Quotes By Lord Chesterfield

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

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

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

The more one works, the more willing one is to work.

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.

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

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

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.

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.

You must look into people as well as at them.

Take the tone of the company you are in.

Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time let them feel, the steadiness of your resentment.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

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.

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.

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

The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.

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.

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

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.

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.

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.

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.

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

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

Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear.

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.