Lord Chesterfield Quotes and Sayings
Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.
- Lord Chesterfield
Being pretty on the inside means you don’t hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that’s what my grandma taught me.
- Lord Chesterfield
Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.
- Lord Chesterfield
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.
- Lord Chesterfield
Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
- Lord Chesterfield
History is a confused heap of facts.
- Lord Chesterfield
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
- Lord Chesterfield
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
- Lord Chesterfield
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.
- Lord Chesterfield
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
- Lord Chesterfield
Lord Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don’t choose to have it known.
- Lord Chesterfield
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
- Lord Chesterfield
Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.
- Lord Chesterfield
Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.
- Lord Chesterfield
Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.
- Lord Chesterfield
Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
- Lord Chesterfield
Prepare yourself for the world, as the athletes used to do for their exercise; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.
- Lord Chesterfield
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.
- Lord Chesterfield
Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.
- Lord Chesterfield
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
- Lord Chesterfield
Take care in your minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.
- 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.
- Lord Chesterfield
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet. Agustin Marissa E ducation is bitter but the fruit is sweet. -Lord Chesterfield.
- Lord Chesterfield
The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
- Lord Chesterfield
There is a sort of veteran woman of condition, who, having lived always in the grand monde, 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. Wherever you go, make some of those women your friends; which a very little matter will do. Ask their advice, tell them your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age, and the suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives.
- Lord Chesterfield
To govern mankind, one must not overrate them.
- 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.
- Lord Chesterfield
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
- 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.
- Lord Chesterfield
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
- Lord Chesterfield