The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
Lord ChesterfieldIn the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it's only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.
Lord ChesterfieldObserve any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.
Lord ChesterfieldI always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries; and by saying Well, and so?--as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.
Lord ChesterfieldI look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.
Lord ChesterfieldI am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general; one would think by them, that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of Emperors, Kings, Popes, Generals, and Ministers.
Lord Chesterfield