Quotes from 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.

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world.

"Idleness is the only refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools"

Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a bow, immediately.

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.

Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.

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

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.

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

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

Take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.

The mere brute pleasure of reading — the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

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

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.

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

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.

Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.

Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request.

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.

I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments.