Lord Chesterfield Quotes
As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.
Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.
A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
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.
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.
I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Artichoke: That vegetable of which one has more at the finish than at the start of dinner.
Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.
Learning is acquired by reading books; much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of 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.
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
Distrust those who love you extremely upon a slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason.
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.
Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits, but not by their age
In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.
Gold and silver are but merchandise, as well as cloth or linen; and that nation that buys the least, and sells the most, must always have the most money.
Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
Observe any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.
A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.