Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
– Lord Chesterfield
A constant smirk upon the face, and a whiffing activity of the body, are strong indications of futility.
– Lord Chesterfield
A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
– Lord Chesterfield
A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
– Lord Chesterfield
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.
– Lord Chesterfield
A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.
– Lord Chesterfield
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most, always like it the least.
– Lord Chesterfield
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
– Lord Chesterfield
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
– Lord Chesterfield
As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
– Lord Chesterfield
Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.
– 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
Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.
– Lord Chesterfield
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.
– Lord Chesterfield
Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.
– 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
Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
– Lord Chesterfield
He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.
– Lord Chesterfield
Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear.
– Lord Chesterfield
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
– Lord Chesterfield
Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
– Lord Chesterfield
I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
– Lord Chesterfield
I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.
– Lord Chesterfield
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.
– Lord Chesterfield
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.
– Lord Chesterfield
I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
– Lord Chesterfield
I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
– Lord Chesterfield
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
– 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
If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
– Lord Chesterfield
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.
– Lord Chesterfield
If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
– Lord Chesterfield
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.
– Lord Chesterfield
In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
– Lord Chesterfield
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.
– Lord Chesterfield
In those days he was wiser than he is now - he used frequently to take my advice.
– Lord Chesterfield
Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.
– Lord Chesterfield
It must be owned, that the Graces do not seem to be natives of Great Britain; and I doubt, the best of us here have more of rough than polished diamond.
– Lord Chesterfield
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
– 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
Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time let them feel, the steadiness of your resentment.
– Lord Chesterfield
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.
– Lord Chesterfield
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
– Lord Chesterfield
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.
– Lord Chesterfield
Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
– Lord Chesterfield
Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
– Lord Chesterfield
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
– Lord Chesterfield
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.
– Lord Chesterfield
Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.
– 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
Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.
– Lord Chesterfield
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
– Lord Chesterfield
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
– Lord Chesterfield
Take care not to understand editions and title-pages too well. It always smells of pedantry, and not always of learning... beware of the bibliomanie.
– Lord Chesterfield
Take the tone of the company you are in.
– 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 heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
– Lord Chesterfield
The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.
– Lord Chesterfield
The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
– Lord Chesterfield
The more one works, the more willing one is to work.
– Lord Chesterfield
The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
– Lord Chesterfield
The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.
– Lord Chesterfield
The scholar without good breeding is a nitpicker; the philosopher a cynic; the soldier a brute and everyone else disagreeable.
– Lord Chesterfield
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
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
– Lord Chesterfield
To govern mankind, one must not overrate them.
– Lord Chesterfield
To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
– 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
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
– Lord Chesterfield
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
– Lord Chesterfield
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
– Lord Chesterfield
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.
– Lord Chesterfield
You must look into people as well as at them.
– Lord Chesterfield
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
– Lord Chesterfield
Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
– Lord Chesterfield
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
– 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
[Common sense] is the best sense I know of.
– Lord Chesterfield
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
