Plutarch De Vitioso Pudore 18

[18] This weakness of the mind may be compared to a constitution of body that can endure neither heat nor cold. For let them be praised by those that thus impudently set upon them, and they are at once mollified and broken by the flattery; but let them be blamed or so much as suspected by the same men after their suit has been refused, and they are ready to die for woe and fear. We ought therefore to prepare and fortify ourselves against both extremes, so as to be made a prey neither to such as pretend to frighten, nor to such as would cajole us. Thucydides is of opinion, since there is a necessary connection between envy and great undertakings, that he takes the wisest counsel who incurs envy by aiming the highest. ¹ But we who esteem it less difficult to avoid the envy of all men than to escape the censure of those we live among, ought to order things so as rather to grapple with the unjust hatred of evil men, than to deserve their just accusation after we have served their base ends. We ought to go armed against that false and counterfeit praise such men are apt to fling upon us, not suffering ourselves like swine to be scratched and tickled by them, till, having got the advantage of us, they use us after their own pleasure. For they that reach out their ears to flatterers differ very little from such as stand fair and quiet to be tripped up, excepting that the former catch the more disgraceful fall. These put up with the affronts and forbear the correction of wicked men, to get the reputation of good-natured or merciful; or else are drawn into needless and perilous quarrels at the instance of flatterers, who bear them in hand all the while for the only men of judgment, the only men not to be caught with flattery, and call them the only men who have mouths and voices. Bion used to compare these men to pitchers: Take them, said he, by the ears, and you may move them as you please. Thus Alexinus, the sophist, was reporting many scandalous things in the lyceum of Stilpo the Megarian; but when one present informed him that Stilpo always spake very honorably of him, Why truly, says he, he is one of the most obliging and best of men. But now Menedemus, when it was told him that Alexinus often praised him, replied: That may be, but I always talk against him; for he must be bad who either praises a bad man or is blamed by an honest one. So wary was he of being caught by such baits, agreeably to that precept of Hercules in Antisthenes, ² who cautioned his sons not to be thankful to such as were used to praise them,—thereby meaning no more than that they should be so far from being wheedled thereby as not even to return their flatteries. That of Pindar was very apposite, and enough to be said in such a case: when one told him, I cry you up among all men, and speak to your advantage on all occasions; and I, replied he, am always very thankful, in that I take care you shall not tell a lie.