Words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt than your person should.
Lord ChesterfieldAny affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
Lord ChesterfieldLet your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment for there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense which is ever prudent and justifiable.
Lord ChesterfieldAs fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
Lord ChesterfieldVanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle of humanactions.... Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert.... I will own to you, under the secrecy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make many a woman in love with me, if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff.
Lord Chesterfield