Lord Chesterfield Quotes
Lord Chesterfield Quotes. Below is a collection of famous Lord Chesterfield quotes. Here you can find the most popular and greatest quotes by Lord Chesterfield. Share these quotations with your friends and family.
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
By Lord Chesterfield
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
By Lord Chesterfield
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.
By Lord Chesterfield
Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch those judgments, such as they are.
By Lord Chesterfield
In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
By Lord Chesterfield
It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.
By Lord Chesterfield
Lord Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known.
By Lord Chesterfield
If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
By Lord Chesterfield
Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.
By Lord Chesterfield
Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
By Lord Chesterfield
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
By Lord Chesterfield
Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
By Lord Chesterfield
A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
By Lord Chesterfield
Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore often seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.
By Lord Chesterfield
Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.
By Lord Chesterfield
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
By Lord Chesterfield
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
By Lord Chesterfield
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.
By Lord Chesterfield
Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is had (as it is called) in company for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.
By Lord Chesterfield
Great merit, or great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked in the general run of the world.
By Lord Chesterfield
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
By Lord Chesterfield
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.
By Lord Chesterfield