Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, 1694-1773 / 2008-06-11 00:00:00
EBOOK QUOTES FROM CHESTERFIELD ***
Produced by David Widger
QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM CHESTERFIELD'S
LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1766-1771
by The Earl of Chesterfield
QUOTATIONS
A little learning is a dangerous thing
A joker is near akin to a buffoon
A favor may make an enemy, and an injury may make a friend
Ablest man will sometimes do weak things
Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself
Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret
Above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them
Absolute command of your temper
Abstain from learned ostentation
Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices
Absurd romances of the two last centuries
According as their interest prompts them to wish
Acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men
Advice is seldom welcome
Advise those who do not speak elegantly, not to speak
Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue
Affectation of singularity or superiority
Affectation in dress
Affectation of business
All have senses to be gratified
Always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse
Always does more than he says
Always some favorite word for the time being
Always look people in the face when you speak to them
Am still unwell; I cannot help it!
American Colonies
Ancients and Moderns
Anxiety for my health and life
Applauded often, without approving
Apt to make them think themselves more necessary than they are
Argumentative, polemical conversations
Arrogant pedant
Art of pleasing is the most necessary
As willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody
Ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes
Assenting, but without being servile and abject
Assertion instead of argument
Assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions
Assurance and intrepidity
At the first impulse of passion, be silent till you can be soft
Attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt
Attend to the objects of your expenses, but not to the sums
Attention to the inside of books
Attention and civility please all
Attention
Author is obscure and difficult in his own language
Authority
Avoid cacophony, and, what is very near as bad, monotony
Avoid singularity
Awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions
Be neither transported nor depressed by the accidents of life
Be silent till you can be soft
Being in the power of every man to hurt him
Being intelligible is now no longer the fashion
Better not to seem to understand, than to reply
Better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily
Blindness of the understanding is as much to be pitied
Bold, but with great seeming modesty
Borough-jobber
Business must be well, not affectedly dressed
Business now is to shine, not to weigh
Business by no means forbids pleasures
BUT OF THIS EVERY MAN WILL BELIEVE AS HE THINKS PROPER
Can hardly be said to see what they see
Cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them
Cardinal Mazarin
Cardinal Richelieu
Cardinal de Retz
Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses
Cautious how we draw inferences
Cease to love when you cease to be agreeable
Chameleon, be able to take every different hue
Characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed
Cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing
Chit-chat, useful to keep off improper and too serious subjects
Choose your pleasures for yourself
Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others
Clamorers triumph
Close, without being costive
Command of our temper, and of our countenance
Commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence
Committing acts of hostility upon the Graces
Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon)
Commonplace observations
Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation
Complaisance
Complaisance to every or anybody's opinion
Complaisance due to the custom of the place
Complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses
Conceal all your learning carefully
Concealed what learning I had
Conjectures pass upon us for truths
Conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge
Connections
Connive at knaves, and tolerate fools
Consciousness of merit makes a man of sense more modest
Consciousness and an honest pride of doing well
Consider things in the worst light, to show your skill
Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing
Conversation-stock being a joint and common property
Conversation will help you almost as much as books
Converse with his inferiors without insolence
Dance to those who pipe
Darkness visible
Decides peremptorily upon every subject
Deep learning is generally tainted with pedantry
Deepest learning, without good-breeding, is unwelcome
Defended by arms, adorned by manners, and improved by laws
Deserve a little, and you shall have but a little
Desire to please, and that is the main point
Desirous of praise from the praiseworthy
Desirous to make you their friend
Desirous of pleasing
Despairs of ever being able to pay
Dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie
Dictate to them while you seem to be directed by them
Difference in everything between system and practice
Difficulties seem to them, impossibilities
Dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business
Disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so
Disagreeable things may be done so agreeably as almost to oblige
Disputes with heat
Dissimulation is only to hide our own cards
Distinction between simulation and dissimulation
Distinguish between the useful and the curious
Do as you would be done by
Do not become a virtuoso of small wares
Do what you are about
Do what you will but do something all day long
Do as you would be done by
Do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for the gold of Virgil
Does not give it you, but he inflicts it upon you
Doing, 'de bonne grace', what you could not help doing
Doing what may deserve to be written
Doing nothing, and might just as well be asleep
Doing anything that will deserve to be written
Done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done
Dress like the reasonable people of your own age
Dress well, and not too well
Dressed as the generality of people of fashion are
Ears to hear, but not sense enough to judge
Easy without negligence
Easy without too much familiarity
Economist of your time
Either do not think, or do not love to think
Elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all
Employ your whole time, which few people do
Endeavor to hear, and know all opinions
Endeavors to please and oblige our fellow-creatures
Enemies as if they may one day become one's friends
Enjoy all those advantages
Equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy
ERE TITTERING YOUTH SHALL SHOVE YOU FROM THE STAGE
Establishing a character of integrity and good manners
Even where you are sure, seem rather doubtful
Every numerous assembly is MOB
Every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness
Every man knows that he understands religion and politics
Every numerous assembly is a mob
Every man pretends to common sense
EVERY DAY IS STILL BUT AS THE FIRST
Everybody is good for something
Everything has a better and a worse side
Exalt the gentle in woman and man--above the merely genteel
Expresses himself with more fire than elegance
Extremely weary of this silly world
Eyes and the ears are the only roads to the heart
Eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut
Feed him, and feed upon him at the same time
Few things which people in general know less, than how to love
Few people know how to love, or how to hate
Few dare dissent from an established opinion
Fiddle-faddle stories, that carry no information along with them
Fit to live--or not live at all
Flattering people behind their backs
Flattery of women
Flattery
Flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world
Fools, who can never be undeceived
Fools never perceive where they are ill-timed
Forge accusations against themselves
Forgive, but not approve, the bad.
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