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Learning is acquired by reading books much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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Indifference is commonly the mother of discretion.
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Sincerity w the most compendious wisdom, an excellent instrument for the speedy despatch of business. It creates confidence in those we have to deal with, saves the labor of many inquiries, and brings things to an issue in few words.
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Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.
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Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
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Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
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People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
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The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable.
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Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement I may now be as singular as I please, but you may not.
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A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.
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Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love these are their universal characteristics.
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The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think their notions are almost all adoptive and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
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At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant in youth, they are omnipresent in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.
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Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.
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Real friendship is a slow grower.
Lord Chesterfield
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Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
Lord Chesterfield
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Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
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Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth that is the least consideration but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?
Lord Chesterfield
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Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
Lord Chesterfield
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How often should a woman be pregnant? Continually, or hardly ever? Or must there be a certain number of pregnancy anniversaries established by fashion? What do you, at the age of forty-three, have to say on the subject? Is it a fact that the laws of nature, or of the country, or of propriety, have ordained this time of life for sterility?
Lord Chesterfield