"Sycophantical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... share in the imperial business. That he held this sound opinion is quite as plausible an explanation of Voltaire's anxiety to know persons of station and importance, as the current theory that he was of sycophantic nature. "Why," he asks, "are the ancient historians so full of light? It is because the writer had to do with public business; it is because he could be magistrate, priest, soldier; and because if he could not rise ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... really would ruin his business." Thus we see the farmer—free, ingenuous, independent. Thus we see the city merchant—smooth, prudent, sycophantic. Thank God ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... many of the abuses both of the bench and the bar. It will before long, even in this judicial department, require both rich and poor to stand equal before the bar of justice. The conjugal complications of plutocrats will not be sealed up from general view by sycophantic magistrates, while the matrimonial infelicities of the less well-to-do are spread broad on the records. The still continuing scandals of partitioning refereeships among the family relatives of judges will soon be stopped and the shame and scandal of damage suits or of libel suits, without ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... mendicant and sycophantic. In history our imagination makes fools of us, plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common day's work: but the things of life are ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... obscurity, or not into any splendor that can be called national; sometimes, perhaps, from a temper unfitted for worthy struggles in the head of the house; possibly from a haughty, possibly a dignified disdain of popular arts, hatred of petty rhetoric, petty sycophantic courtships, petty canvassing tricks; or again, in many cases, because accidents of ill-luck have intercepted the fair proportion of success due to the merits of the person; whence, oftentimes, a hasty self- surrender to impulses of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... though occasionally his chorus of praise betrayed him into error, and from habit he found himself saying: "Good shot, my lord," when my lord had just made an egregious mess of things. But on the whole he devised so pleasantly sycophantic an atmosphere as to procure a substantial tip for himself, and to make Lord Ashbridge conscious of being a very superior performer. Whether at the bottom of his heart he knew he could not play at all, he probably did not inquire; the result of his matches and his opponent's skilfully-showered ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... in good old revolutionary times. Lynch Law. It is sometimes the very best law, because it deals summary justice upon those who would otherwise escape from all other kinds of punishment. The man who with sycophantic face and studied phrase, and with assumed philosophic morality, preaches treason to the Constitution and the dictates of all human society, is a fit object for a Lynch law that would be higher than ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... from their jaws. In the original draft of the Advertisement to the same work he expresses himself as "proud of a book which has had the honour of being rancorously abused and execrated by every unmanly scoundrel, every sycophantic lacquey, and EVERY POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS RENEGADE in Britain." A few years previously, Borrow had written to John Murray, "I have always myself. If you wish to please the public leave the matter [the revision of The Zincali] to me." {391a} From this it is evident that Borrow was ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... humbly voice the opinion of my fellow-deadheads when I say that we would rather be abolished than have to offer sycophantic applause as part of the bargain. I insist a little upon this aspect, because the refusal to applaud rubbish seems to be looked upon as the dead head and front of our offending, if I may take a trifling liberty with the words of the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... years past bullying and insulting everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour with everybody whom ye thought strong? "We approve of this. We disapprove of that. Oh, this will never do. These are fine lines!" The lines perhaps some horrid sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so. To have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and by whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But is it not ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow |
