Quotes By Lord Chesterfield

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

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.

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

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

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.

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.

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.

Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.

You must look into people as well as at them.

Take the tone of the company you are in.

Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.

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.

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.

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

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.

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

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

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