Quotes By Lord Chesterfield

To govern mankind, one must not overrate them.

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.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

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

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.

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

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.

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.

Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.

You must look into people as well as at them.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Take the tone of the company you are in.

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

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.

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

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

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.

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.