Lord Chesterfield Quotes

The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.

The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.

Lord Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known.

We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen.

Keep carefully not of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France, wherea man is dishonoured by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting it.

Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.

If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.

Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.

A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs, and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favourite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies.

A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.

Great merit, or great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked in the general run of the world.

A wise man will live as much within his wit as his income.... Bear this truth always in your mind, that you may be admired for your wit, if you have any; but that nothing but good sense and good qualities can make you be loved.

Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.

Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.

Remember, that when I speak of pleasures I always mean the elegant pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of a swine. I mean la bonne chère, short of gluttony; wine, infinitely short of drunkenness; play, without the least gaming; and gallantry, without debauchery.

Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of things. Any thing half done, or half known, is in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay, worse, for it often misleads.

Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.

Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial.

Everything is worth seeing once, and the more one sees the less one either wonders or admires.

A foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures: his views are carried on, and perhaps best, and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.

Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.

An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions. He is neither hot nor timid.

In business be as able as you can, but do not be cunning; cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity.

There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.

Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore often seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.

The rulers of the earth are all worth knowing; they suggest moral reflections: and the respect that one naturally has for God's vice-regents here on earth is greatly increased by acquaintance with them.

Words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt than your person should.

Our self-love is mortified, when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemned;as, on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation.

There is a certain jargon, which, in French, I should call un Persiflage d'Affaires, that a foreign Minister ought to be perfectlymaster of, and may be used very advantageously at great entertainments, in mixed companies, and in all occasions where he must speak, and should say nothing. Well turned and well spoken, it seems to mean something, though in truth it means nothing. It is a kind of political badinage, which prevents or removes a thousand difficulties, to which a foreign Minister is exposed in mixed conversations.

History is but a confused heap of facts.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can;but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.

Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honour, or prudence. Thosewho violate it, may be cunning, but they are not able. Lies and perfidy are the refuge of fools and cowards.

Either a good or a bad reputation outruns and gets before people wherever they go.

The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.

I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.

It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

Smooth your way to the head through the heart. The way of reason is a good one: but it is commonly something longer, and perhapsnot so sure.

Every man is to be had one way or another and every woman almost anyway.

The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.

Dispatch is the soul of business.

Good-breeding carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid.

Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.

Women, then, are only children of a larger growth

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.