Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Swift states that flattery is bad manners and that flattering everyone pleases no one while flattering only a few offends the rest.
- In plain terms
- Flattery is rude and trying to flatter everyone or a few both fail.
- What can you take from it?
- Avoid flattery as it is seen as insincere.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why is flattery seen as bad manners?
- How do you praise without sounding fake?
Another view
Some cultures value indirect praise and flattery as politeness.
More from Jonathan Swift
I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not bee…
Permalink to quote #36 It is impossible that any thing so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.
Permalink to quote #38 Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
Permalink to quote #35
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