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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

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Lord Chesterfield
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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.
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The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
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There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.
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Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.
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If you have wit, use it to please and not to hurt: you may shine like the sun in the temperate zones without scorching.
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Whenever a man seeks your advice he generally seeks your praise.
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For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.
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Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.
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Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.
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A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.
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Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
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There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so for it hurtsnobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly.
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Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.
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When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
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Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness for riches, power, rank, or whatever, in the common acceptation ofthe word, is supposed to constitute happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of guilt.
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To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.
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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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No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
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