“Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.”
Source: Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
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Famous Lord Chesterfield Quotes
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“Character must be kept bright as well as clean.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Source: The Modern Chesterfield
“If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.”
“Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.”
Source: Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
“Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.”
“Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.”
“The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.”
“To govern mankind, one must not overrate them.”
Source: Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
“To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“You must look into people, as well as at them.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder.”
“Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.”
Source: Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
“Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“Dispatch is the soul of business, and nothing contributes more to dispatch than method.”
Source: Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
“Every man is to be had one way or another and every woman almost anyway.”
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
“Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.”
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
“Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way through the world.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.”
“Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.”
“The scholar without good breeding is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
“A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share in another.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.”
Source: Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
“Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters
“There never were, since the creation of the world, two cases exactly parallel.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters