the art of diamond-cutting has ceased to exist, but in Holland it still maintains its ancient pre-eminence; and from thence the cutters of the Koh-i-noor have been brought to perform an operation, which, taking into consideration the size of the stone, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... Harry is come to town, he shall write to you; others should write to you if I could make them, but I am afraid those wishes are more of a courtier than a friend. I should be sorry and ashamed, by endeavouring to flatter your inclination, if I lost your good opinion, which ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... himself clerk to a merchant, and, by some mercantile adventures in which he had successfully engaged, began to flatter himself with being able, in no long time, to support a family. Meanwhile, a tender and constant correspondence was maintained between him and his beloved Susan. This girl was a soft enthusiast, in whose bosom devotion ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Servilian Law, as Lysippus said he had done by studying the famous [Footnote: Doryphorus. A Spear- man.] statue of Polycletus. What you have said on this occasion I consider as an absolute Irony: but I shall not inform you why I think so, lest you should imagine I design to flatter you. I shall therefore pass over the many fine encomiums you have bestowed upon these; and what you have said of Cotta and Sulpicius, and but very lately of your pupil Caelius. I acknowledge, however, that we may call them Orators: but as to the nature and extent of ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... their own countrymen, and still less of their countrywomen, in their mother tongue. I take some liberty in venturing to offer these wholly unauthorized remarks on a subject of some delicacy; and only wish I could flatter myself they have any chance of reaching influential quarters, and not being forgotten. Mr. Craig's position, respected and esteemed as he long has been, is eligible in many respects; but it ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... myself. "You think yourself very clever, Ivan Andreievitch. Yes, you think you're watching all of us and studying all our characters. And I suppose there'll be a book one day, another of those books by Englishmen about poor Russians—and you'll flatter yourself that now at last one true picture has been given ... but let me tell you that you'll never know anything really about us so long ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... once in a while to myself. I do not dare, I do not care, to be so to everybody. But with my own self, I can feel that it is strictly a family affair. If I hurt my feelings, I can grieve over it until I apologize. If I flatter myself, I am only doing what every other woman in the world is doing in her innermost consciousness, and flattery as honest as flattery from one's own self naturally would be could not fail to please me. Besides, it would have the ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... man who mindeth the minstrelsy; Since still, in sandy, glittering pleasances, Cold, stony fruits, gem-like but quite in- Edible, flatter and wholly ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is very important to yourself, Mr. Travers, and as to my daughter's well-being, I have looked to that for quite a number of years past, and I flatter myself I shall be able to look out for it in ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... the little caitiff, briskly. "It is true you played a joke or two on me, but I flatter myself, on the whole, I paid you beforehand; and for the present the account ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... which captivates and controuls the inchanted spirit at least, he appears to me to have this defect; but if he had all the engaging qualifications which a man can possess, they would be excited in vain against that constancy, which, I flatter myself, is the characteristic of my nature. No, my dear Willis, I may be involved in fresh troubles, and I believe I shall, from the importunities of this gentleman and the violence of my relations; but my heart ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... a moment try to uncover his teeth in a natural smile, but it died away. 'Cripplestraw, you flatter me; or do you mean it? Well, there's truth in it. I am more gallant in going to her than in marching to the shore. But we cannot be too careful about our good names, we soldiers. I must not be seen. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... kept their husbands out of the bankruptcy court. When young Trexham, the son of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, married a minor light of musical comedy at a registrar's office, I was the first person in the place to be told; and I flatter myself that I was instrumental in inducing a pig-headed old idiot to receive an exceedingly charming daughter-in-law. I loved to look upon Wellingsford as an open book. Can you blame me for my resentment at coming across, so ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... by reason of the physical difference, or accompanying that physical difference, woman is the superior of man in mental and moral qualities. In proof of this see the report of the minority and all the eulogiums of woman pronounced by those who, like the serpent of old, would flatter her vanity that they may continue ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... "You—you flatter me! What am I, pray, a marquis or a duke?" chaffed the other, but the trembling dial belied his gayety, and even from the side Coquenil could see that the man's face was as tense and pallid ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... am only a woman and must fight in a woman's way," she interrupted bitterly. "Yes! I intreat, I implore, I wheedle, I flatter, I fawn, I lie! I creep where you stand upright, and pass through doors to which you would not bow. You wear your blazon of honor on your shoulder; I hide mine in a slave's gown. And yet I have worked and striven and suffered! ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... was very dear to his father, who in his own silent way almost admired and certainly liked the openness and guileless freedom of a character which was very opposite to his own. The father, though he had never said a word to flatter the son, did in truth give his offspring credit for greater talent than he possessed, and, even when appearing to scorn them, would listen to the young man's diatribes almost with satisfaction. And Everett was very dear also to a sister, who ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... has become an important port; superior to Bristol, or Hull; and some day we shall be equal to London, we flatter ourselves." ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... expressing his fraternal opinion that she was "the sauciest little turn-out he ever saw," and then wet-blanketed the remarks by adding, "Of course you don't call it a disguise, do you? and don't flatter yourself that you won't be known; for Dolly Ward is as plainly written in every curl, bow, and gimcrack, as if you wore a label on ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... tongue— a fellow whom I consider beneath all men of the very lowest grade: for when you can bring yourself to flatter that fellow (pointing at THRASO), I do believe you could pick your victuals out of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... Doctor. 'But do not suppose me so unwary as to adopt him out of hand. I am, I flatter myself, a finished man of the world; I have had all possibilities in view; my plan is contrived to meet them all. I take the lad as stable boy. If he pilfer, if he grumble, if he desire to change, I shall see I was mistaken; I shall recognise him for no son of mine, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... face, and went on. "Second"—he folded back his middle finger—"you are injuring your own father, also in two ways: you are bringing his lawful property into danger, and you are giving his political enemies the most effective sort of a weapon to swing in his coming campaign. And do not flatter yourself they will not make the best of it. It happens that your father has stood strongly with the Conservation members in the late fight in Congress. This would be a pretty scandal. Third," said Oldham, touching ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... faithlessness here means not a gradual conversion dependent on enlarged knowledge, but a yielding to seductive circumstance; not a conviction that the original choice was a mistake, but a subjection to incidents that flatter a growing desire. In this sort of love it is the forsaker who has the melancholy lot; for an abandoned belief may be more effectively vengeful than Dido. The child of a wandering tribe, caught young and trained ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... picture of delicate beauty, ingenuous and sparkling, deserved to be a duchess. Rigou knew nothing of the love affair between her and Jean-Louis Tonsard, which proves that he had let himself be fooled by the girl,—the only one of his many servants whose ambition had taught her to flatter the lynx as the only ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... afterward named by Captain Sabine, CAPE FELLFOOT, which appeared to form the termination of this coast; and as the haze, which still prevailed to the south, prevented our seeing any land in that quarter, and the sea was literally as free from ice as any part of the Atlantic, we began to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment. This pleasing prospect was rendered the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... and dry, yet if the Corks are not new and found, the Drink is still liable to be damaged; for if the Air can get into the Bottles, the Drink will grow flat, and will never rise. I have known many who have flatter'd themselves that they knew how to be saving, and have used old Corks on this occasion, that have spoiled as much Liquor as has stood them in four or five Pounds, only for want of laying out three or four Shillings. If Bottles are cork'd as they ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... spent a sad and sleepless night? When my disgust admitted of thought I could not help reflecting how very happy some vulgar people can be with a very little sense, and how very unhappy other people who flatter themselves they are very clever and superior can at ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... is no more. The person of the last anointed is no more also; and I flatter myself I am not alone, even in this kingdom, when I wish that it may please the Almighty neither by the hands of His priests nor His nobles (I allude to a striking passage of Racine) to raise his posterity ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... ornaments, the gilding and stucco-work, the sunshine and sunny prospects, will come with the superstructure." But the building, alas! was never destined to be completed, and the architect had his own misgivings about the attractions even of the completed edifice. "I dare not flatter myself that any endeavours of mine, compatible with the duty I owe to the truth and the hope of permanent utility, will render the Friend agreeable to the majority of what is called the reading public. I never expected it. How indeed could I when, etc." Yet, in spite of these professions, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... beautiful Princess Hippodamia, and it is customary on these occasions to make the bride a present of some far-fetched and elegant curiosity. I have been a little perplexed, I must honestly confess, where to obtain anything likely to please a princess of her exquisite taste. But this morning, I flatter myself, I have ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... in that his politest tone, "I think it certainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last botte was a successful one. I tell you how I came to think of it. Three years ago my kind friend Lady Ferrybridge sent for me in the greatest state of alarm about her son Gretna, whose affair ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tributaries, which, rushing down from the gorges of the Alps on the west and the north, are skillfully conducted so as to refresh and fertilize the whole plain, and, finding their way ultimately to the Po, are thence drawn again by new canals to render like beneficence to the lower, flatter intervals of Venezia and the Northern Papal States. Nowhere can be found a region capable of supporting a larger population to the square mile ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... constantly reiterated the great and wise lesson, 'Doubt everything and mistrust everything, even what you see.' He who will make his fortune at court, must first of all mistrust everybody, and consider everybody his enemy, whom he is to flatter, because he can do him harm, and whom he is to hug and kiss, until in some happy embrace he can either plunge a dagger into his breast wholly unobserved, or pour poison into his mouth. Trust neither ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... at the Temple for almost nothing. Thus, you see, I have a nice merino dress that I bought for fifteen francs, which perhaps cost sixty; it has hardly been put on and is beautifully fine. I altered it to fit me, and I flatter myself ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... trying to flatter her vanity, unable to realize that her mind was not worldly. She replied, negligently, that it might be a pleasant trip. Then he praised the mountains, the ancient cities, the bazaars, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... to flatter, had not the boldness yet to refuse him directly; they only warned him that before he could reach the Forum the people would tear him to pieces, and declared that if he did not mount his horse immediately, they too ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 'You flatter my ability, I fear,' said the doctor. 'I will do my best, of course: but I ought to warn you that I am ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of love are like the wind, And none knows whence or why they rise: I ne'er before felt heart and mind So much affected through mine eyes. How cognate with the flatter'd air, How form'd for earth's familiar zone, She moved; how feeling and how fair For others' pleasure and her own! And, ah, the heaven of her face! How, when she laugh'd, I seem'd to see The gladness of the primal grace, And how, when grave, its dignity! Of all she was, the least not less ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... he replied enthusiastically. "I'll sit for you as a study in Disappointment, Flat-busted, or Return from the Races. The title doesn't matter, because I'll be such an excellent study for any sort of man whose hopes have all been knocked flatter than a pancake." ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... he flatter himself that the task of betterment is an easy one, or that the end is in sight. It is not a world where wishes, even good wishes, are fulfilled without effort. There are inexorable laws not of our making. The whims of good people are ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... same time I do not wish, in paying my homage to the other sex, and in glorifying its possible power over ours, to be confounded with those thoughtless and trivial rhetoricians who flatter woman with a false lip worship; and, like Lord Byron's buccaneers, hold out to them a picture of their own empire, built only upon sensual or upon shadowy excellences. We find continually a false enthusiasm, a mere bacchanalian inebriation, on behalf of woman, put forth ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... did not annoy his keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration, by a narrow-minded partiality which prompted him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their 'offald ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte |
