Flattery

There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is even one hundredth part of a false note in candor, there is immediately a dissonance, and then ﹘ scandal. But with flattery, even if everything is false down to the last little note, it is still agreeable and is listened to not without pleasure; crude though the pleasure may be, it is still a pleasure. And however crude the flattery may be, at least half of it is sure to seem true. And that is so for all levels of development and strata of society. Even a vestal virgin can be seduced by flattery. Not to mention ordinary people.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment".