Flattery (n.) is the handmaid of the vices Flattery is the handmaid of the vices.
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Flattery (n.) is, with adulation and base compliance, the most utterly subversive thing there is to friendship.
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Flattery (n.) becomes mischievous from those above us, the weight of their position making up for the lightness of their character.
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Flattery (n.) can, injurious as it is, hurt no one but the man who takes it in and likes it.
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Flattery (n.) at its most cunning disguises itself as contradiction: it disputes, then gives in, so its victim may think himself the clearer-sighted.