When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.
He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.
It's easier to control people when they're afraid.
They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.
But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that.
I am afraid of people with too much charm. They devour you. In the end you are made a sacrifice to the exercise of their fascinating gift and their insincerity.
There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.
Be extra careful in the work environment with those who like to maintain their position through charm and being political, rather than getting things done. They are very prone to envying and hating those who work hard and get results. They will slander and sabotage you without any warning.
No visor does become black villainy so well as soft and tender flattery.
Attachment is not love. Where there is attachment there is exploitation.
Flattery, the dangerous nurse of vice.
What valor cannot win, flattery may.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.
Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility.
…well just call me Hannibal Lecter. With cleavage.
Flattery is praise insincerely given for an interested purpose.
All flatterers are mercenary, and all low-minded men are flatterers.
Flattery will get you everywhere," Sam says, "Except, apparently, off a roof.
Tears, she said scornfully to Sansa as the woman was led from the hall. The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. The man's weapon is a sword. And that tells us all you need to know, doesn't it?
I was always a drama queen. I remember playing in the kitchen, trying to get my mom to think I was dead and call the police. When she didn't, I would cry. I was always theatrical. I don't think any of my relatives are surprised.
Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No," And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow, Then sees your heart wreck'd, with an inward scoffing.
Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it
Don't try to convert the elderly person; circumvent him.
