I spent six weeks in a continuing education class that had some students considerably younger than I. At the end of that class, one of those students said to me, “I wish my father was more like you.” No one has ever said anything nicer.
“My God, you’re exactly like your father was.”
The best compliment anybody could ever give me. Ever.
I’ve cherished the several compliments I’ve gotten from people telling me I’m a good father, and that fatherhood suits me. My relations with my own dad were strained as far back as I can remember, so it was nice to hear I was doing something right in that area.
One of my hardcore skiing buddies, a true expert, said my skiing was “vastly improved” compared to when we met, which I will take as a compliment.
I usually dont’ get compliments, but recently, I have had a few.
From a wife of a patient at work (I talked to her and her son about making the pt DNR-Do Not Rescucitate; many staff had tried, including the attending doc and the consults etc): she said, “I like my coffee sweet, but you don’t need to add sweetener–you told me straight what is going on, but you didn’t sugarcoat the pill. Thank you, I appreciate that.”
I turned it aside (probably why I dont’ get many compliments!) by telling her that I think I just hit her at the right moment–she was ready to hear that her husband would never recover.
But it felt really good to have 1. my skills recognized and 2. that I as able to reach this family that was in such deep denial.
Also, I was just told by some travelling nurses that they only want to work when I am there and in charge of the unit–that made my day!
Oh-and some guy whistled at me. I pretend to hate that–but at 40+, I eat it up!
I met a nice young lady at a festival a couple months ago. We hit it off really good, so we spent the day together. She was from Italy, I’m from Florida. Well, at the end of the day she had to go stay with her friends that she knew locally. We said goodbye and she looked at me and said, “You are a perfect gentleman”. So, we didn’t have sex but my ego sure had an orgasm. 
Wow, you’ve all had some lovely compliments! pinkfreud, that is one awesome compliment you got! I’d be glowing for decades with that one.
A few compliments come to mind, for no particular reason: An old 6th grade teacher said that I “had the patience of Job.” That’s not always true now, but I guess as a 6th grader it fit me.
My Dad picked me up from work one day. I had school that day, I was awake from 7 a.m. and then I was going home at 10pm. When we pulled up to the driveway my Dad said something like “I don’t know how you can handle work and school at the same time… that is really… really…” and then he nodded his head because he could not come up with the word. After 15 hours of the intense bullshit that made up my day, this comment made everything ok for a good 15 minutes. At least one person thinks I’m not wasting my time.
I’ve had a student tell me that I gave such good advice I should be someone like Dear Abby - and from an eighth grader, that’s high praise indeed.
I remember once when my mother made a note of telling me that I am a kind person. That meant a lot.
My first principal related that the ninth grade teacher had told him that when my students went to her the next year, they were better prepared than any of the previous students.
A friend mentioned once that I had a laugh that just made her want to laugh along with me, whether she knew what was funny or not.
My father said I had a “striking beauty” the other day - which almost made me fall off my chair. To my knowledge, my father has never really complemented me EVER and I don’t exactly have the best relationship with him. So it was extremely odd, but nice too.
A good friend told me that she would not be the person she is today without my friendship and advice. That made me get all teary.
Intelligence-related: “You’re so smart, I never know what you’re talking about.” It may not seem so gratifying to read, but it was.
Looks-related: “You are even prettier in person.” Said by an online pal after meeting me IRL for the first time.
At the top of a paper I wrote during my senior year in high school on Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, coming from a woman with an MA in English who taught 300-level English classes for twelve years before “retiring” back to high school teaching: “100 A+. To be honest, your analysis of the relationship between the various paradoxical logic systems was too complex for me to follow at times. I don’t fully understand it, but it’s obvious that you do. I advise you to seriously consider this as a thesis topic next year.”
I have, to this date, never read so much as the back cover of Catch-22 (nor any other piece of assigned literature since the seventh grade), and have only a vague idea what it’s supposed to be about. And yes, I wrote the paper myself.
Say what you want about the ethics of it; I’m proud of my BSing ability and I enjoyed having it confirmed by a respected source. 
I would say, “Shame on you,” but I’m a bit too awed.
I have two - both of them having to do with my eyes.
When I was little, we’d always go to this pizzeria in town that was owned by a very nice Greek family. The owner of the store, Tracy, was and always will be, one of the nicest men I have ever met. Anyway, one day while we were having lunch, he came up to talk to my parents and he looked at me and said, “You have the prettiest brown eyes I have ever seen.”
I was 4-years-old when he said that, and it still makes me smile.
The other one was the last week of my freshman year of high school. My science teacher was a very mild mannered, soft spoken man and often his classes would get a little crazy, or he would lose the attention of half the students. As everyone was passing their yearbooks around, I gave mine to him and he wrote:
“I’ll miss your friendly eyes every day in class.”
He later elaborated that when he would lecture our class, he often felt like he was talking to himself, until he looked over to me and saw that I was looking right at him, paying attention. He said he took comfort in my, “big brown eyes,” and I made him feel like he wasn’t completely wasting his time.
I’ve had quite a few teachers over the years compliment me on my…attentiveness, I guess - but none of them have been as sweet as his.
My Jr. High princible:
I can’t remember what stunt I pulled off to find myself in the principals office. But the punishment was for me to get an ass whup’n.
I debated with my principal over the ethics of ass-whup’ns for quite some time (Which BTW, kudos to him for taking the time to listen)
At the end of our debate I eventually lost and got an ass whup’n anyway. That thanks to my father calling in to tell the principal to make sure to give me a good ass whup’n I wont soon forget. :rolleyes:
Anyway at the end of our debate he told me “You know SHAKES in the twenty years that I’ve been principal; you’ve by far given the best arguements as to why we shouldn’t paddle.”
The irony is I really didn’t have a problem with ass whup’ns per se’. I was just trying to weasle my way out of getting one.
That’s letter framed-on-the-wall material there.
I was on a country bus in Jamaica going up into the hills. A local woman got off at the same place as me and offered to help me find where I was going. We began to walk up a steep, unpaved trail. She was barefoot and balancing a basket on her head and I was wearing a heavy backpack, so it was tough going. After we had walked a good spell she looked at me and said “You walk well for a white mon.” I have always treasured that.
“When you smile, your eyes sparkle.
When your eyes sparkle, so does everything else.”
Unfortunately, I still don’t smile enough.
Some years back, in Khartoum Sudan at a diplomatic cocktail party: I’m wearing a new West African style robe made of very thin blue material [blue silk slip underneath] with silver/gold threads woven into birds with a Nigerian style foulard [head wrap]. One of the ugliest men I have ever seen comes up to me dragging another man. I look desparately for my husband who is seen across the lawn engaged in an animated discussion. Ugly man starts speaking in Arabic with the loveliest/melodiest voice I have ever heard. Not understanding a word, I felt caressed, lovingly embraced as time slowed down. Then nudged his companion. His companion translated what this extraordinary man told me… I wish I had the words written down. Ugly man recited a poem he just created on the spot about the most wonderous angel he ever cast eyes on. Warm smile like a Khartoum evening. Eyes glistening like the stars above. Skin like moonlight.
Well, you could add mascara running down my face as my eyes watered up. I smiled and was completely stunned. He smiled and bowed his head. Then he walked off.
I was told later that he was the poet laureate of Sudan. I still have that dress and think of him when I open my clothes closet.
At my baby shower, my 7th grade teacher came (my mom was also a teacher, so she was family friend as well). For intros, everyone had to say who they were and how they knew me and Mrs. K, who had been a teacher for over 25 years, stood up and said.
“I’m Mrs. K, and I know bella because she was the most intelligent student I’ve ever watched learn. I say watched learn, because she didn’t really need taught, just nudged.”
This woman was pretty reserved with her praise, so that one had me glowing for a while.
1974 - I was a fairly new avionics technician assigned to the midnight shift of the squadron. Back then, women weren’t allowed to be in operational squadrons, nor did they go aboard ships. I was in VS-41 - the training squadron for the new S-3A Viking and we were just starting to train the personnel fom the operational squadrons to fly and maintain the aircraft.
There were a lot of women in our shop, and a number of them felt entitled to have the men carry heavy things for them or do the dirtiest jobs. I’ve never been a feminist, per se, but I hated to be perceived as less than the guys in the performance of my duties. So I did what I had to do, even when I hated it.
One night, after a particularly grueling bit of troubleshooting and repair, my team leader, Pete gave me the best compliment ever. He said I was the kind of sailor he would love to have aboard ship. I knew then that he’d accepted me as one of the guys, and that meant the world to me.