“ For a field does not become worse by being praised, but those who praise a man falsely and against his deserts puff him up and ruin him. ”
 Plutarch, Moralia (c. 100 AD). copy citation

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“Simple therefore and fatuous was that remark of Bion, "If you could by encomiums make your field to yield well and be fruitful, you could not be thought wrong in tilling it so rather than digging it and labouring in it: nor would it be strange in you to praise human beings if by so doing you could be useful and serviceable to them." For a field does not become worse by being praised, but those who praise a man falsely and against his deserts puff him up and ruin him. § xvii. Enough has been said on this matter: let us now examine outspokenness. For just as Patroclus put on the armour of Achilles, and drove his horses to the battle, only durst not touch his spear from Mount Pelion, but let that alone, so ought the flatterer, tricked out and modelled in the distinctive marks and tokens of the friend, to leave untouched and uncopied only his outspokenness, as the special burden of friendship, "heavy, huge, strong."412 But since flatterers, to avoid the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix cen173sure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without examination.” source