A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most, always like it the least.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

Take the tone of the company you are in.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

The more one works, the more willing one is to work.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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

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 Quote

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote

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 Quote

You must look into people as well as at them.
- Lord Chesterfield Quote