Quotes from Lord Chesterfield

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.

Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.

When griefs are genuine, I find, there is nothing more vacuous, more burdensome, or even more impertinent, than letters of consolation.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.

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

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.

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.

It is good breeding alone that can prepossess people in your favor at first sight, more time being necessary to discover greater talents.

There will never be a better time to start quitting smoking than today

Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too; by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.

There is time enough for everything in the course of the day if you do but one thing once but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time.

Distrust those who love you extremely upon a slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason.

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.

Let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the information of others.

Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.

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.

Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.

An honest man may really love a pretty girl, but only an idiot marries her merely because she is pretty.

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.

Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.

Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it; it will counsel you best.

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.

True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself.