If you will please people, you must please them in their own way; and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.
Lord ChesterfieldThe only sure way of avoiding these evils [vanity and boasting] is never to speak of yourself at all. But when, historically, youare obliged to mention yourself, take care not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause.
Lord ChesterfieldBuy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.
Lord ChesterfieldWe are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.
Lord ChesterfieldAnne of Austria (with great submission to a Crowned Head do I say it) was a B----. She had spirit and courage without parts, devotion without common morality, and lewdness without tenderness either to justify or to dignify it. Her two sons were no more Lewis the Thirteen's than they were mine.
Lord Chesterfield