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Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
World
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.
Lord Chesterfield
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Violent measures are always dangerous, but, when necessary, may then be looked on as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifference and, when well concerted, must be decisive.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
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Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.
Lord Chesterfield
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You must look into people, as well as at them.
Lord Chesterfield
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The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.
Lord Chesterfield
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Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
Lord Chesterfield
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Let your letter be written as accurately as you are able,--I mean with regard to language, grammar, and stops for as to the matter of it the less trouble you give yourself the better it will be. Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.
Lord Chesterfield
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To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.
Lord Chesterfield
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Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe.
Lord Chesterfield
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There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who, having lived always in the grand mode, 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.
Lord Chesterfield
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A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance should not think of being a man of business.
Lord Chesterfield
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Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.
Lord Chesterfield
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In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.
Lord Chesterfield
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There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.
Lord Chesterfield
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One should always think of what one is about when one is learning, one should not think of play and when one is at play, one should not think of learning.
Lord Chesterfield
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Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility strength alone will not do.
Lord Chesterfield
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Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.
Lord Chesterfield
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I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Lord Chesterfield
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It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.
Lord Chesterfield