A sincere compliment is always grateful to a lady, so long as you don't try to knock her down with it.
- "Answers to Correspondents"

Arguments are unsafe with wives, because they examine them; but they do not examine compliments. One can pass upon a wife a compliment that is three-fourths base metal; she will not even bite it to see if it is good; all she notices is the size of it, not the quality.
- "Hellfire Hotchkiss"

The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography