Lord Chesterfield
40 quotations
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so.
The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.
To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.
History is but a confused heap of facts.
Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.
In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry.
A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world.
Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defense of manners.
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.