A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.
Francois Fenelon

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.
William Arthur Ward

Flatter not thyself in thy faith in God if thou hast not charity for thy neighbor.
Francis Quarles

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
Napoleon Bonaparte

I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me.
Charlotte Bronte

I don't care how stylish something is if it doesn't flatter me.
Ali Larter

I don't flatter myself with much dependence upon the present disposition of the Eastern Indians, who are many ways liable to be drawn into a rupture with us by the artifices of the French, their own weakness and the influence which the French Missionary Priests have over them.
William Shirley

I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it.
Janet Flanner

I must not say what I truly think, or you will tell me I flatter you-but I can only speak what I feel-and very often I cannot even do that when the feeling is very deep.
Marie Corelli

If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
Jean Rostand

It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.
Jean Paul

Many know how to flatter, few know how to praise.
Wendell Phillips

Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.
James C. Maxwell

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
Jonathan Swift

People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.
Elizabeth Gaskell

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.
Joseph Story

So you shouldn't really flatter yourself that they want to be your buddy. They don't. Generally. They want you for some reason or other, and you just have to fend that off all the time.
Kurt Loder