Quotes by Chesterfield, Lord

"Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one."

Chesterfield, Lord on learning   

"Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a bow, immediately."

Chesterfield, Lord on letters   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on aphorisms and epigrams   

"Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry."

Chesterfield, Lord on literature   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on manners   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on manners   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on manners   

"Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defense of manners."

Chesterfield, Lord on manners   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on women   

"I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when one suffers, the other sympathizes."

Chesterfield, Lord on mind   

"A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones."

Chesterfield, Lord on mind
3 fans of this quote   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on modesty   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on patience   

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable."

Chesterfield, Lord on perfection   

"Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible."

Chesterfield, Lord on perseverance
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"If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself."

Chesterfield, Lord on persuasion   

"He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves."

Chesterfield, Lord on persuasion   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on pleasure
3 fans of this quote   

"Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded."

Chesterfield, Lord on prejudice   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on punctuality   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on reason   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on retirement   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on ridicule   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on scandal   

"Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch those judgments, such as they are."

Chesterfield, Lord on speakers and speaking   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on style   

"Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds."

Chesterfield, Lord on belief   

"Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote."

Chesterfield, Lord on books - reading
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"Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads."

Chesterfield, Lord on books - reading
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"No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business; and few people do business well, who do nothing else."

Chesterfield, Lord on business   

"Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your word."

Chesterfield, Lord on character   

"Character must be kept bright as well as clean."

Chesterfield, Lord on character   

"You must look into people, as well as at them."

Chesterfield, Lord on character
11 fans of this quote   

"The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler."

Chesterfield, Lord on theory   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on time   

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

Chesterfield, Lord on time   

"I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves."

Chesterfield, Lord on time   

"Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts."

Chesterfield, Lord on vice   

"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."

Chesterfield, Lord on vice   

"Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another."

Chesterfield, Lord on wit