Courtiers

Courtiers are people often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together.

Sourced

• There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
  That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
  More pangs and fears than wars or women have.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act III, scene 2, line 368.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 144.

• To laugh, to lie, to flatter to face,
  Foure waies in court to win men's grace.
  • Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster.

• A mere court butterfly,
  That flutters in the pageant of a monarch.
  • Lord Byron, Sardanapalus, Act V, scene 1.

• To shake with laughter ere the jest they hear,
  To pour at will the counterfeited tear;
  And, as their patron hints the cold or heat,
  To shake in dog-days, in December sweat.
  • Samuel Johnson, London, line 140.

• At the throng'd levee bends the venal tribe:
  With fair but faithless smiles each varnish'd o'er,
  Each smooth as those that mutually deceive,
  And for their falsehood each despising each.
  • James Thomson, Liberty, Part V, line 190.