Lord Chesterfield Quotes

You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.

In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.

Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.

If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and affection of certain people, men or women, try to discover their most striking merit, if they have one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his own, then do justice to the one, and a little more than justice to the other.

Ceremonies are the outworks of manners.

Take the tone of the company you are in...

An ignorant man is insignificant and contemptible; nobody cares for his company, and he can just be said to live, and that is all.

Mind not only what people say, but how they say it; and if you have any sagacity, you may discover more truth by your eyes than by your ears. People can say what they will, but they cannot look just as they will; and their looks frequently (reveal) what their words are calculated to conceal.

No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.

Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least consideration; but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.

Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de chambre; but yet every look,word, and action should imply the utmost respect.... You must wait till you are spoken to; you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation, and you must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead you into any impropriety.

If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.

Anne 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.

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.

There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience) for you young fellows, than to know how to behave yourselves prudently towards those whom you do not like. Your passions are warm, and your heads are light; you hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition or love; and a rival, in either, is almost a synonymous term for any enemy.

You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion, and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth, or rank. You must be gay, within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave, without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty.

A young fellow ought to be wiser than he should seem to be; and an old fellow ought to seem wise whether he really be so or not.

I have been too long acquainted with human nature to have great regard for human testimony; and a very great degree of probability, supported by various concurrent circumstances, conspiring in one point, will have much greater weight with me, than human testimony upon oath, or even upon honour; both of which I have frequently seen considerably warped by private views.

All I can say, in answer to this kind queries [of friends] is that I have not the distemper called the Plague; but that I have allthe plagues of old age, and of a shattered carcase.

The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable.

Let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the information of others.

Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime; the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.

Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.

Few men are of one plain, decided color; most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights.

Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.

I 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.

I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.

I wish... that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it.

I would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn.

Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.

In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike; and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same; and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others, will, mutatis mutandis, engage, disgust, please, or offend others, in you.

I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.

So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.

Women of fashion and character--I do not mean absolutely unblemished--are a necessary ingredient in the composition of good company; the attention which they require, and which is always paid them by well-bred men, keeps up politeness, and gives a habit of good-breeding; whereas men, when they live together without the lenitive of women in company, are apt to grow careless, negligent, and rough among one another.

A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted, and thinks everything that is said meant at him.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

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. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people and dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.

Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.

May you live as long as you are fit to live, but no longer, or, may you rather die before you cease to be fit to live than after!

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.

Few people do business well, who do nothing else.

Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.

Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.

Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.

All ceremonies are in themselves very silly things; but yet, a man of the world should know them. They are the outworks of Mannersand Decency, which would be too often broken in upon, if it were not for that defence, which keeps the enemy at a proper distance.

Always make the best of the best, and never make bad worse.

I do not think that a Physician should be admitted into the College till he could bring proofs of his having cured, in his own person, at least four incurable distempers.