Quotes By Lord Chesterfield

Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.

To govern mankind, one must not overrate them.

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

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

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

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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