Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 12:2

"Flattering lips." The philosopher Bion being asked what animal he though the most hurtful, replied, "That of wild creatures a tyrant, and of tame ones a flatterer." The flatterer is the most dangerous enemy we can have. Raleigh, himself a courtier, and therefore initiated into the whole art of flattery, who discovered in his own career and fate its dangerous and deceptive power, its deep artifice and deeper falsehood, says, "A flatterer is said to be a beast that biteth smiling. But it is hard to know them from friends —they are so obsequious and full of protestations: for as a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend." The Book of Symbols, 1844.