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Adulation   Listen
noun
Adulation  n.  Servile flattery; praise in excess, or beyond what is merited. "Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation?"
Synonyms: Sycophancy; cringing; fawning; obsequiousness; blandishment. Adulation, Flattery, Compliment. Men deal in compliments from a desire to please; they use flattery either from undue admiration, or a wish to gratify vanity; they practice adulation from sordid motives, and with a mingled spirit of falsehood and hypocrisy. Compliment may be a sincere expression of due respect and esteem, or it may be unmeaning; flattery is apt to become gross; adulation is always servile, and usually fulsome.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adulation" Quotes from Famous Books



... commented upon, how much society in general is affected by the entailment of property in aristocratical families upon the male heir; we may add, how much it is demoralised. The eldest son, accustomed from his earliest days to the flattery and adulation of dependents, is impressed with but one single idea, namely, that he is the fortunate person deputed by chance to spend so many thousands per annum, and that his brothers and sisters, with equal claims upon their parent, are ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to her lord, and in eloquent silence pleaded with open hand and eyes for more. "The heathens!" exclaimed Mrs. Plodder. "We'd cure them of that notion in no time, wouldn't we, Mrs. Davies?" But Mira was watching the Minneconjou maiden, forgetful even of the adulation in the eyes of the little five-year-old girl now licking the syrup off her slab of soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face. Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... adulation to which the president had been exposed during his tour in New England was deprecated by the more thoughtful, but none found fault with the matter seriously. Trumbull, the author of McFingal, said good-naturedly in a letter to his friend Oliver Wolcott: "We have gone through ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... From adulation and adoration, from triumphs that might easily turn any head she always came quickly back to the little Bloomsbury sitting-room when she could, to have one of their old gay gossips and merry laughs. She seemed in some way ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... few were admitted; but the limits of space forbid. The queens of Parisian salons have been praised and idealized till we are led to believe them unapproachable in their social altitude. But I am not afraid to place beside them an American woman, uncrowned by extravagant adulation, but fully their equal—the artist, poet, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... his lair, addresses her in a speech which shows superb skill on account of its gradual penetration to the soul of the fair hearer. He praises first her external beauty with many a happy touch, yet with an excess which seems to border on adulation. This reaches her outer ear and bespeaks his good-will and gentleness at least. Then he strikes a deeper chord: he mentions his sufferings, those which are past, and forebodes those which are yet to be, perchance upon this shore. "Therefore, O Princess, have compassion, since I have come to thee ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... fiction that does not at all amuse me. In my dominions there is no nobility but flattery. Whoever flatters me best is created a great lord, and the titles I confer are synonimous to their merits. There is Kiss-my-breech-Can, my favourite; Adulation-Can, lord treasurer; Prerogative-Can, head of the law; and Blasphemy-Can, high-priest. Whoever speaks truth, corrupts his blood, and is ipso facto degraded. In Europe you allow a man to be noble because one of his ancestors was a flatterer. But every thing degenerates, the farther it is removed ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole

... them too, did you! And so you deem yourself entitled to be a beau of mine? Lana, do you very kindly explain to the unfortunate Ensign that you and I were accustomed at Otsego to a popularity and an adulation of which he has no conception. Colonels and majors were at our feet. Inform him ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... Rabbinism comprized as an essential element the doctrine of the equal authority of oral rabbinical tradition with the written word of the law. The aggrandizement implied in the application of the title "Rabbi" and the self-pride manifest in welcoming such adulation were especially forbidden by the Lord, who proclaimed Himself the one Master; and, as touching the interpretation of the title held by some as "father", Jesus proclaimed but one Father and He in heaven: "But be not ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the Beast" came about easily, and as the natural transition from the world's earlier adulation of the ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... joined with Common Sense to charge us with partiality, and to recommend the London Magazine, as drawn up with less regard to interest or party. A favour, which the authors of that collection have endeavoured to deserve from them by the most servile adulation. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... grace, and health; but, as the first approaches, and hands him a cup of wine, he trembles and sets down the goblet, untasted, for an instant. He recovers, however, and quaffs the wine to the health of his friends: the minstrels strike their harps; and one—the chief—bursts forth in a strain of adulation, lauding to the skies the glories and the virtues of the most liberal and magnificent prince of his time. Gaston listens with pride and satisfaction; and, by degrees, the low moaning which had seemed to sound in his ears dies away, and he ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... spirit of envious rivalry and depreciating criticism in which many English travellers have written, is greatly to be deprecated, no less than the tone of servile adulation which some writers have adopted; but our American neighbours must recollect that they provoked both the virulent spirit and the hostile caricature by the way in which some of their most popular writers of travels have led an ungenerous onslaught against our institutions and people, and ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... Scripture attributes to the Divinity, but with which many of us are better acquainted in our friends; in her opinion, such fault-finding was personal criticism, and it irritated her vanity, over-fed with public adulation and the sincere praise of musical critics. 'If you don't like me as I am, there are so many people who do that you don't count!' That was the sub-conscious form of her mental retort, and it was in the manner of ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... winking a large and roguish eye at Brother Philip; and finally, ignoring all the rest, fixed a languorous gaze upon the Prioress, she being the only lady present who stood apart, regarding the scene, but taking no share in the general adulation. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... Lester Kent's infatuation, and of the steps he had taken to enmesh poor simple-hearted Molly in the toils—first, by lending her money, then, when he found that the loan had scared her, by buying her pictures and surrounding her with an atmosphere of adulation which momentarily blinded her from forming any genuine estimate either of the value of his criticism or of the sincerity of his ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... spiritual message in the persistently inculcated doctrine of sacrifice. It is not that a Supreme Being desires sacrifice, or gifts, or adulation, or homage, or worship, or that any power glories in our unhappiness. It is not that we may purchase any spiritual thing by giving up something which we prize, but it is because our spirit becomes attuned to the central source of Life by means of our ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... Nelson's attack differed in the least from his intended plan, and anyone who ventured to examine the question in the light of general principles was likely to be shouted down as a presumptuous heretic. Venial as was this attitude of adulation under all the circumstances, it had a most evil influence on the service. The last word seemed to have been said on tactics; and oblivious of the fact that it is a subject on which the last word can never be spoken, and that the enemy was certain to learn from Nelson's practice ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... decidedly demoralising influence. It may be said generally that duties towards God are the reverse of duties towards mankind; and that it is very easy to make up for lack of good behaviour towards men by adulation of God. Accordingly, we see in all ages and countries that the great majority of mankind find it much easier to beg admission into Heaven by prayers than to deserve it by their actions. In every ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... never been at any public school of education. He has now for a considerable time been traveling about the kingdom, that he may know something of his own country before he goes to others, and be out of the way of adulation. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... overtures were rejected; and when they were renewed, they were rejected a second time. The Plain were disabled by consideration for their friends, hostages in the grasp of Robespierre, and by the prospect of advantage for religion from his recent policy. They loaded him with adulation, and said that when he marched in the procession, with his blue coat and nosegay, he reminded them of Orpheus. They even thought it desirable that he should live to clear off a few more of the most detestable men in France, the very ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... sang the praises of Sydney; but it must be confessed that both the rector and his wife displayed less than their ordinary balance of judgment in discussing the merits of their son. They unconsciously did much injustice to the girl, by their excessive adulation of her brother, and her interests were constantly sacrificed to his. She would have been the last to admit that it was so; but the fact was clear enough to the few persons who used to visit them at Angleford. Her friend, Clara Graham, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the experienced guidance of Lady Belgrade, she was launched into fashionable society. And society received the young expectant of enormous wealth, as society always does, with excessive adulation. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... boys, but none that pleased them more, amid all the adulation heaped upon them, than a simple cablegram of a few words, forwarded from Brighton Academy that read: "Hearty congratulations. We knew you would make good, and we are proud of you." ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... death, his fame has become established on a firmer basis than hysterical adulation; but it is yet too soon to attempt to judge him, to say what his ultimate rank will be. It seems probable that it will be a high one, and it is possible that, centuries hence, the historian of American letters will ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... an hotel and had stuck there for years, giving no doubt perfect satisfaction to the management. They had twice raised his rent to show I suppose their high sense of his distinguished patronage. He had bought for himself out of all the wealth streaming through his fingers neither adulation nor love, neither splendour nor comfort. There was something perfect in his consistent mediocrity. His very vanity seemed to miss the gratification of even the mere show of power. In the days when he was most fully in the public eye the invincible ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... convince her of her mistaken ideas of pleasure; that the scenes of dissipation, of which she was so passionately fond, afforded no true enjoyment; that the adulation of the coxcomb could not give durability to her charms, or secure the approbation of the wise and good; nor could the fashionable amusements of brilliant assemblies and crowded theatres ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... contempt avowed for all that he had written, by the fashionable critics. One critic—who still, I believe, edits a rather popular journal, and who belongs to that class, feeble, fluttering, ingenious, who make it their highest ambition not to lead, but, with a slave's adulation, to obey and to follow all the caprices of the public mind—described Mr. Wordsworth as resembling, in the quality of his mind, an old nurse babbling in her paralytic dotage to sucking babies. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... little too far in the liberality of its praises, and my cousin and I must take care not to give too much credit to your sweet adulation. ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... is it proportioned to the supposed riches and rank of him whose favor and patronage you would gladly cultivate; but extends to all. It knows how to contradict with respect; and to please, without adulation. ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... a good husband; he becomes embarrassed, and his circumstances prey upon his mind, and sour his temper. A woman who has, before marriage, been the admiration of the metropolis, is not very likely to prove a good wife. She still sighs for the adulation that she received, and which, from habit, has become necessary to her, and would exact from the man for whom she has given up the world, all the attention that she has lost by ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... created, and like all cliques, they had ended by losing all sense of real life. They legislated for themselves and hundreds of fools who read their reviews and gulped down everything they were pleased to promulgate. Their adulation had been fatal to Hassler, for it had made him too pleased with himself. He accepted without examination every musical idea that came into his head, and he had a private conviction, however he might fall below his ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... may be, she was made to rue the day, as the king left her the next morning for Maria, his Venus Victrix, and never went to see her again, although he gave her the town of Duefias and allowed her to be addressed as "queen." The chronicles of the time tell of the remarkable beauty of Maria and of the adulation she enjoyed in the heyday of her prosperity. As an instance of the extreme gallantry of the courtiers, we are informed that, with King Pedro, it was their custom to attend the lovely favorite at her bath and, upon her leaving it, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... yearly birthday was half-way gone, and the doors of nature's school wide open. And the tiny brown songster at the end of his birch twig proclaimed the joy of it again, and challenged all the world to beat him in his adulation. ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... using this term neither sarcastically nor flatteringly. The successful artist of whatever sort—painter, musician, actress—has usually been quite spoiled for domesticity by the reward of money and adulation given her. Nowhere is the lack of proportion of our society so well demonstrated as in the hysterical praise given to this kind of woman, and naturally she cannot consent to the subordination and seclusion ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... to witness this young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a few days back the idol of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance even, was deemed the greatest and most gratifying distinction, whom all orders, classes, and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with multiplied adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the world, as it were, forced upon him, to see him thus assailed with the savage execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of everything that is great, and the abasement of everything that is noble, was indeed a spectacle ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... neighbors loved him; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, "How lonesome the world seems!" Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the gospel, the general intelligence of the country, the masses afar oft, loved him. True, they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the people; so much of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many phrases of humanity and philanthropy; and some had told them he was lofty and cold—solitary in his greatness; but ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... three or four weeks which followed, the General gathered a surfeit of adulation, notwithstanding which he was constantly and with pain imagining a confused chatter of ladies, and when he shut his eyes with annoyance, there was Madame Delicieuse standing, and saying, "I knew not a reason why you should be angry against your son," gazing in his face with hardened simplicity, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... when I knew him, in the days of his great literary celebrity and social success, he often referred to it with the warmest expressions of gratitude. I think, of all the distinguished persons I have known, he was one of the least affected by the adulation and admiration of society. He remained quite unchanged by his extreme social popularity. Simple, unaffected, unconstrained, genial, kindly, and good, he seemed so entirely to forget his own celebrity, that one almost forgot ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... disciplinarian. Much given, himself, to criticism of his own superiors or contemporaries, he could not abide it that he should lack the full and enthusiastic support, much less be made the object of the criticism, of his officers or men. A vain man, was Button, and dearly he loved the adulation of his comrades, high or low. Veteran Irish sergeants knew well how to reach the soft side of "The Old Man." Astute troop commanders, like Snaffle, saved themselves many a deserved wigging by judicious use of blarney. Sterling, straightforward men like ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... all the batteries of his fascination upon her. He rolled his eyes at her with a violence approaching to agony; he bowed; he displayed in every possible and captivating attitude his one living leg—but his surpassing strength was in the adulation of his serpent tongue—and she bore it all so stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an actor on the boards—she would, at times, even condescend to improve some of his ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... about, and retreated to Canada, abandoning forever their projected invasion. New York was thus saved by Macdonough's skill and bravery. Yet the fame he won by his victory was not nearly proportionate to the naval ability he showed, and the service he had rendered to his country. Before the popular adulation of Perry, Macdonough sinks into second place. One historian only gives him the pre-eminence that is undoubtedly his due. Says Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in his admirable history, "The Naval War of 1812," "But Macdonough in this battle won a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... his face—that he regarded only him." The flattery and the indignant reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each other, and induce us to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to Caesar with adulation—any of us whom circumstances compelled to speak to him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly becoming a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of to-day require from us certain courtesies ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... those things were in the basket of one of the shepherds in the act of running? He replied they were eggs. "It is well then, that he did not break them," said the king, as he turned on his way—a just rebuke for such fulsome self-adulation. ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... with a pardonable pride in her luxuriant tresses, which lay in waves upon her finely-shaped head and glistened in the sunlight like satin of a golden hue. But nothing could spoil Jerrie, not even the adulation of her friends or the looking-glass which told her she was beautiful, just as Nina St. Claire told ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... promised to his niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and coachmen were put at his disposal. He was lodged in the same apartments in which Saxe had lived, when, at the height of power and glory, he visited Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for a time even to use the language of adulation. He pressed to his lips the meagre hand of the little grinning skeleton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown. He would add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his ancestors and his sword, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to be sure of him; and that I am not deceived by semblances, opposing guile with guile, and guile deeper than his, for that he awaiteth it not, thinking I have leaped in fancy beyond the Event, and am puffed by the after-breaths of adulation, I!—thinking I pluck the blossoms in my hunger for the fruit, that I eat the chick of the yet unlaid egg, O Feshnavat. As is said, and the warrior beareth witness to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... want," reflected Allan. "I want intelligent cooperation, not adulation. I want democracy! But, damn it! if they can't understand, then I must rule a while. And rule I will—and they shall obey ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... brought in from the imu, its bearer sprinkled by the guard at the entrance. The kumu, having inspected the roast offering and having declared it ceremonially perfect, gives the signal, and the company break forth in songs of joy and of adulation ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... the breath of Adulation, Vain the tears of tenderest Passion, Whilst a strong Imagination Holds the wandering Mind away; Art in vain attempts to borrow Notes to soothe a rooted sorrow; Fixed to die, and die to-morrow, What ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... was almost without flaw. Even Helen, whose fancy had played with him at first, but who in time had indolently yielded to the fascination exerted over her, and even gone so far as to permit his adulation, and accept in the ring the mystic pledge thereof (during all the countless ages of its experience it had never touched woman's hand before),—even she, when her lazy heart and overbearing spirit were at length aroused and quelled ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... it? Was it a delusion on our part to fancy ourselves existing, or was our existence only a bad dream?" But to Victor Hugo even these complaints will perhaps seem to smoke like fresh incense on the altar of self-adulation which this great genius ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... lady," continued the Queen, "no longer in her first youth, who has been accustomed to much adulation in her own circle, and may ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... mere Man, when giddy with unbridled Power, is an insatiate Idol, not to be appeased with Myriads offer'd to his Pride, which may be puffed up by the Adulation of a base and prostrate World, into an Opinion that he is something more than human, by being something less: And, alas, what is there that mortal Man will not believe of himself, when complimented with the Attributes ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... with a crowd of these idle visitors, lying poets, painters, sharking tradesmen, lords, ladies, needy courtiers, and expectants, who continually filled his lobbies, raining their fulsome flatteries in whispers in his ears, sacrificing to him with adulation as to a God, making sacred the very stirrup by which he mounted his horse, and seeming as though they drank the free air but through his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... with an adversary who does not sell his honor for provinces or for money. Now you know all I had to communicate. Tell Napoleon that intrigues and slanders cannot separate me from my alliance with the Emperor of Russia any more than adulation and advantageous offers. My resolution will remain as firm as a rock. ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... instead of impoverishing the property, had augmented it; the foreigner and intruder had been despoiled; the fate of La Mision Perdida had been changed; the curse of Koorotora had proved a blessing; his prophet and descendant, Pereo, the mayordomo, moved in an atmosphere of superstitious adulation and respect among the domestics and common people. This recognition of his power he received at times with a certain exaltation of grandiloquent pride beyond the conception of any but a Spanish servant, and at times with a certain dull, pained ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... tell, the young king grew every day more grave and pensive in the midst of all these delights. Music nor mirth could win him from the melancholy which overshadowed him. The truth was, that amid so much adulation as surrounded him, the idol of a nation, his soul no longer increased in wisdom; and loving virtue beyond all other things, he secretly bemoaned his defection whilst not perceiving its cause. His virtues, ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... struggle to lower the price of paper by the twentieth of a penny per pound, nor of the awful discounts allowed to certain advertisers, nor of the friction with the railway company, nor of the sickening adulation that had been lavished on quite unimportant newsagents, nor—worst of all—of the dearth of newsboys. These matters did not attract him. He could not stoop to them. But when Mr Myson, calm and proud, escorted him down to the machine-room, and the Marinoni threw a folded pink Daily ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... paved with gold and play a harp incessantly while chanting doleful praises to a Deity who ought to become wearied of the never-ceasing adulation, would still be a more desirable goal of our strife, than that so inaccurately and unattractively described by many students of Oriental religions and philosophies as the state ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... glory of the dinner faded away. She looked down on the Vandervelts from the heights of Castle Moyna. She lost all at once her fear of her son. From that moment the earth became as a rose-colored flame. She almost ignored the adulation of Cherry Hill, and the astonished reverence of her friends over her success. Her success was told in awesome whispers in the church as she walked to the third pew of the middle aisle. A series of legends grew about it, over which the experienced gossips disputed in vain; her own description ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... veritable haven of refuge. The pristine artlessness of the peasant's intellectual, moral, and emotional life furnished a wholesome antidote to the morbid hyperculture of dying romanticism, the controversies and polemics of Young Germany, and the self-adulation of the society of the salons. Neither could the exotic, ethnographic, and adventure narratives in the manner of Sealsfield, at first enthusiastically received, satisfy the taste of the reading public for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... to pedantry as to affirm that she learnt German merely because it was the fashion) would have awakened Miss Dundas to some suspicion of a covert design, had she not been in the habit of taking down such large draughts of adulation, that whenever herself was the subject, she gave it full confidence. Euphemia seldom administered these doses but to serve particular views; and seeing in the present case that a little flattery was necessary, she felt no compunction ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... of Ariosto's adulation, says, "However much of it may be looked upon as court flattery, and as due to the poet's obligations to the house of Este, we know that the art of flattery had also its laws and bounds, and that one who ascribed such qualities to a prince who was known to be entirely lacking in ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... majority. Could the country become sober if not for this feeling which one has when about to receive holy communion? Although proud at the victories of our arms, we scrupulously hide this pride, we treasure it in our hearts as our most precious possession, and we hate all swaggering and self-adulation. Not with the haughtiness of a righteous pharisee do we approach the altar, but with a prayer of penitence: "like a murderer I ...
— The Shield • Various

... know these tricks of speech, with which you have turned the head of my poor Bonaparte. Oh! you, you, his flatterer, you who urged him on, will bear the blame if misfortune breaks in upon us! You have intoxicated him with the incense of adulation; you pour into his veins daily and hourly the sweet poison which is to destroy our happiness and our peace! He was so good, so cheerful, so happy, my Bonaparte! He was contented with the laurels which victory laid upon his brow, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... weaknesses was an ambition to be considered as firm and heroic in his Administration as General Jackson had proved in the Executive chair thirty years before. He received, therefore, with evident welcome the constant adulation of a comparison between his qualities and those of General Jackson, and he came to fancy that he would prove, in his contest for the unconditional re-admission of Southern States to representation, as mighty a power ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... of conduct—self-rebuke and self-praise, speaking ill of others, and adulation of others, are never practised by those that are respectable. That, however, O learned one, which I shall say, for inspiring thy confidence is fraught with self-adulation. For all that, listen to it duly. O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... particularly for those He has vouchsafed us during the past year. What should have become of us without His crowning help and protection? Oh, if our people would only recognise it and cease from vain self-boasting and adulation, how strong would be my belief in final success and happiness to our country! But what a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... entertained for her, at once, the interest which attaches to forbidden fruit, to the attraction of strange beauty, and to the mystery of an impenetrable sphinx. She was, at this time, more goddess-like than ever. The immense fortune of her husband, and the adulation which it brought her, had placed her on a golden car. On this she seated herself with a gracious and native majesty, as if ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... nomination than the middle of the fourth word. There may have been ears offended by the thunder-clap which burst in that theater, but those ears were not Pauline's, were not in Olivia Pierson's box. And then came tumbling and roaring, huge waves of adulation, with his name shouted in voices hoarse and voices shrill like hissing foam on the triumphant crests of billows. And Pauline felt as if she were lifted from her bodily self, were tossing in a delirium of ecstasy on a ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... ever read the testimonial letters of noted persons?" said the Observer, thoughtfully, stirring his coffee. "There are many things which come with fame besides public adulation; they are material things and have a certain commercial as well as sentimental value, such as soap and corsets, patent medicines, face powder, vapor baths, books, cigars, corned beef, fountain pens, and patented trouser hangers. As soon as a man gets his name in print a few times ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman

... sweetness of speech, benevolence, freedom from malice,—the union of all these is self-restraint. It also consists, O son of Kuru, of veneration for the preceptor and universal compassion. The self-restrained man avoids both adulation and slander. Depravity, infamy, false speech, lust, covetousness, pride, arrogance, self-glorification, fear, envy and disrespect, are all avoided by the self-restrained man. He never incurs obloquy. He is free from envy. He is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... called her vulgar and commonplace; she did not look so now; passion transformed her into a noble creature. The man of the world, accustomed to its homage and adulation, cowed before the little seamstress of the slums. While she walked away from him, as if scorning to bandy further words, he looked after her in consternation. She had not only surprised, she had made a coward of him for the moment. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... contrariety of speech. For this reason when a man contrasts various contrary things in a speech, this is called contentio, which Tully calls one of the rhetorical colors (De Rhet. ad Heren. iv), where he says that "it consists in developing a speech from contrary things," for instance: "Adulation has a pleasant beginning, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... excitement among the four classes. Curious juniors and dignified seniors grew interested, and Mabel Ashe and Frances Marlton, who were Eleanor's sworn cavaliers, were besieged with requests for introductions. Far from being spoiled by so much adulation, Eleanor laughingly attributed it to her father's genius, and flouted the idea that her own delightful personality had made her a reigning favorite ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... surrounded now not merely, or not at all, by the Virtues, but by allegorical figures of Fame and Victory, by genii and muses, by personifications of humbled kingdoms and adoring nations, and by every circumstance of pomp, and symbol of adulation, that flattery could ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... been his lot to evade the lion-hunters! It was an unspeakable relief to have the general attention thus diverted from himself. Doubtless Rosa Mundi would revel in it. It was her role in life, the touchstone of her profession. Adulation was the ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... auspiciously for her reign." But so far from putting himself forward or being thrust forward by their common friends as an aspirant for her hand, while she was yet only on the edge of that strong tide and giddy whirl of imposing power and dazzling adulation which was too likely to sweep her beyond his grasp, it was resolved by King Leopold and the kindred who were most concerned in the relations of the couple, that, to give time for matters to settle down, for the young Queen to know ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... the skill and fortitude essential to such conduct, and that the men were particularly the representatives of conduct of this type. In the past, at any rate, there has been no glory like military glory, and no adulation like military adulation; and in the vulgar estimation still no quality in the individual ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... friend. Yes, gentlemen, I am permitted to call Frederick the Great my friend. He is not, as other great monarchs have been, ambitious to raise himself above the sphere of humanity; he does not desire to be addressed in the fulsome strains either of courtly or of poetical adulation: he wishes not to be worshipped as a god, but to be respected as a man[4]. It is his desire to have friends that shall be faithful, or subjects that shall be obedient. Happy his obedient subjects—they are secure of his protection: happy, thrice happy, his faithful friends—they ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... and malevolence,—have been able to drive a successful trade in the employment of the booksellers, nay, have raised themselves into temporary name and reputation with the public at large, by that most powerful of all adulation, the appeal to the bad and malignant passions of mankind [11]. But as it is the nature of scorn, envy, and all malignant propensities to require a quick change of objects, such writers are sure, sooner ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... other life. They are strangers, therefore, to the felicity of their lot. Had they mingled in the world, fed high their fancy with hope, and looked forward with expectation of enjoyment; had they been courted by the great, and offered with profusion adulation for their abilities, yet, even when starving, been offered nothing else!—had they seen an attentive circle wait all its entertainment from their powers, yet found themselves forgotten as soon as out of sight, and perceived themselves avoided when no longer ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... passion,—that they were inconstant in their affections, intolerant of dictation, impatient of control, and hasty to resent every assumption of superiority,—that they were pleased with flattery, and too ready to lend a willing ear to the adulation of the demagogue,—and that they were impetuous and brave, yet liable to be excessively elated by success, and depressed by misfortune, we may readily believe, because such traits of character ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... were nothing. But she is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually;—she ought to have been a man. She flatters me very prettily in her note;—but I know it. The reason that adulation is not displeasing is, that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend:—that is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... distrust of him. They offended the fastidious aristocrats with whom he associated, and combined with his impecuniousness to make him seem unsuitable for a great place. These aristocrats were very good to him. They lent him money freely, and settled a pension on him, and covered him with social adulation; but they were never willing to put him beside themselves in the government. His latter years therefore had an air of tragedy. He was unpopular with most of those who in his earlier years had adored ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... to dominate and reign as the Queen over the literary society in Lichfield? The great “magnetic” power she must have possessed accounts to a large extent for the popular adulation bestowed upon her. Still, the circumstances of her residence in the Episcopal Palace, and her being by birth a lady and endowed with a certain amount of wealth, added to an attractive presence, must have greatly helped ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin

... to the future good of mankind—who, raised by affluence, the reward of successful industry, and by the voice of fame above the want of any but the most honourable patronage, stooped to the unworthy arts of adulation, and abetted the views of the great with the pettifogging feelings of the meanest dependant on office—who, having secured the admiration of the public (with the probable reversion of immortality), shewed no respect for himself, for that genius ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... archness, "that you had seen him within the two months? but no wonder; for where is the lady who having so many admirers, can be at the trouble to remember which of them she saw last? or who, being so accustomed to adulation, can hold it worth while to enquire whence it comes? A thousand Mr Delviles are to Miss Beverley but as one; used from them all to the same tale, she regards them not individually as lovers, but collectively as men; and to gather, even from herself, which she ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... most splendid mansions in Seville he selected for his residence, and in less than two years he found that one-half of his princely fortune had melted away. They were two years of adulation, of self-indulgence, of mental intoxication. It was a delirious dream from which he suddenly awoke. Reflection taught him that he must immediately curtail his expenses, and very seriously, or engage in some new enterprise to ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... still the prodigy—the nonpareil—and as he had the most winning, insinuating manners—he was still the favorite of teachers and pupils. As he grew older, he was taken much into society, and young as he was, inhaled, with the most intense delight, the incense of female adulation. The smiles and caresses bestowed upon the boy-paragon by beautiful and charming women, instead of fostering his affections, as they would have done, had they been lavished upon him for his virtues rather than his graces, gave precocious growth and vigor to his vanity, till, like the cedar ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... conventionalities, as well as insincerity, differ in their forms in different times; and that insincerity may lurk behind frank and clear words, when they are the fashion, as much as in what is like mere fulsome adulation. But words mean something, in spite of forms and fashions. When a man of great genius writes his private letters, we wish generally to believe on the whole what he says; and there are no limits to the esteem, the honour, the confidence, which Bacon continued ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... general in all ranks. In universal weariness of revolution and civil war, and in consciousness of being too debased for self-government, the nation had submitted itself to the absolute authority of Augustus. Adulation was now the chief function the senate: and the gifts of genius and accomplishments of art were devoted to the elaboration of eloquently false panegyrics upon the prince and his favourite courtiers. With bitter indignation ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... questioned the wisdom of promoting himself. But he could n't back out now. He almost damned Honey's thrift. He would be piling up a debt which threatened to become an avalanche and swamp him, and for which he would get no equivalent but temporarily increased adulation. How could he nip this awful thing in the bud? He did n't see any way out of it unless it were to throw up his job and cut short this accumulating horror. But at least he had a year of grace—two ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... have been at the point where a man's life touches sublimity, but for one thing. The words of Leh Shin echoed in his ears over all the applause and adulation. ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... his own superior position in life never occurred to him in relation to his companions. He gave himself no airs, and expected no homage or adulation. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... "refuses adulation" when she is not awake, but when she is awake she encourages it and propagates it in that museum called "Our Mother's Room," in her Church in Boston. She could abolish that institution with a word, if she wanted to. She is aware ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... humour, his modesty, his fidelity to friends, may pass for what eulogies of living men are commonly worth. But it is difficult to doubt the sincerity of the glowing picture which he drew of him when death had destroyed all interest in mere adulation. The letters indeed which passed between the great churchman and the wandering scholar, the quiet, simple-hearted grace which amidst constant instances of munificence preserved the perfect equality of literary friendship, the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... him to blush. He was by nature too gentle to protect himself by severe speech, even when forward girls from the city said things that country-girls never would have said,—things that made him tell the speakers to leave his presence. And the more he shrank from the admiration of the timid, or the adulation of the unabashed, the more the persecution increased, till it became ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn



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