Careful Words

flatter (v.)

Where Young must torture his invention

To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Poetry, a Rhapsody.

His nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,

Or Jove for's power to thunder.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Coriolanus. Act iii. Sc. 1.