Lord Chesterfield Quotes - Page 17

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• The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.

  Lord Chesterfield

  New Year, Lying, Years

  4 Copy quote

• Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Country, Law, Liberty

  4 Copy quote

• Next to clothes being fine, they should be well made, and worn easily; for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat, if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as if it was a plain one.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Clothes, Coats

  4 Copy quote

• The rulers of the earth are all worth knowing; they suggest moral reflections: and the respect that one naturally has for God's vice-regents here on earth is greatly increased by acquaintance with them.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Leadership, Reflection, Knowing

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• When I reflect upon what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality; and I look on what has passed as one of those wild dreams which opium occasions, and I by no means wish to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive illusion.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Life, Dream, Mean

  5 Copy quote

• The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Advice, Return, Comeback

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• Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of misleading others to allow them that which they are conscious they do not possess. Thus lord Hardwicke valued himself more upon being a great minister of state, which he certainly was not, than upon being a great magistrate, which he certainly was.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Mistake, Pride, Men

  4 Copy quote

• The most ignorant are the boldest conjecturers.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Ignorance, Ignorant

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• It is reported here that the King of Prussia has gone mad and has been locked up. There would be nothing bad about that: at leastthat might of his would no longer be a menace, and you could breathe freely for a while. I much prefer madmen who are locked up to those who are not.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Kings, Mad, Prussia

  4 Copy quote

• It is to be presumed, that a man of common sense, who does not desire to please, desires nothing at all; since he must know that he cannot obtain anything without it.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Common Sense, Desire

  Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.250, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

• Should you be unfortunate enough to have vices, you may, to a certain degree, even dignify them by a strict observance of decorum;at least they will lose something of their natural turpitude.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Vices, Degrees, May

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.381, Oxford Paperbacks

  4 Copy quote

• Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Promise, I Promise, Like You

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.353

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

  Lord Chesterfield

  Self, Ego, Veils

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Eugenia Stanhope (1827). “Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son”, p.293

  11 Copy quote

• Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Inferiority, Your Best Friend, Enjoy

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

  Lord Chesterfield

  Life, Wise, Wisdom

  Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.34, Wildside Press LLC

  14 Copy quote

• There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who, having lived always in the grand mode, and having possibly had some gallantries, together with the experience of five and twenty or thirty years, form a young fellow better than all the rules that can be given him.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Women, Years, Together

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Country, Nature, Travel

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Eugenia Stanhope (1827). “Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son”, p.218

  10 Copy quote

• In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must speak and speak with dignity too.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Passion, Tragedy, Dignity

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.249, Oxford University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Whoever incites anger has a strong insurance against indifference.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Strong, Anger, Uprising

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• Ridicule is the best test of truth.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Truth, Tests, Ridicule

  'Letters to his Son' (1774) 6 February 1752.

  7 Copy quote

• Spirit is now a very fashionable word: to act with Spirit, to speak with Spirit, means only to act rashly, and to talk indiscreetly. An able man shows his Spirit by gentle words and resolute actions; he is neither hot nor timid.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Passion, Mean, Men

  Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.246, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

• I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Country, New Year, Home

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• In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Thieves, Scandal, Cases

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.106, Oxford University Press

  7 Copy quote

• A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what ; and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing of man... He views man as he does colours in Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Ignorance, Passion, Learning

  "Manners and speech or maxims extracted from Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son". Book by Lord Chesterfield, 1884.

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• It seems to me that your doctor [Tronchin] is more of a philosopher than a physician. As for me, I much prefer a doctor who is anoptimist and who gives me remedies that will improve my health. Philosophical consolations are, after all, useless against real ailments. I know only two kinds of sickness--physical and moral: all the others are purely in the imagination.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Real, Philosophical, Doctors

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