Lord Chesterfield Quotes

Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.

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.

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.

Women, then, are only children of a larger growth

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

To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.

Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

Ridicule is the best test of truth.

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

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

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

Take care in your minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.

The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.

Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all.

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

Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known than their crimes.

Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way through the world.

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.

History is but a confused heap of facts.

Character must be kept bright as well as clean.

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.

Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.

Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.

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

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

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

Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.

When a man is once in fashion, all he does is right.

We are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation.

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

Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.