Compliments

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• There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
  • Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), "A Whisper To The Reader".

• Having people be impressed with a house is not a compliment. You don't want them to say, 'What a place!' You want them to sit down and enjoy it.
  • Robert Denning, reported in Suzanne Stephens, "Florida Renaissance — Italianate Splendors Enrich A Villa in Naples", Architectural Digest, October 2000, v. 57 #10, pp. 284-298.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

• A compliment is usually accompanied with a bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.
  • J.C. and A.W. Hare, Guesses at Truth.

• What honour that,
  But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
  So many hollow compliments and lies.
  • John Milton, Paradise Regained, Bk IV, L 122.

• 'Twas never merry world
  Sirce lowly feigning was called compliment
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act III, Sc 1, L 109.

• A woman * * * always feels herself complimented by love, though it may be from a man incapable of waning her heart, or perhaps even her esteem
  • Abel Stevens, Life of Madame de Stael, Ch III

• Current among men,
  Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Princess, Pt II, L 40.